Where The Magic Begins

Well, after too much reading and learning, along with lots and lots of "potty words" being shouted in frustration, the main computer is back and better than ever. Woo Hoo!!!!!

Word to the wise.......always.....always.....have a backup for your main hard drive. Trust me on this one. You will thank me later.

As promised, now that HAL is back online, I can update you on our recent excursion to sunny Florida. Because this post will be huge, I will break it up over several days.

Lori, being the lunatic that she is, decided that running a half marathon or a full marathon just wasn't challenging enough for her. Instead, she got the bright idea that running a half marathon on one day, and a full marathon the next day would be.......fun. Yea....you read that right....fun. Ummm.....Ok. Anyway, she heard from a friend of mine that Walt Disney World of all places offered such a challenge. The race is call the Goofy Challenge. I can't for the life of think of why.

The Goofy Challenge takes place on a Saturday (13.1 miles) and Sunday (26.2 miles). This year it was held on Jan 12th and 13th.

One would think that it would be difficult to find enough deranged individuals to justify a challenge of this type. Oh...no, no, no, no. Let me tell you.......the loonies crawl out of the woodwork for this weekend. They come from all over the world to take part in this masochistic ritual. The park had 35,000-40,000 runners participating in the half marathon, and 25,000 participating in the full marathon. Of those, approximately 10,000 decided to participate in the Goofy Challenge. I know...unbelievable right?

Our trip started on Thursday afternoon. The kids got out of school, and we immediately left for the airport. Our flight was on time, and surprisingly good. The kids were entertained with the abundance of electronic devices that were stowed in our backpacks, along with sugary treats. As any parent of young children can attest, a trouble free trip is a Godsend and a rarity.

After arriving at Orlando's airport around 8:45pm, we soon found our Magic Express Disney Bus to take us to our resort - Old Key West Disney. If you are not familiar with this resort, as you might have guessed, it has the look and feel of.....wait for it......Key West, Florida. It is a really beautiful property, and after arriving, we discovered that our villa was fantastic. We got to bed at a decent hour, and dreamed of the great adventures that would start the next morning.

After waking up on Friday morning, and looking out the window, I just had to get a picture. Ahh....this is where I learned of my first "mess up". "Hmmm.....honey...where is the camera"? Oops! I forgot to pack it. #$%^@#$ Oh well, my Samsung Galaxy III takes pretty good pictures, so I used it to document the entire trip. Here is my first shot, a view from our patio - beautiful.

Our morning started a bit later that we anticipated, but with kids, that is the norm. We were supposed to get breakfast, and then head over the Disney's ESPN World Wide Sports Complex to pick up the race packets for Lori and the kids. No, the kids were not running the Goofy Challenge, but we did register them for the Mickey Mile. It's a kid's race that earns them a shirt and most importantly a race medal. Anyway, we arrived at the main bus stop late, and for some stupid reason (my suggestion...another oops) we decided to skip breakfast at that time, and head to the complex. Big Mistake!

You might not know this about Lori, but she gets hypoglycemic very easy. She needs her morning protein to maintain her beautiful demeanor (more on this later). I knew this, so my suggestion to skip breakfast was my second "mess up". Every thing was going well, and we were enjoying the neat complex,

and finding out where we needed to pick up the race packets. We found the right pavilion to get the initial packets, and Lori stood in line while I entertained the kids. Here is a picture of them patiently waiting from mom to return.

After picking up our packets, I figured it was time to go. Nope, I would be wrong.  Now we had to go across to the next pavilion to pick up the shirt and number packets. Oh OK...how bad could that be. Well............

Yep, that's the line to get into the next building. Uh oh. The first thing you should remember about this particular situation is what I wrote about earlier. Lori had not eaten breakfast, and we were now standing in a 500 foot line, in 80 degree weather, and 90% humidity. Not a good combination for Ms. "I need my protein". Well, as you might have guessed, it did not take long for Lori's head to start pounding, and her stomach to start doing summersaults.

The line was moving slowly, but not quite as slowly as Lori's ability to hold down the contents of her belly. After walking off by herself, she wasted no time in Christening the soccer field with some fertilizer. Needless to say, our trip to pick up the shirt packets, once inside the pavilion, was completed in record time.

Before Lori could get sick again, we heading for the air conditioned bus to take us back to the villa. Lori napped on the bus, and we were thankful that there were no more episodes before arriving at the villa.

By the time the bus dropped us off, Lori was in the middle of a full blown migraine. We got her back to the room where she ate and drank a little, and then she laid down for a nap. Animal Kingdom would have to wait.

Lori woke up around 3:00pm feeling much better. We got everything ready, and headed for our first trip to one on the Disney Parks. Animal Kingdom was first on our list, and the boys (and us too) were super excited.

After arriving at the park, we were amazed at all of the sights and sounds. The park is beautiful. Think of it as a huge zoo, with roller coasters and rides mixed in. At the center of the park is the "Tree of Life". It is a huge man made tree, with carving of animals all over it. I am ashamed to say that my picture of it is blurry, and does not do it justice.

There are so many things to do, and so many things to see, it's hard to take them all in. Beauty is everywhere.

The kids were having a ball.

The main attraction at the park is a roller coaster called Extreme Everest. It is incredible. While heading over to it, I snapped a couple of pictures of the ride.

The coaster was a blast. It took some coaxing to get Aidan to ride with me, but after it was over, he said he enjoyed it. Christopher on the other hand, needed no coaxing, and was having a ball riding in the car behind us with Momma. He is absolutely fearless.

We walked for miles and miles looking at all of the animals and enjoying the rides.

We finished up our trip to Animal Kingdom by taking a safari. We loaded in the huge truck, and off went to see Africa. We saw Hippos, and Nile Crocs.

The highlight of the safari was seeing a mother and baby elephant enjoying their natural habitat.

We left the park around 7:45 that evening, and headed to the Downtown Disney area.

Downtown Disney is a park that only has retail shops and restaurants. It is huge, and crowded. While we were heading to the restaurant, we stopped by the Lego Store. The Lego sculptures were incredible.

We decided to eat at Fulton's Crab House. It is a huge riverboat, and the food and service was really good. After eating and shopping, we headed home about 10:30pm. Christopher was asleep before the bus pulled out to go back to the villa. It took us no time at all to fall asleep once we got back to our villa. We all dreamed about what the next day had in store for us.

To be continued.....

William