Disney Trip Part Three

Somehow I survived the first day at work after daylight saving time.  The irony of it is that I drank a cup of regular coffee, instead of decaf, and so at 10:30pm when I crawled into bed I was wide awake.  Yes, a cup of coffee at 8am will keep me awake at 10:30pm - I don't have caffeine very often.  So, I was still up late again, just this time I was in bed.  I am trying a new method where I make a slow cooker meal or cook the night before in hopes of reducing dinner prep time.  It was a complete success yesterday.  Evan and I played for a while when I got home and we still sat down to eat at around 7:30pm and all I had to do was microwave a few things and dinner was ready.  I'm not sure how long it will last though.

Ok, onto Disney!  It's the last Disney post in case you are tired of hearing about the "happiest place on Earth"!

The Disney Princess Half Marathon

The half marathon was the sole reason we had even embarked on a ridiculously expensive vacation to Disney World in the first place.  My sister had wanted to run a half marathon for her 30th birthday and I agreed to do it with her (so she wasn't doing it alone).  She chose the Disney Princess because it sounded fun and not as serious as a regular half marathon.  And people dressed up as Disney Princesses and she thought it would be fun to dress up (it was fun actually).  So, we paid the outrageous entry fee of $165 back in June and there was no turning back.  I was a bit skeptical about paying so much money because it's not like you got free entry to the park or something.  You got nothing extra actually - just the same old stuff like a t-shirt and a medal.  I'm not quite sure why the race is so pricey, but it was fun.

On race day I woke up at 2:30am to catch a shuttle to the race start.  The first shuttle left at 3am and I knew I wanted to be at the start with plenty of time to spare.  Mission accomplished - I was one of about 50 people there!  I had my costume on that my sister had made and I walked around, used the potty, and stretched a bit while waiting for my sister to arrive.  There was not a lot going on, but they did have a DJ and he was playing some motivating tunes, so I was jamming along by myself.  Finally my sister showed up!

First things first - getting our picture taken.  As you may or may not know from our costumes, we were Anna and Elsa from Frozen.  My sister made our costumes, which you can see a little better in the pictures we took when it finally got light out.  Remember, it's only 4am right now so it's still plenty dark!

We eventually headed over to our corral, F, to start stretching and get ready for the 5:30am start.  My sister was a bit nervous because she hadn't trained that well and was worried about finishing, but I figured we'd be just fine.  I was initially put in corral C but decided to run with my sister so ended up just going to F (just in case you're not race savvy, you can usually move down corrals but you are not supposed to move up corrals because the front corrals are for faster people).  While waiting for the race to start we find Olaf!

We didn't actually know that guy at all, but it was fun getting our picture taken with him.  And do you see that cape I'm wearing?  That was actually my niece's cape and I had to run with it the entire time.  My mom had made a shorter cape for me to run with but it got lost in the mail and didn't arrive in time, so instead I borrowed my niece's cape and ran in that instead.  I can tell you - it was a bit hot!!  And it occassionally pulled at my neck.  However, it worked fine and everyone was able to recognize that I was Anna, so that was a huge positive.

We started out the race running like a normal race.  My sister was puffing a bit beside me so I kind of figured we wouldn't be keeping that pace the entire time, but we started out strong.  The beginning part of the race was just along highways and through parking lots.  We started in the parking lot of Epcot and had to run to Magic Kingdom, so that was a good bit of distance.  We finally hit Magic Kingdom about the time the sun was coming up!

There's the lit-up castle behind me!  All the pictures are a bit blurry because they were from my sister's iPhone, but they are better than nothing.  And way better than paying $100 for race photos!  Here's a closer picture when we ran through the castle:

As you can see (on the left of my sister's head), the castle was under construction a bit and the person who took this photo of us didn't think to crop our bodies out for more of the castle.  Oh well.

 

From about this point on we started stopping to take pictures all the time.  Disney had a bunch of characters out on the sides of the race where you could get photo-ops and so it was fun to stop  and get pictures taken.  Especially since during Disney hours you have to wait for hours and hours for a photo with a character!  Don't get me wrong, the lines were really long at times but I think the longest we waited was 15 minutes for Mickey and Minnie mouse.

But it was worth it!

I think my sister enjoyed the pictures because she got a chance to relax, take a break while waiting in line, and look forward to the next character coming up!!  So, we got a lot of character photos.

 

The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland:

Mary Poppins and Bert, from Mary Poppins:

The Genie from Aladdin:

 

 

On the side of the road there was this sign:

 

"Let it Go" is one of the main songs from Frozen so we had to get our picture taken with it.

The Disney Princes!

Notice how my sister is flexing her muscle but if you look closely at me you'll see that I am carrying her water bottle.  Yup, that's what older sisters are for - when the little sis gets tired the big sis carries her water bottle.  So I actually had my water bottle in one hand and her's in another.

Princess Dot from A Bug's Life:

As you can see from the photo above, it was very hazy and foggy out during the race.  It was great actually because it wasn't too hot but it wasn't cold either.  We were perfectly comfortable the entire time.  It got really sunny and warm after the race ended but it was nice that the weather stayed cooler for the race (of course we finished a little after 8:30am so it was still early).

 

 About mile 10 there was a decent sized hill and about half way up the hill they had this green army man yelling at everyone to keep running and do push-ups!  It was cute, so we snapped a picture.  It was a little sad because there were no lines to get your picture with him - I guess princess racers aren't interested in army men!

 

Towards the end of the race they had this big set-up with Jack Sparrow and the ship from Pirates of the Caribbean.  Too bad it wasn't Johnny Depp!!!  

 

In Epcot, within the last mile of the race we found Sofia the First!  My nieces love her (she was their favorite until Frozen came out), so we had to snap our picture.  We were hoping Elsa and Anna would be on the course, but they were not.  Actually, there were hardly any princesses on the course - just Snow White, Princess Dot, and Sofia the First.  What happened to Belle and Pocahontas and Aurora and Ariel and all the others???  I think I remember Princess Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, but I hadn't ever seen that so I didn't know who she was until my sister mentioned it.

And then we were done!!!  13.1 miles and 3 hours later!!  Yup, it took us THREE HOURS - it was the longest half marathon of my life!!!  I guess that's what happens when you wait in a million lines for photos with Disney characters....

I had a ton of fun though - it was fun running with my sister, not caring about the time, stopping to get fun photos all the time, and just relaxing through the entire thing.  And we didn't do too badly, I think we were in the 9000 out of more than 24,000 runners so we finished before more than half of the people out there (scary thought, huh).  Plus, I wasn't out of breath or tired after the race and I wasn't even sore the next day.  It was like I had dreamed the entire thing!

 

All in all the race was really fun and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun race, especially if you don't care as much about your time.  I'm not sure it would have been worth the money if I had just run straight through and hadn't taken any photos - what made it worth it were the fun photos and the actual experience.  I was disappointed that more of the race wasn't through the parks though.  We only ended up doing about a mile through Magic Kingdom and then a mile through Epcot - but the race was 13.1 miles - so that means more than ten miles were just on highways and through parking lots.  Not that exciting.  Sure, they tried to make it more exciting by having the characters along the highway, but the park and characters together would have been way better.  We could have looped through Hollywood Studies and Animal Kingdom if they needed more space.  Not sure why they limit the park part so much.

After the race I took the shuttle back to the hotel, showered, packed, and we checked out.  Our resort was nice enough to give me a late check-out so we didn't have to be out until 1pm.  Then our friends from Tampa (they used to live in near us and are Evan's godparents) came and picked us up and we spent the rest of Sunday and all day Monday hanging out with them.

They had giant legos at the entrance to the hotel so evan had a blast playing with them while we waited for our friends to arrive and figure out how to pack all our luggage into their car.

We had a lot of fun staying with them - Ivan really loved it because he went golfing Sunday afternoon, fishing Monday morning, and golfing Monday afternoon again!  Evan and I hung out at the condo, took a nice walk along the mangroves, and went to the beach Monday afternoon.

Evan looks SOOOOO old in this photo.  Where is my baby???

Evan thought the best thing in the world was their screened-in porch.  He loved hanging out there and looking at everything (they were on the 6th floor and looked out to the water).

On Monday I made a huge boo-boo that ended our trip on a high-panic note.  I thought our flight left at 8:45pm so we were about to leave the condo (at 6:15pm) and I checked to make sure and our flight actually left at 7:45pm!!!!  Yikes!!!!  It took at least 45 minutes to get to the airport and we weren't sure we'd make it.  We decided to try because we didn't have a lot of options (changing flights would have cost a small fortune).  We got to the airport at 7:15pm and by the time we got our luggage out, put the car seat in its travel bag, and made our way to the check-in it was 7:20pm!!!  The woman was doubtful we'd make it but she said we could try if we wanted.  So we checked our bags, raced through security, and made it to the gate!!!  They had even printed out our gate-check tags already!  Plus, we weren't the last ones on the flight - two people came on after us.

It was a bit hectic and crazy, but I was so happy we had made it.  

And just like that we got home and I went to work the next day.  

 

Disney?  Done.  

 

Half marathon?  Done.  

 

Bank account?  DONE!!

 

The End.

Disney Trip Part Two

Before I get to my trip, I would like to comment on how mean it is of Mother Nature to bring snow to Maryland in March. And to have it be March 4th, yet still be 10 degrees out while I'm waiting for the bus. Not cool.  Not cool at all.  The nice thing is that it is finally light outside early in the morning, so at least I am not waiting in the cold and dark, I am just waiting in the cold.  That is 50% better, I guess. However, I'd kinda prefer the opposite...waiting in the the darkness in the heat.  To escape this bitter cold, I'd like to transport myself back to Orlando, FL and pretend to relive my Disney vacation.

Day Two: Disney World!!!

Although I felt like Evan was a bit too young for Disney World because he wouldn't remember it at all, I felt like we couldn't go all the way to Orlando, stay in a Disney Resort, yet not actually go to Disney.  We decided we would do one park, get a glimpse of Disney, but save the rest for a big Disney vacation in the future (I say that like we will one day be able to afford a big Disney vacation - haha).  We decided that Magic Kingdom would be the best park to go to since that is the main park and had a lot of rides for kids.  I had only ever been to Tokyo Disneyland so I was pretty excited myself.  Way more excited than Evan or the hubs.

Before the park though, we got up extra early so Evan could run in his kid race.  Very important!  His race was at 9:15 am in the parking lot of Epcot.  That was where most of the weekend races were starting/ending so they just used the same finish line for the kids.  They had a bunch of different distances from a diaper dash to a one mile run.  Evan did the 100 yard dash for kids ages 1-3.  I was super excited.  He got a race number, a tshirt, and medal (when he finished).  I have to say, Disney goes all out for their events.

Waiting for the races to start with his cousins (dressed as Elsa, Anna, and Snow White -
my mom made the Frozen costumes)!

Evan wasn't really into racing, but he didn't do too badly.  We raced together and he ran about half of the distance (he wanted me to carry him for the other half).  It was a bit intimidating because there were a lot of people there and the race line was kind of crowd.  We went in waves, but it made Evan a bit nervous so he wanted me to carry him at the beginning.  He eventually warmed up and ran a bit and high-fived Goofy, who was waiting at the finish line.  He finished his race, got his medal, and picked up some kiddie cliff bars and bananas for later.  It was too cute all the little stuff they had at the end of the kid races, they treated it like a mini race.

From there we hopped on the monorail and headed to Magic Kingdom.

Walking to the monorail - Evan in his favorite stroller position.

Since we were getting a late start, the monorails were already really packed.  Somehow we managed to squeeze on the monorail with our stroller and a bunch of other people and strollers.  It was a tight and awkward fit, but not too horrible.  It was super easy getting into the park because of our Magic Bands, all we did was swipe them as we walked in.  No lines, no money, no paper tickets. Completely smooth.  I loved the Magic Bands!

Now, this is about the time things started to break down.

Although I read plenty of blogs and knew plenty of people who all took their kids to Disney World at the ripe age of 18ish months...they never mentioned any temper tantrums or screaming children.  I'm not sure if they just left that part out or if I have an extra independent little critter, but Evan was in full-temper mode.  It pretty much started the second we entered the park.  We had three fast passes for the day: Peter Pan (10:30-11:30am), Encounters with Belle (11:50-12:50pm), and Dumbo (1:15-2:15).  This meant that we were kind of on a schedule - or at least a very loose one.  Once we got to Magic Kingdom we headed over to Peter Pan, with a few stops to look around and use the bathroom.  Evan had a completely different schedule - he wanted to look at EVERYTHING, buy an expensive Mickey Mouse balloon ($15 - we did not cave), and walk by himself through the park.  This made the trek to Peter Pan a bit painful.  Pretty much he screamed and thrashed around every time we picked him up.  So we carried a screaming child through "the happiest place on Earth".  It wasn't very pleasant.  It also went on all day, unless we let him look at the ducks.  Then he quieted down and put a smile on his face.

Such a sweet face - it's hard to believe he's can even throw a temper tantrum!

I think Disney World was a bit overwhelming to him, along with the lack of naps and the disruption to his regular routine.  Plus he was getting a set of molars in which was very painful to begin with, but then also made him not want to eat/nurse much so he was also hungry.

I didn't really pay $200 for park passes to look at the ducks though, so we limited duck-viewing time to 10-15 minutes every time we passes some ducks.  Evan pretty much wanted to look at the ducks all day though, so we ended up with a lot of tantrums.

Here's a quick review of the (few) rides we went on:.

1. Peter Pan: This ride was great for kids.  We only had to wait in line for about 5 minutes with our fast pass, so that was awesome.  Evan loved looking at everything during the ride and it was very short (I swear it was only three minutes or so), it captivated his attention the entire time.  He's too little to know anything about Peter Pan so it's not like he was excited about seeing Wendy or Captain Hook or anything, but he like looking at everything anyway.  And he loved pointing out the moon.  I do wish it was a bit longer though.
   
2.  It's a Small World: Of course we had to do this ride - it's one of the few rides I remember from our trip to Tokyo Disneyland (aside from the Teapots and Dumbo and the fact that I was too short to go on Space Mountain).  It was right across the street from Peter Pan so we hopped in line, because our nifty little app said it was just a 15 minute wait (which was true).  I thought Evan would love this because there was so much to look at - but he has an obsession with water and since we were in boats the entire time he wanted to put his hand out and play in the water.  All hands had to remain INSIDE the boats so it ended up being a bit of a long ride trying to prevent him from jumping ship.  And It's a Small World is LONG.  I squished to the middle of the boat as far from the sides as possible, but still had to hang on to a squirmy child who's one goal was playing in the water.  I don't think he noticed any of the singing children from around the world.
   
3. Encounters with Belle: This was a new attraction because this area of the park recently opened.  I saw that it had really long wait times so I figured it was good to get a fast pass for it - and it said it was good for pre-schoolers.  Umm, it wasn't my best decision.  It was more of an interactive play and although Evan got a part and got his picture taken with Belle - he spent the entire time running around the castle trying to open "Cast Members Only" doors and touching everything in the room.  I can tell you, the "Cast Members" were not his biggest fan.  He may have also screamed a few times when I had to pick him up.  I couldn't wait for this "encounter" to end!  An important note though - only people with parts in the play get their photo with Belle, so if you go, volunteer for a part!
   
4. Dumbo: Dumbo was another success!  Evan was actually sleeping in the Mei Tai at this point and we even boarded the ride with him sleeping. 
   
   

   

   Sleeping on Dumbo

   He woke up as we were flying through the air and I think he liked the ride a lot.  As much as a toddler can, at least.  I think this ride was the best time-wise - it wasn't too long and it wasn't too short.  Luckily we had fast passes though because the wait was 70 minutes when we got on it.  Waaaaaaaaaaaaay to long to wait, in my opinion.  We waited about 10 minutes to get on - much more doable.

In between Encounters with Belle and Dumbo it started to pour and thunder and lightening, so they closed the rides that weren't undercover and pretty much everyone ran to eat.  We got drenched!  We did mosey on over to Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe for a snack.  Ivan wanted Mexican or Chinese (figures!) but there wasn't really anything along those lines at Magic Kingdom so Pecos Bills was the closest thing - I think they had a taco salad.  We ended up just getting a chili because we had lunch plan reservations at The Crystal Palace at 3pm for a character lunch.  It was a buffet so I told Ivan he couldn't fill up before we got there.  The chili was good though and counted as a snack on our dining plan, so that was nice.

On our way to The Crystal Palace we met up with my sister in front of Cinderella's Castle.

And looked at more ducks.  People were lining up to see one of the parades but we didn't stick around to watch it.  Keeping Evan still for a parade just wasn't the best idea and about ten seconds after this photo was taken he wanted out of the Mei Tai.  So we looked at ducks and wondered over to The Crystal Palace.

The restaurant is the building on the right.

We had heard that this place was "ok", nothing fabulous but still decent.  I mainly made the reservation because I thought it would be fun to have a character meal and this was one of the only places with open reservations at a decent time.  Chef Mickey's was supposed to be one of the best character dining experiences but they were at a hotel and only had free reservations at random times like 11am.  That didn't really work with our schedule so we ended up just going here.  The food was good and we got to meet Winnie the Pooh and friends!

Isn't it the cutest thing that they are holding hands!

Evan absolutely LOVED meeting all the characters.  He wasn't scared one bit and would get excited and clap as he saw them coming around to our table.  It was too cute!  He did pitch one or two fits while we were eating because he wanted to run around the restaurant, but every time a character showed up he put on his best behavior and charmed them all.

Tigger was his favorite, but I think mainly because he was so brightly colored and vibrant.  When he turned around to greet the table behind him, Evan pulled his tail.  Whoops!

Piglet spent the most time at our table and Evan loved his nose. 

After this picture he then poked his eyes (we are teaching him his eyes, ears, nose, mouth - so he was excited to show Piglet that he knew where everything was).

And Eeyore was too sweet looking.  This picture turned out the best, except for me.

Pretty much after our lunch we headed back to the hotel.  I felt like we left really early (before we arrived I had imagined us staying until 8pm - hahahahaha), but by the time we walked to the bus and got back to the hotel it was almost 6pm.  I thought Evan would sleep but he refused so we headed to the pool.  Evan was SO excited.  He played in the kiddy pool for a while and then we took him into the big pool (both were heated) to play for a bit too.  It was a bit chilly out and eventually he was shivering so we headed home - he did throw a fit when we took him out of the water though.  He was all about temper tantrums on this trip!

We stopped by our hotel cafeteria for some snacks (Ivan was hungry, of course) and then retired to our room.  Some of us (ME!!!) had a 2:30am wake-up call to run a half marathon the next morning.

More on that to come!!!!

Disney Trip Part One

Did you wonder what happened to me?  Well, remember that half marathon I was training for so pathetically?  I finally did it!  And since it was the Disney Princess Half Marathon, we decided to do Disney World too and visit Evan's godparents in Tampa for a day.  I decided to break the posts up because I have a lot to say.  So, I'll start with Friday.

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We headed out to Orlando on Friday morning.  I had initially bought tickets for later in the day but then realized that it would be good to have that entire day to check into the hotel, visit the race expo, and get settled.  So, I booked us on the first flight out of Baltimore at 6:20am.  That meant I had to get up at 3am so I could get everyone ready to leave by 4am.  Seems a bit early but it's a 30 minute drive to the airport and then we had to park in long term parking, which means another 30 minutes to get to the airport. And when I am traveling with Evan I like to make sure I give myself an extra half hour to check-in and go through security.  I was a bit exhausted because, just like every other trip, I was packing at the last minute and washing up the dishes, etc.  I didn't go to bed until 12:30am...so got a whopping 2.5 hours of sleep.  Nice.  Luckily for me, and everyone else, I am still a pretty pleasant and positive person on two hours of sleep.

The first flight was pretty easy.  Evan didn't fall asleep like I thought he would, but he wasn't too crazy either.  We only had 20 minutes to find our connecting flight so we booked it out of that plane and ran two gates (yeah, it was close) to find our flight to Orlando.  We boarded that plane with no problems and still got seats next to each other, only to find out that there was bad weather on the way to Orlando and our flight was delayed an hour and a half.  Boo.

Southwest, being the amazing airlines that they are, let us off the plane and we got something to eat.  Well, Ivan did,  I wasn't ravenous like he was.  After the delay had passed we boarded again and headed out.  Evan, of course, finally fell asleep 20 minutes before the plane landed.  

Since we were staying at a Disney Resort we got a complimentary shuttle to the hotel.  And it wasn't your regular run of the mill shuttle, it was a Disney shuttle with great perks.  The best perk was that you didn't have to pick up your luggage.  When I reserved our spot on the shuttle they sent me special luggage tags to put on our checked luggage.  We walked right from our flight to the shuttle and Disney got all of the luggage and had it delivered to the room.  We did pick up Ivan's golf clubs though, because he had a tee time at 2:30pm and needed them right away.

Now, let's focus on that tee time for a second.  We were supposed to arrive at 10:30am giving us plenty of time to get to the hotel before Ivan needed to get to the golf course.  Except our flight was delayed.  So we didn't get to the hotel until close to 1:30pm.  This would have been fine except Ivan was golfing with a friend of ours who had moved to Tampa (Evan's godfather) and he was supposed to pick him up.  Well, Mark was running late and wasn't there yet.  So Ivan waited with me as I check in and then we ran to the food court to get Ivan some food.  Although he had had a bite to eat at the Atlanta airport, he was starving.  And if you want to know what hangry looks like, it's my husband after not eating for hours.  Add that to the fact that he was going to be late for his tee time (which he hates), and it was a recipe for short tempers and lack of patience.  I figured the best plan of action was to get Ivan food stat.  Right as we get the food Mark arrives so Ivan takes a few bites and then runs to meet him and head to the golf course.  He was playing at the Magnolia Golf Course, one of the Disney courses and was super excited.  They ended up having a great time, in case you were wondering.

Source: Disney

With Ivan off golfing, Evan and I checked out our hotel.  It was awesome!!  We had decided to stay at a Disney Value Resort because it offered the best transportation to the race and wasn't too pricey.  They have a selection of value resorts that are actually a good value.  They would have been a better value if I had booked them during the winter special when I initially looked at them, but I made our reservation the next day.  Huge bummer.

Source: Disney

Our hotel was Pop Century, basically a homage to pop culture throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  It was so fun!!  I picked it because I had remembered Whitney talking about how she loved Art of Animation (another value resort) and that her second option would have been Pop Century.  Well, Art of Animation was sold out so I figured Pop Century was a safe bet.  And Whitney was right, it was as great as she thought it would be.  Evan loved walking around and looking at all the pop culture items.

Giant fuseball with the big wheel in the back.

 It was kind of rainy the day we checked in, so most of the photos are cloudy/rainy.

Evan playing Twister - I think it would have been really fun to play this for real!

In front of the huge big wheel - so fun!

Evan LOVED this display and threw a fit if we walked by without stopping.

Trying to get into the car - it was kind of the perfect height for him (but the door didn't actually open)!

Roger Rabbit!!!  That was our building on the left.

We stayed in the 80s building - which is awesome since I am a child of the 80s!  I think it was also one of the cheapest building because it was the farthest away from the hotel lobby - at least a ten minute walk.

Our room was pretty basic, but still nice.  We didn't plan on hanging out in the room all day, so a basic room was just right.

Source: Disney

 This wasn't our room exactly (because let's face it, our room was a disaster about two seconds after we got in), but it gives you an idea of what it looked like.  Very simple, garden-style, but still comfortable.  And every room had a table with two chairs and a fridge, which was great.

Source: Disney

The bathroom was nice too, nothing spectacular but plenty of space and very clean.  The only thing I was disappointed about was they only gave you soap and a shampoo/conditioner.  I know, a frivolous complaint, but I would have liked some lotion.  And I was spoiled staying at the Hyatt during my last business trip where they gave us baby shampoo, baby lotion, and baby powder.  I guess you don't get those perks in a value resort.  I didn't bring any shampoo or lotion so I ended up using my face lotion on my body! 

After we got settled a bit and walked around, Evan and I headed over to the race expo.  It was at ESPN's Wide World of Sports complex.  There was a shuttle from the hotel (another good reason for staying at a Disney Resort) and so Evan and I hopped on and went to get our race numbers!  The race expo wasn't anything different from other race expos (except for it was SUPER packed) and it was well organized and easy to find everything.

Blurry photo of race expo

The only confusing thing was that there were a variety of different races going on so I had to keep looking for the half marathon and kid races, rather than the 5k, 10k, or Glass Slipper (the 10k + half marathon).  I successfully got Evan's race number and my race number and then got sucked into the expo and bought a Skinny Sparkle Black Bic Band and a Nathan Handheld SpeedDraw Plus water bottle (I had forgotten mine and was a bit nervous about running in the heat and humidity without it, since I had been training in below-freezing temps for months).

What really shocked me was my corral.  Disney Princess Half Marathon specifically said that you had to send in a 10k time within the past year to get placed in a corral.  If you didn't send a time in you would be placed in the very last corral and there would be no changing and no sneaking into other corrals.  I didn't end up doing a race beforehand and had assumed I'd be in the last corral (which was P) - I was a bit sad because I'd heard I could start over an hour after everyone else and plus I had thought it would be fun to run with my sister (she was afraid to start in the last corral because she wasn't sure how fast she could finish and didn't want to get picked up in the bus).  When I went to pick up my race number I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was actually in corral C.  WHAT!!!???  I had put on my form that I was hoping to run the half in under 2 hours so maybe they took that into consideration?  Who knows, but it was a nice surprise.  I wasn't going to be last and I could run with my sister!!!

Evan and I took our time heading back to the hotel and I let him stop and touch a bunch of trees (his favorite thing ever).

And he let me take a photo too!

This is what I look like on 2.5 hours of sleep and after a few plane rides.

We got back to the hotel and I put Evan down for a short nap (it was already 6pm!!) until the boys finished golfing.  Then we headed to dinner.  I ended up buying a Disney Dining Plan (definitely a good idea) and it came with one table-service meal a day.  I wanted to have a decent table-service experience so I made a reservation at Boma's - Flavors of Africa, which is located in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  I made my reservations at the last minute so a lot of places were already booked and had no availability.

Source: Disney

It was buffet-style and I thought that that was the best option for us because then we could eat as much as we wanted and we wouldn't need to head out for more food.  Of course having a 7:45pm reservation would probably have eliminated that problem anyway, but oh well.  I also figured buffets are easier for Ivan because he can look at all the food and try different things.  I loved the restaurant and thought the food was delicious.  Ivan, not being into African flavors, thought it was just ok.  I was tired of eating Mexican and Chinese food though (what we eat at home all the time), so I wanted to get something different.  It was a success!

Evan was a bit tired and a tad bit uncooperative, so that was interesting, but other than that it was a great time!

And Animal Kingdom Lodge was beautiful!!!

Source: Disney

We could never afford to stay there, and even if we could I'm not sure we'd spend the money because then I'd want to hang out at the hotel all day and not do Disney - but it was fun to look around.

And that concludes our first day.  See, aren't you glad I decided to break this up into a bunch of posts - this was way too long and it was just day one!!!!  Congrats if you made it all the way to the end!!!

Stay tuned for Day Two!!!