out and about

Well.. Now that we can blog on the road... Here we are out to dinner on a beautiful Saturday night in Raleigh.

Caroline and her boys

Here's the little heartbreaker with her boyfriends...

st pattys parade

Hey pals! I'm trying out my new iPhone blogger app for this post. Not sure how it'll come out... But it's worth a try as I'm falling severely behind on my posts. I finally have some "free time" as we're driving to the furniture store to look at big girl beds for Caroline (yikes, I know that's for a later post).

Here are a few pics from the parade in downtown Raleigh. There were lots and lots of people and green as far as th eye could see! Who knew so many southerners were Irish! ;)

the happiest place on earth and the princess half marathon... 2012

Two weeks ago we packed up the family and spent four days at the happiest place on earth!  I LOVE Disney... and was beyond excited to go back and run the Disney Princess Half Marathon and bring the family with me this time.  This was my third year doing it and I even talked in my friend Ellen into bringing her kids and doing it with me! We had a FABULOUS time and I'm honestly counting down the days til next year! The trip could not been any better.

We started talking to the girls about Disney to get them prepared for the awesomeness they were about to experience. I think Maddie kind of got it, while Caroline only being two.. had no clue what we were talking about.  The only thing she kept saying was that she was going to give Mickey Mouse a big hug. We knew that was doubtful after her run in with Santa at the mall... but we figured we'd talk it up in case the mouse didn't seem as scary to her.

We flew down Friday afternoon. I of course waited until too long to buy our plane tickets, so we had a layover in Atlanta.  We hit some storms between Atlanta and Orlando so our flight was a bit delayed - but we still got to our hotel by late afternoon.  My plan was to head down to the race expo in the afternoon after checking into the hotel - but that wasn't going to happen. The race wasn't until Sunday so I was okay. So we checked in at Port Orleans- French Quarter and walked around the property a bit.  We freshened up then hopped on the boat to take us to Downtown Disney (one of the best perks of staying at PO-FQ).  We grabbed some fish and chips at the Irish Pub and walked around.  We  of couse hit the GINORMOUS Disney store and the girls were just a tad excited.  We somehow got out of there not buying a thing and made our way back to the hotel.  It had been a long day and we were hitting Magic Kingdom bright and early!

We got up and met the Hamricks for breakfast and headed for MK!  It was so nice to see John, Ellen and the girls.  We all hopped on the Disney transportation and were at MK by 8:15am.  Here we are at the entrace.

We walked in to Main Street and snaked around the sidewalk. When the girls saw the castle in all its glory, I think it met up to their expectations.  There was quite a bit of squealing!  From all three of us.

Think we're crazy for getting to the park that early? Let me tell you something, you have the park pretty much to yourself for about 2 hours.  Check out this picture!  When else could you take a picture in front of the castle with 2 other people in the shot!  Crazy! Oh, and the temps were cool of course.



We went right to the rides that always have the longest line. The Hamricks headed to Tomorrow Land to hit Space Mountain and we went to Fantasyland. We rode the Snow White ride first. That might have been a mistake... it was WAY too scary for both Maddie and Caroline. Their first experience on a Disney ride and they both had their heads in our chests and hands over their ears. Oops.  Next stop, Peter Pan ride.  Also too scary. Oops.  Third stop... Its a Small World!  We KNEW Small World wouldn't be too scary. We literally walked right on to it (there's usually a huge line for Small World) and we were right... they loved it. Finally! 

We skipped right past Pirates of the Caribbean.  Its a crime, I know... its such a classic... but there was no way they were going to go for it.  So we went on the Jungle Cruise.  It was a nice relaxing boat ride where we saw lots of pretend elephants and animals. The whole canibal story was lost of them.



Next stop, the Teacups! Still no line, and we got too see Alice in Wonderland and her rabbit.  This was Maddie's first character sighting and although she was excited to see her... she wasn't ready to actually talk to her and take a picture with her.  We needed to ease into that.

Jim took Caroline on the racecars and I took Maddie. I have a super cute video of Caroline driving and Jim in the passenger seat. If I could get the video up on here easily, I would. I'll work on it after I get this post out.

Here's Maddie giving Jim the thumbs up!

Off we go! It was a wild ride!

We then hit the Buzz Lightyear ride which the girls loved and did Monsters Inc. as well. We then walked back to the center of the park and caught the parade! Here we are getting a front row view.

We saw all the big names, Mickey, Minnie, Woody, Jessie, Baloo the Bear, etc.  Here's the obligatory family shot.

Next up, Aladdins Magic "Carfetts." 

 We had lunch at the park and then headed back to the hotel for the girls to take naps.  Ellen and I had to go to the race expo to pick up our packets... so the guys took the girls and we went to the Wide World of Sports.  We made quick work of that, went back to the hotel and got ready for our afternoon/evening at Magic Kingdom. We had made reservations at a little Italian restaurant on Main Street and Im SO GLAD we did!  Our reservation was at 5pm, which seemed early... but considering how early we had to get up the next morning, we needed to make an early night out of it.

We got everyone together and jumped back on the bus to MK.  We were a bit early, so took our time walking to the restaurant.  Im glad we did, because as we walked down Main Street, we saw a Princess meet and greet right next door to the restauarant (which I had literally never seen before) with a 20 minute wait! For those of you who know Disney, you know that a 20 minute wait to see the Princesses is pretty much unheard of. So since we had 20 minutes, we had to do it.

The girls hadn't seen Princesses yet (well, we did see Jasmine from far away) so this was a pretty big deal. The line went super fast (more like 10 minutes) and before we knew it... we were face to face with Cinderella...

And Belle...

And Sleeping Beauty!  Notice Carolines face in the picture below.  This is her new two year old smile. I love it. 



So that was pretty exciting. Maddie was GREAT. She went right up to every princess and spoke to them.  Caroline was a little more hesitant but she warmed up for a picture.  Caroline told Sleeping Beauty that she (Sleeping Beauty) had the same dress as Caroline did! Pretty cute.

We had a yummy pasta dinner (a little carb loading) and then wandered around MK after dinner. We were able to see the parade from our table (awesome) and then headed to the castle for the Mickey and Friends show at 6:40pm. Had great seats for that.... got to see all our favorites (Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Daisy, the princesses, Capt Hook, Peter Pan... you name it!) and saw Mickey defeat the evil Maleficent.

We went back to the hotel at a reasonable time and all went to bed early. I think Jim was even exhausted and happy that we were lights out by 9pm!  Ellen and I had to get up at an unreasonable hour to get on the bus to the race (Im not even going to say what time because it will shock you).  Here's a picture of us on our way to our corral.  Dont we look wide awake? I have no idea how.

The race was a ton of fun, as usual. A LOT more people this year... so it was crowded, but Disney generally does a good job with crowds. I think there were 15,000 people running it this year.   Jim and John took the girls into MK to see us run through the castle.  Here's a glimpse of what it looks like to be a spectator... dont look for us, you'll never find us.

The fun part about being a specatator for the race is getting back and forth between the parks.  The girls took the bus (from the hotel), then the monorail (to MK), then a boat back to Epcot! All that fun before 8am!

We met up with the gang at the finish line. Ellen did an awesome job for her very first half marathon ever!

We decided not to do a park on race day.  We thought it would be a good idea to have a day to just lounge around the pool and relax but... eh. It was cold and overcast.  Last year it was 75 and sunny... this year 55 and overcast.  We did Downtown Disney again - which was fine- but I was sort of itching to get back to a park.  Next year we'll do a three day park hopper instead of two.  We had big plans to go off property with the Hamricks... until we got back to our hotel at 4:30pm and realized there was no way we would be awake long enough to actually go out somewhere for dinner.  Waking up at 3:15am and running 13 miles will do that to you.

The next day our plan was to do Animal Kingdom bright and early, then Epcot at night for dinner with the Princesses.  We were there as the park opened and just like MK, we walked right on just about every ride.  No waits people!

Here were are in Dinoland meeting Pluto and Goofy.  They were so cute.

There were lots of great animals all over the park. This guy below was at a random spot on a walkway to Asia.

The safari was fabulous.  Amazing animals everywhere. Caroline loved it.

Maddie had her own camera and was so excited to take pictures of the animals.. and of daddy and Caroline of course. 

We decided to be amitious and hit Hollywood Studios in between Animal Kingdom and Epcot.  There really wasn't much that the girls could do at Hollywood Studios, so we thought we could walk through, catch a few shows and see what we could see.

It worked out gerat!  We saw the Little Mermaid show and got to meet and take pictures with Jake (of and the Neverland Pirates).  We saw the Muppets in 3D (which of course, I liked more than anyone else) and then took our time walking around the park and taking in the scenery.  When we had done the loop, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Epcot! 

The highlight of the trip was the Princess Dinner at Epcot our last night. The girls got dressed in their princess finest and we headed to Norway to dine in a "castle."

And as expected, it was fabulous.  Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Mulan made appearances.  I was most excited about Mulan as she's an awesome princess and rarely ever makes appearances anywhere. Each princess came to every table and talked to every single kid there. 



Even Caroline really enjoyed it and talked to each princess.

After we were done eating, they had a princess processional where the children followed a princess around the restaurant walking to princess music and waving to the crowd. Maddie and Caroline held hands and walked behind Snow White. It was absolutely adorable.

After dinner, we hit a few rides, saw a few shows and ended the night with the character meet and greet at Epcot. I had no idea... but apparently this is where the heavy hitters are... Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Goofy... the big names.  It was the very end of the night and really was the perfect way to end our trip. 



All in all... absolutely fabulous time.  Couldn't really have been any better.  We were a bit bummed that we didnt get to go to parks on Sunday, but made up for it by doing three parks in one day on Monday!  I'm already counting down the minutes until next years trip. Its such a great time of year to go and coupling the half marathon with a family trip is really just so much fun.