The Thursday after New Years we woke the kids up at 4 am and loaded them into the car. (Yep, we're that crazy). Our hope was that they would go back to sleep, but they were just too excited. I should add that up until this point, they had no idea we were going to Disney World. As soon as they saw the Mickey Mouse's painted on our car windows, they were bouncing up and down in their seats. And so we began our journey from DC to Orlando. It's about a 12 hour trip, and after driving allll day we needed a little pit stop. We were almost there, but we decided to stop off in Daytona Beach for some dinner and to stretch our legs. We picked up some KFC and headed over to have a picnic on the beach, and got there just in time to watch to sunset and hunt for some seashells.
We are starting to work on our jump pictures. Pretty good so far! After the beach, we hopped in the car for one more looonnnng hour to our hotel. Seriously, why is the last hour of the car ride always the longest? We finally arrived and got all settled in.
The next day we woke up bright and early and headed over to the Magic Kingdom, hoping to get in some rides before the marathon crowds starting piling in. It was pretty busy, but not awful.
The first thing that we HAD to do was go on Big Thunder Mountain. It is Eliza's favorite ride. Her and Erik jumped on while I hung out with Esther and Eden at this little playground right between that ride and Splash Mountain. We discovered it when we were at Disney last time, and I think it's a genius way to keep the little kids entertained while waiting for the "big kid" rides.
We also got to ride Dumbo...
the teacups.... (which, by the way, our kids have learned to "spin" in the last year..great....)....
and Winnie the Pooh (among a few others). I totally love how the Winnie the Pooh ride has games for the kids to play while you wait. TOTALLY helps pass the time.
Early in the afternoon, my mom and sisters arrived. We went back to the hotel to meet them and to head out to eat and then over to the expo. By that time the kids were cranky and emotional from lack of sleep and overtiredness, so we went through it pretty quickly.
There were a bunch of posters of runDisney events, and the girls wanted to do different poses by each one. Eliza has become quite the poser.
Eden always tries to copy whatever she does.
After that, we headed back to the hotel to try and get some sleep for the big half marathon. The race officially starts at 5:30 am, and the last shuttle to the start leaves the hotel at 4am. That means waking up at 3, quick breakfast at 3:30, and stand in line to get on the shuttle by 4. The buses dropped us off about a half mile from the start, and so we hit the port-o's and then made the hike. We were in corral F since Britt and Mal didn't have previous race times, and so we actually didn't start until about an hour after the first wave of runners. We did a lot of waiting around, but there was a lot to look at while we waited so it wasn't too bad. Here we are right before our wave took off.
When we started, it was still dark out. Mickey and Donald started each wave with huge fireworks, so that was pretty cool. Since we started in waves, the runners were pretty thinned out and we got out at a pretty good pace. Britt was about 15 weeks pregnant at that time, so we kept it slow and steady. I had made a Disney running mix for all of us, and we realized right after we started that Mal's iPod wasn't working. I gave her mine and ended up running the whole thing without music (a major feat for me!). Disney did a great job of keeping music going and having things to occupy the runners attention, so I actually got along pretty well without it. After about five miles, we ran into a major cluster. All of the runners had caught up to each other, and it was impossible to pass or keep running. This is my one complaint about the Disney Marathon weekend. I've never said a bad thing about Mickey - but he was a little too greedy on his end this time. There were 26,000 runners in the half marathon, and I would say that about half of them were walking (at least in the back where we started). The course is narrow, and groups of people would walk in lines next to each other, making it impossible to pass them, and forcing us to walk too. The best way I can describe it is like playing that old video game Frogger, where you have to go back and forth and dodge all the people around you. It was extremely frustrating, to say the least. Here we are in the Magic Kingdom, about mile 5. The Disney employees were awesome about taking pictures for us. Running down Main Street was awesome - tons of spectators cheering you on.
There were tons of characters along the way. We didn't stop for a lot of them because the lines were long, but there was one I had to stop for. Erik makes fun of me because I like Flynn Rider, and tells me I look like a middle school girl here. Come on though. How can you NOT like Flynn Rider?
And I had to stop for Tiana. Our girls LOVE Tiana.
We finally made it through the castle at about mile 6. The run through the Magic Kingdom was actually quite short compared to the run outside the park, but it was definitely a lot of fun.
Erik, my mom and the girls were waiting for us close to the finish line. Can you see us coming?
Still happy at mile 13!
High-fiving Mickey and Donald is a must.
Victory! Finally. I think our official time ended up being around 2:51. The clock time is based on the first wave of runners.
After the race, it was off to celebrate at the Magic Kingdom! It involved more teacups....
Ice cream...
And lots more rides.
I am so proud of my sisters! They rocked their first half marathons. I think they had a great time, and are already talking about doing the full next year. Next....on to the Full Marathon! The Goofy continues....
