soccer-star!

it was a fun week had by all! my cuties, ready for school last wednesday.  at first, max didn't like the shirt i bought him from disney world.  he finally told me it was because it looked like mickey had fire on his head.  when i explained that mickey had a faux-hawk like him, he was much more excited about it.  :-)

on wednesday night, roger's cousin, jonathan, came to visit from cincinnati!  the boys hung out most of thursday and on friday, max joined us on a hike in sabino canyon while els was at school!

saturday morning, max had his very first soccer game!!  the kids each got one vote for their team name - max wanted to name his team, you guessed it, the maxwells.  thankfully, that wasn't the random pick, so he is on the zebras!

ready for kick-off!  is that what it's called in soccer?

i love three year old soccer.  the ball and all of the players are facing one direction and max is still hanging out in the middle of the field facing the opposite way.

great job, max!!  he had so much fun and that made us super happy!

we took the kids to my parents' house and then jonathan, roger and i went to sonoita for wine tasting and lunch!!

and then out downtown for dinner and drinks.  i'm too old for this.  :-(

...in the meantime - the kids had a blast with poppie, gigi, auntie elaine and uncle norm the great!!

thanks for the sleepover, mom and dad, and thanks for all the great pics, auntie elaine!

saying good-bye to uncle jonathan!  

we spent sunday relaxing and watching football.  

14/40: walt disney world marathon and my 2016 dopey run-cation part four

this should about wrap it up!  our final day of waking up at 3am to get ourselves to the start line.  the weather was almost perfect - mid to high 60's, high humidity, but it actually got cooler while we were running!  jenny and i ran as tweedle dee and tweedle dum.  respectively.  thank you, mom, for our awesome, and more importantly, comfy costumes!

a little nervous, but super excited to get the marathon underway

heading into magic kingdom!

running down main street.  right before i ditched most of my costume.  sorry, mom, it got too hot.  but still one of my fave costumes!!

given the disaster of the half marathon, we were much, much more judicious and discerning about our character stops...with jack sparrow and captain barbosa:

with boo from monsters inc.:

....and with a pig.  he was so cute!

the race course went out of magic kingdom, and down to animal kingdom, ESPN sports complex, hollywood studios and finally through epcot one more time.  i hit a little wall at mile 23 and spent most of that mile eating...chews, gels, pretzel goldfish, swedish fish, a few orange slices...  

gigi (winnell) was there to cheer us on at mile 25 and we scrounged up the energy to finish with smiles on our faces!!

 never, ever, ever did i think i would run/complete a marathon.  when i started the 40 by 40 challenge, i said maybe i would do one full, but it would have to be a good one.  a.k.a. a disney one.  when i learned about the dopey challenge, of course i was in!  my cousin, jessica was commenting, i could have just done the marathon, that it wasn't an all-or-nothing situation.  clearly, i'm an all-or-nothing girl.  we finished with a time of 5:40:59 and came in 9,531/19,838.  i'll take it!

with our bling: the marathon medal, goofy's challenge medal (for completing the half and full) and dopey challenge medal (for completing the 5K, 10K, half and full).  

off to magic kingdom to walk around and prevent lactic acid build-up!

the other restaurant i was super excited about was the newly-opened skipper canteen.  our lunch was absolutely delicious!  and once again, we got the best table:

a mini nap on the people mover...

...before a complete nap in the carousel of progress.  :-)

playing around while waiting in line for haunted mansion:

after a fun afternoon, we met up with jess and kevin again at the grand floridian for drinks.

monday morning, we finally got to sleep in!!  after another morning in the magic kingdom, it was time to head home to the kiddos.

i'm truly thankful for this girls' trip - for running a dopey 48.6 miles with my best friend by my side.  for gigi and jenny who were so much fun - love our adopted tucson family!  to my kiddos for the amazing sign they made me and face timing with me and missing me.  to my mom and roger for all they did.  to roger for his support (financially and emotionally and time-wise).  i'm super lucky and happy to have achieved this goal.  

that being said...jenny and i came home and promptly signed up for our next full marathon!  

13/40: walt disney world half marathon and my 2016 dopey run-cation part three

up again bright (or dark) and early on saturday morning for the half marathon.  this time we were snow white and dopey - jenny is a super hero and ran with ginormous rubber ears the entire time!  the weather was great - just a little foggy.


in an effort to pace ourselves and take plenty of breaks to save our energy for the full...we may have made a few character stops (keep in mind each stop takes up 5 to 10 minutes of waiting in line)...

ready to go!

with a huge, light-up, mechanical sebastian

with wreck-it-ralph

with oogie-boogie (from the nightmare before christmas -especially for max!)

with sully and mike

with the queen of hearts and tweedle dee and twiddle dum

 
with woody

with the mime from tangled (and two random patrons from the ugly duckling)

 
with kristoff, anna and elsa (kinda.  they were on the castle balcony)

in front of cinderella's castle

with a bunch of people from neverland

with mary poppins and two penguins

with a plastic army man from toy story

oh, look.  i actually ran some, too!

with scrooge mcduck

with "freed" genie

....and 8 feet in front of the finish line...with mickey

oh my god.  after all of our character stops, we were stuck with walkers who formed a wall of sweaty, stinky people across the entire width of the course.  boo.  so...with a finish time of 3:37:27 and coming in 19,715/21,497 (oops!!), all in all, it was still a great time!

on to magic kingdom!  first up was meeting gaston.  highly entertaining!

mickey's philharmagic.  there were 3D glasses clearly.  i have no idea what happened during the show.  i took another glorious nap.

i woke up in time to get a dole whip (yum!) but then had to sit through the tiki room show (still traumatized from my childhood when mom made us sit through the talking plastic bird show when we wanted to go on rides).

the dinner i was so looking forward to - be our guest!

we ate in the ballroom and dinner was beyond delicious.

i was super excited about dessert - the "grey" stuff - it was delicious....don't believe me?  ask the dishes!  they can sing, they can dance...okay i'll stop now.  still excited about that dessert.

and for our final character stop of the day...with the beast...in his study.

another great day and we were ready to head back to the hotel for my second dinner of the evening and get ready for the marathon!!