Long Weekend of Fun!

A few months ago we decided that we would head down to Florida for this holiday weekend to spend it with my family. It was our last opportunity to visit before the move and the last easy drive there.

We arrived Friday early afternoon and the fun began. My sister bought E a little pool and while she played Kylie and Grayson played on their slip n slide. It was nice to watch all the kids have fun and it was nice for the adults to just relax.

Early Saturday morning, Kyle, Lisa, and I got up for the Gate to Gate Memorial 4.4 miler at Eglin Air Force Base. My Dad stayed home with the kids because it was too early to drag everyone out. It was such a fun time. Every participant received a red carnation to drop at the memorial as we ran by, it was pretty amazing.

Their post race setup was awesome! They had everything from free beer to Popeye's Chicken. Kyle ran out ahead of us but Lisa and I had a great time chatting and enjoying the scenery. Not bad for our 76th race.

We hurried back to the house to get ready to head to the beach in Destin. The weather was perfect even though it was a red flag, the kids still had fun playing in the water. We have a tradition of going to Joe's Crab Shack afterwards and it never disappoints.

Sunday, we had a fun celebration planned. Friends and neighbors came to enjoy time together and a ton of good food!! Everyone had a great time and it was nice to just relax and hang out.

We decided to give E some cake to see what she would do with it. Haha, it's safe to say that she absolutely loved it!!!

It was such a great weekend spending time with my family! We will see my Dad in a few weeks because he is helping us transport Kyle's car to Kansas but it was hard saying goodbye to Lisa and the kids. I know we will have plenty of visits but it has been great being so close.

Time with family is priceless.

Celebrate, Honor, and Remember

For most this weekend is a long weekend. We are heading to Florida to see family and we are thankful that we get to enjoy this time together.

It is also a time to reflect. To honor and celebrate those who made the ultimate sacrifice as well as their families.

If that means being with family/friends and raising a beer to them, then so be it. Cherish this time you have together with your loved ones and don't take it for granted.

To Be Honest

People often say that honesty is the best policy, well I thought it would be fun to share how I'm honestly feeling about some things.

To be honest this move has me sufficiently stressed out. Not because of the movers or our timeline but solely because of the housing situation. For anyone who has moved to a new location you know how stressful it can be. Kyle is not a MAJ yet so renting off post is not ideal because most homes are priced for that BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing), which would likely force us to come out of pocket. 

Our ideal is living on post but I swear it is like the Hunger Games. I promise you I am not exaggerating. Student housing at Leavenworth is first come, first serve. Meaning that you better be at housing at zero dark thirty to see if there are any homes available. The problem with this is, everyone is arriving at different times so who the hell knows how many houses are available daily. 

Now, they do offer a "virtual" signing option. If you are lucky enough to know people there you can entrust them to show up at housing to view a house and maybe sign for it ahead of time. However, that means if you sign for a home you are paying rent on 2 places haha. I would rather do that than stay in a hotel for a week or more. Thankfully, a friend has agreed to do this for us but there is a chance a home may not be available for who knows how long. Fingers crossed and may the odds be ever in our favor.

To be honest I've been terrible about giving Emma and Fishy enough attention lately. They are perfectly content most of the time just laying on their blankets on the couch but I know they need love and snuggles too. As I am writing this Emma has made her way into my lap, so clearly she is agreeing with this.

To be honest I've been watching the news far too much lately and it really is a downer. Over the last year I've started watching it more at night after E goes to bed whereas before I would rely on Kyle for the news. Unfortunately, I can't handle it anymore so back to Food Network I go. Even though I have seen every possible episode of Chopped, it makes me happy. 

To be honest I am denial that our niece and nephew are growing up haha. Today is their last day of school and next year they will be in 5th and 1st grades. Umm when did that happen?! I feel like they were just born, I certainly didn't give them permission to grow up. :) Lord, help me now when it comes time for E to go to school.

To be honest I've seen far too many people commenting on the parenting styles of others. Unfortunately, we live in a time where people tend to say things even when they are not warranted or needed. I'm of the mindset that if no one is being injured or harmed then it is none of my business to comment. Even if I am asked, I tend to shy away from answering because I just don't want to go down that road. This really pertains to life in general not just raising kids.

I have to say writing this post was pretty fun! I may have to make this a regular thing.

Monday Musings

I can't believe that we are almost to the end of May. How did that even happen?!

We are down to our last few weeks in Louisiana and it's crazy to me that the last 2 1/2 years have gone by so fast. I feel like we just said goodbye to Texas and made our way here. I'm going to miss this small and rustic part of Central Louisiana.

As I've spoken about in the past, Kyle has a pretty intense job here. When units are here, he is working nonstop to include really late nights and weekends. BUT! Yesterday his replacement officially took over, it is a huge relief and I can already tell that he is more relaxed. He has enjoyed his job but it's taxing. Since he already has his Masters degree he won't be pulling double duty during CGSC so we will actually get to have quality time together as a family for a year. Woo!

Speaking of Masters degrees, I officially graduated with a Masters in Psychology on May 15th! It was really awesome getting this email. Kyle and I didn't attend our commencement ceremony since I was in California but that's okay. :) I'm just happy to be finished.

We decided a few months that we would go to Florida to see my family for Memorial Weekend. We are so looking forward to this trip. You can't go wrong with family time. We plan on celebrating birthdays while we are there. We especially love seeing the kiddos together, it's awesome.

So E has decided that she loves to stand. ALL THE TIME. Slow down little girl, you don't have to grow up so fast! If only she would listen haha.

She also happens to be one of the best running partners. We ran a 5k over the weekend and I placed 2nd in my age group. They gave her a medal as well which I thought was super sweet.

 
Happy Monday!!

Run Disney: Part 2

After spending more time in the park on Saturday night, we headed back to the hotel and crashed by 9pm. We were able to get up a little bit later Sunday morning because we knew the security check process so we sprang out of bed at 3:30am. We were surprisingly not sore from the day before, between the 10k and walking all day we thought we were going to be in pain. 

We got to our corral at around 4:15am and there were significantly more people. I believe the final count for participants was 10,795. Since we were doing the Pixie Dust Challenge, we had to complete the 10k and the half. If you got swept from the course during the half you wouldn't receive the challenge medal so we were focused.

Wendy and Peter Pan were ready to run the Tinkerbell Half Marathon!

This picture is of the people behind us, we could not see the end of our corral.

This was our view in front of us, the corral in front of us nearly spilled over into us.

We started at around 6:10am again and while the course was similar we did a lot of the mileage out in Anaheim. We did go through both Disneyland and California Adventure before spilling out into the community. It was slow going at spots especially going through the castle, it got a little bottle-necked.

This is one of my favorite photos I took on the course. 

Running through Anaheim was a lot of fun. There were quite a few residents and local businesses supporting the runners and just being amazing. There were a few live bands and some playing music for us. It was so fun!

At around Mile 7 we decided to do a FB live post and it was so fun updating friends and family of our progress. We felt good the whole time and just took it easy. I was so proud of Lisa for committing to doing this and she was rocking it. 

We were so impressed with the course, and it really felt like it went by fast. We were really emotional at the finish line, it was a huge thing to be able to do this together and for Lisa to complete her 1st half marathon was incredible and I was so happy for her. We also completed the Pixie Dust Challenge, which was a pretty rad feeling.

The medals are pretty darn amazing! We earned them and had a blast doing it.

After the race was over we hung out in the finish area and then headed off to Starbucks again (it's a post race ritual haha). Once back to the hotel we took our time and then decided to grab lunch at PF Changs. There was one right next door to our hotel. Score!

We got to the park, did some shopping, and rode a few more rides.

We had these shirts made as well, they say "I'm not a regular Mom, I'm a Disney Mom!" It was so fitting for Mother's Day and being able to spend that day in Disneyland with my sister was really special because it was our Mom's favorite place.

We enjoyed the parades but the one we were so excited about was the Main Street Electrical Parade. It was taken from Disneyland in 1996 but it is back for a limited run. As soon as the music started Lisa and I were immediately taken back to our childhood and yes there were tears.

 

To anyone who is thinking about running a Disney race, do it!!! They are a blast.

I honestly would not have wanted to do this trip with anyone else. It was amazing sharing these memories together. 

Run Disney: Part 1

Well, yesterday I arrived home after an AMAZING long weekend at Disneyland. 

The journey got started bright and early on Friday morning. My sister, Lisa and I were able to work it out so that we were on the same flight from Houston to Anaheim. We were able to hang out and enjoy lunch and a drink before boarding our flight. You can never say no to Mojitos while on vacation.

We arrived in Anaheim, picked up our rental car, and headed to the hotel to check in. I booked the hotel so far in advance that I was able to get one only .5 miles from Disneyland which is needed on race weekends like this because of the street closures that occur. After checking in we were off to the expo to pick up our bibs, it was really cool and they had so much merchandise but we were limited on suitcase space so we didn't buy anything there.

We walked over to the park afterwards and just took it all in because this really is one of our favorite places. We rode a couple rides and then called it a night since we had to be up at 3:15am for the 10k the next morning.

Let me just say that 3:15am came fast haha! But we sprang out of bed, quickly put on our costumes and headed to the start line. It was time for the Tinkerbell 10k! Let me just say, HOLY PEOPLE!!! Wow! The final count was that 8,265 people who ran the 10k. 

Our Mr. Smee and Captain Hook costumes were a hit though! This was before the start and we were in the last corral, there were 6 total. The weather was perfect!! It was low 50's at the start and was around 65 degrees when we finished. The race officially started at 5:30am but with the corral start we got going around 6:10am.

You can see the insane amount of people ahead of us in this photo. We were blown away.

The course was absolutely amazing! We ran through Toon Town, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland and went through the Castle and turned into Frontierland and then went right past Haunted Mansion which happens to be our favorite ride. We went out of Disneyland and made our way to California Adventure and into Cars Land. The course ended in Downtown Disney and it was just incredible! 

You just have to take a selfie in from of Haunted Mansion haha!

Our finish line photo is one of my favorites! We had such a blast running and just enjoyed the time together. I was so proud of Lisa for completing her first 10k.

Once the race was over we headed over to the Starbucks and then back to the hotel to shower and change. We spent the rest of the day at the parks, eating churros, and having a blast.

We had these shirts made for the trip. Lisa's says "I'm Her Elsa" and mine says "I'm Her Anna". We got a lot of compliments on them. The relationship I have with my sister is priceless, so grateful!

Stay Tuned for Part II later this week!