Guest post by Mommy:
About eight months ago, I got an email that said registration for the Disneyland Half Marathon had opened. I knew that we would be getting our annual passes and thought it might be a fun thing for Pete to do. Holy cow. First of all, I had no idea that you had to register within the first hour of that thing opening. Long story short, I managed to register Pete and fail to register my girls for the kids runs because of the chaos in that first hour. I registered for the Chear Squad. (Yes it's spelled wrong because it's Disney.) It also turned out that they would later open up two other half marathons for the first time but later in the year, had I known those things I wouldn't have done the Disneyland Half. I would have waited for the Avengers Half. Actually...my girls are doing that one. But just the kids races. Don't worry I won't make Siena run a half marathon until she's ten. Just kidding. They won't let me let her until she's 14.
Because it was so rushed in the registration process and it forced me to make a snap decision I didn't really look into the dates and so it was that the only two days we would need to be at Disneyland were blocked on our annual passes that we had for Pete and the girls. Hmmm. I opted to make it a mommy and daddy trip only because I could handle upgrading one pass. Darn it! Graciously, Aunt Becca said she would take the girls. Even IVA. That meant I had to get her taking a bottle which wasn't easy. In the end, we drove down to Vegas Friday and left early Saturday morning and were back by Sunday after dinner so that she would only have to do one night out of fear Iva would be horrendous. I even took my breast pump. Disneyland will store it for you and has wonderful little rooms that you can use. They won't store your milk, but that's okay. I couldn't keep it anyway.
So off we went bright and early Saturday morning. Siena startled us by sobbing when we tried to leave. I think first grade is taking its toll on her. It feels like it's all work and no play. She has to do homework and piano and chores and no time to go swim. Hopefully we will find a better balance. Back to the trip. I'm pretty sure that was the extent of her missing us. The five minutes it took us to get out the door and then the next two minutes and then she was off on her adventures with Becca. They got to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I take them to Disneyland but Becca takes them to Chuck E. Cheese. Pretty sure she wins. At least the way they talk.
We decided to not go straight to Disneyland which I think took the world by surprise. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to be on a beach and not have a baby trying to eat sand. It just sounded glorious. And of course it was. We boogie boarded and soaked up sun and swam and that took us all of two hours. Pete had a half marathon to run in the early hours of the next day so we figured we shouldn't push it!
Picking up our packets was kind of craziness. There were hardly any people there, but you could tell that two days ago it must have been MADNESS. Utter madness. For these run weekends, they have a 5k, a 10k, the half marathon and kids races. You can also do the double dare and run both the 10k and half marathon. They had it so well organized that you could just feel at one time they had thousands of people streaming into that space. In fact, 15,952 people finished the half marathon. THINK ABOUT ALL OF THEM PICKING UP THEIR PACKETS. It was so well organized they had cast members standing next to things that people liked to take pictures of and helping organize that. I snuck this one in. Apparently no one else had tried it.
Packets were picked up, we got showered and squeaky clean and then we of course went into the park! Our objective was to ride all the rides together that we don't get to do anymore. Basically anything with a height requirement. Here we are on Tower. I almost killed him on this ride 9 years ago on our honeymoon and now it's one of his favorites.
We both got up at the unholy hour of 4:20 am. In retrospect, I should have registered us both. But I never thought I would want to run. Well let me tell you, the whole time we were there I was thinking how silly it was that I was just cheering. I should have been out there with him. Oh well. I was a dang good cheerleader.
Pete was able to start in the second faster corral which is a BIG deal when you are talking about 16,000 runners. The last corral started 45 minutes after him. I was grateful. He ended up being in the top 10% of the finishers!
We celebrated his run by eating at The Blue Bayou for the first time ever. We didn't do it on our honeymoon and we have always had kids with us since then. This was perfect and the Monte Cristo sandwich did NOT disappoint. I had no idea what I was in for and I was blown away by the deliciousness.
We got some more rides in and kind of wandered around. It was so nice not dealing with a stroller. We missed the kiddos, but not the stroller.
We loved being back with our girls though. We smashed together and cuddled and talked all at the same time. Ah the happiness.
They are the best. I couldn't ask for more perfect girls.
The real fun from our trip though came from recreating our photos from our honeymoon. It was AWESOME. It was actually funny to see how some of Disneyland had changed! I even took the same purse.
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