RunDisney 2013- part 2

 The day after our races, we decided to hit up Magic Kingdom. 

We had to do the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin of course because the boys love it (and secretly I think Ryan does too).

I always take a picture of my ride photos on the wall as I exit. I've never had a cast member stop me. And I've also read on other blogs that they never will. 

SO love your ride photo? Go ahead, take a pic of it, don't be afraid. 

We also got lucky enough to find Buzz hanging out outside after the ride so we hopped in line for our now-traditional photo with Buzz.

from upper left clockwise, Baby Aidan dressed as Buzz with Buzz at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, both boys and Buzz (Mason's first visit) this past February, 2 yr old Aidan hugging Buzz, and the newest addition to the collection, 2 smiling excited boys with Buzz.

We had a ton of fun that day and we met The Little Mermaid, Daisy & Minnie. Mason was super excited to meet Ariel, but then clammed up (hahaha while proofreading this I just caught that pun...I swear it was unintentional) when it was our turn because unlike the cartoony characters that wear big ol heads and costumes, Ariel was a real person. She was sweet and he talked to her a bit but refused to sit with her and take a photo. I remember Aidan being the same way with "real" characters when he was little.

 We also attempted to wait in line for Goofy's barnstormer with Aidan but we didn't have enough patience…the line was barely moving and we had already waited for what seemed like forever so we got out of line.

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The quick service at our hotel (where we got food a lot) had easels and crayons for the kids to draw on while they waited for their food. They even had an easel at the entrance where they featured an "artist of the day"

I found them sleeping like this quite a bit

Aidan got a new pair of big boy Mickey ears since Mason has his old baby pair and his cool pirate pair from Uncle Jimbo is still a little big so they keep falling off

the view from our villa

Aidan drew a picture of Minnie Mouse driving a car

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Excitingly on this trip Aidan was tall enough to ride some big kid rides! After letting him watch what happens on Splash Mountain a few times and letting him mull it over (on Thursday night when I first arrived with the boys I let him watch it a few times and planted the idea of him riding it so that he had time to decide) he decided he wanted to give it a try, so Ryan and I took him on while Krysta hung out with Mason and watched.

He loved all the little drops inside the ride before the big drop at the end and was even throwing his hands up in the air yelling "woooo"! We thought it was going to go well, and we were excited!

And then we got to the bottom of the track that pulls you up for the final drop; there's animated vultures and creepy music and he completely panicked. He ended up not enjoying the final fall down into the water, and I still chuckle when I look at this picture that Krysta took for us. If you zoom in, you can see the look of sheer terror on his little face. Poor buddy!

waiting in line for Splash Mountain

After a day at MK we headed back to our Villa to settle a bit and decided to head to Downtown Disney to find some dinner (the beauty of not having reservations is you can go where you want when you want). We decided to go to T-Rex because I've heard it's cool and thought the boys might enjoy it.

It was really late for dinner (after 8pm I believe), and the wait was only 10 minutes! We were seated, and within minutes Mason passed out in my arms.

Doh! He never napped that day and was so exhausted he missed out on dinner and the cool Dinosaur restaurant…which was part of the reason I wanted to go there in the first place, so the boys would enjoy it! It was WAY overpriced, and the food was just so-so. Aidan didn't even seem to be enthralled with all the cool dinosaurs and stuff around him anyway. I feel like T-Rex was an epic disappointment. Ah well, lesson learned.

Stay tuned for Part 3

RunDisney 2013! -Part 1

Yes, we went to Disney.

AGAIN.

We already made a trip this past Feb but as soon as we returned home from that trip we joined the Disney Vacation Club, setting us up with a fresh set of vacation "points" to cash in. So when I decided I wanted to run a 5K at Disney, we were able to book another trip to enjoy the Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend.

Mason insisted I buy him this small stuffed Minnie Mouse at our hotel gift shop when we arrived, and he carried her around the entire vacation…he's hugging her here.

As soon as Krysta & Ry arrived, we headed to the race Expo to pick up our packets and check out the race related merchandise. I've had my heart set on a pair of RunDisney Minnie Mouse sneakers for over a year, and they ONLY sell them at the race expos. 

And I got them.

And they're glorious.

Daddy & Mas on our way in

race expo view from the entrance upstairs

My glorious Minnie sneakers

Seriously, if you ever get a chance to attend the EPCOT International Food & Wine festival…DO IT. 

But make sure you bring plenty of cash you're willing to part with because it is not cheap. There were tons of extra food "kiosks" set up all around the World Showcase (almost 30 countries represented I believe). Each stand had 3-4 foods you could try along with specialty beers/wines from that country as well. 

Each plate of food that you would get was slightly more than a tasting, allowing you to sample from many countries. However at $5.75-$7 a pop, if you want to taste lots of stuff and try tiny glasses of wine or beer (same price as the food) then it's going to add up. We practically blew through our entire Disney Rewards Card (if you have a Disney Chase Visa you get Disney points back instead of cash back, and it works like cash at the parks and Disney stores)! (I believe you could use the meal plan to buy most of those too, but personally I don't think it would be worth parting with a meal credit for the small sampling you would get for it)

Basically one "plate" wasn't really enough for Ry and I to share, so you could easily double the food cost at each country as we did.

Wine in France (wearing my hand made bead necklace that I bought in EPCOT in Feb)

Lamb Meatballs & Venison Sausage in Norway. Aidan loved the venison (as well as the salmon from Scotland)

The first night that Krysta, Ry & I were all together we spent our time at the food festival. It rocked. We met characters, ate, drank, and just had a grand ol time!

You'll notice Mason kissing Minnie while holding his new stuffed Minnie here.

The next morning was The Jingle Jungle 5k, and Krysta and I woke before the damn birds to get all Princessed-up and out the door to catch our bus to the race start. Ryan was sweet enough to wake with us to make sure he got a couple of pictures for us, but went back to bed after we left.

There was a DJ, fake snow falling, and fun places to take your pic while we waited to get in the corrals to start the race. 

The line for a pic with Minnie and Mickey was seriously like a mile long, so we never did that, but before the race we did meet up with my friend from High School Eric Brown and his wife Katie and they ran with us too. They happen to live in Orlando (and Eric even works for The Mouse himself) so it was a quick trip for them, and was fun to have some extra friends to hang out with!

Mickey & Minnie waved us all on at the starting line!

Along the way we stopped for a bunch of photo ops…because that's what running disney is about! Not  having the best run time, but the FUN!

We were even back to the room practically before Ryan & the boys woke up!

We spent the rest of the day having lunch at the Food & Wine festival (trip 2 to Epcot for food), and Ryan headed back to nap (his half marathon wasn't until 10pm) while Kre, myself and the boys went to Hollywood Studios. It was going on 8pm when we got back to the hotel and by then Ryan was getting ready to head out to catch his bus to his race.

I had some sort of tracking system set up so that I was getting texts/emails/facebook notifications about Ryan's status every 5k. I had the info on how fast he was running and what his estimated finish time was. I left our room with almost an hour to go until his estimated finish. I must have waited 45 mins for the damn race shuttle. Many other ppl were there waiting and complaining about missing seeing their runners cross the finish line.

Long story short, I was running through epcot like a lunatic trying to find the finish line when I heard my phone go off with the notification that Ryan had finished. Grrrr I was so angry. I was less than 5 minutes late to see him finish. He made great time (even if he doesn't think so) and I finally found him and we headed off to the Finish Line After Party at Epcot.

This basically turned into round 3 of the Food & Wine Festival for us, only MUCH less crowded since you needed a ticket to be at this party. We were kid-less and both on a post-race high, and had such a great time. We even stopped to take pictures with almost all the characters we saw, and they were all over the place since it was sort of a "private event".

We even came across Pinocchio and Geppetto having some sort of dance-off. It was hilarious and I'm not sure it would have been something those characters would have done during the day with kids around at the park….it WAS about 1am at this point.

 Ryan even got in on the dance-off party !

Stay tuned for part 2……..

Trick or Treat with the A-Team & The M&M's.

The A-Team has trick-or-treated together every year in coordinating costumes since they were one.

So Jess made sure that this year would be no different.

Jeff's family is from the Dallas area, so she figured they would plan a trip to visit them and swing down to Houston for Halloween with us. So perfect!

This year the boys chose a Superhero theme, and since Mason is still young enough that I can choose his costume, I made sure he fit right in too as a Superhero sidekick ;)

(Funny enough, it was unplanned, but for Mason & Kenzie's first Halloween, Mason was a bumble bee and Kenzie was a ladybug….and last year was a group theme where Kenzie was Tinkerbell and Mason was Peter Pan, and the older boys were Jake & Captain Hook.)

Halloween 2012

Jess couldn't convince Kenzie to be Wonder Woman but she was Princess Sofia, and the boys "rescued" her a few times, which was adorable!

Halloween 2013

Halloween day here in Houston saw torrential rains and flooding. They even cancelled the town's "trick or treat trail" at the local park that we were going to attend. 

However, the rain ended up stopping hours before dusk and everything dried up so instead of doing trick or treat trail we got to head out and hit up a neighborhood near our apartment complex.

The kids had a blast and I am so thankful that they got to spend another Halloween together, since it most certainly won't work out this perfectly every Halloween.

Bad Prom Run 2013

Jess and I decided to run a fun themed 5k in Dallas while she was here visiting. I was really excited because my Disney 5k was only a week after the Dallas one so I figured it would be great practice!

We had lots of fun and as we ran, Jess reminded me of the time back when we started training using a "Couch to 5k" app and we could barely run 45 seconds when we were supposed to, LOL. Now we're running 5k's. We used to be those girls that said they only ran "when someone is chasing me!"

Look at us now! We've both done 2 5k's and we're training for a half marathon! Wooooo!

We did Disney Dining a little differently this time…...

We usually get a dining plan when we go to Disney. It's just easier…..and if you catch it at the right time, it's free! However we usually waste the desserts, and you can get a cup of water for free (since soft drinks are only included with the meals purchased on a dining plan) and water is probably a better bet when you're out walking in a hot amusement park anyway. 

Basically, unless I can get the plan for free, it's not worth paying full price for it because I think you can pay a la carte and save more money.

During the time period that we would be at Disney they were offering free dining plans, but sadly we learned that being Disney Vacation Club members is negative on this offer because we aren't eligible for the free plans. We can still purchase a plan at full price, but we can't take advantage of the free plans offered. BOOO.

However, we do get 10% off at most restaurants and at ALL the merchandise locations in the parks.

I also learned about the Tables in Wonderland Card a few months ago and we decided to give that a whirl this time and to skip the dining plans. Basically if you are a DVC member or Annual Passholder (of which I am both this year), you can purchase the card for $100 and it saves you 20% at most restaurants. However they DO check your ID to make sure you are the cardholder so that nobody else can use it (you have to be the one paying for the food)…even if they're traveling with you.

Ry and I discovered these mac n cheese hot dogs at Hollywood Studios on our date night this past  Feb…so I had to get another one! I also got Aidan a side of mac n cheese and he actually said "I have an idea…how about you put all the bacon on my mac n cheese?"So I obliged :)

The only downside was it didn't work for ANY of the quick service restaurants at Magic Kingdom. Grrrrr. Or at any of the stands at the Food & Wine festival at EPCOT…..where we ate a ton while Ry & Krysta were there with me.

We went on this trip with a reservation at Le Cellier (our absolute favorite place to eat at the parks) and a character buffet for me and the boys at Animal Kingdom. We didn't plan on doing much sitting down for meals. 

After going every year since Aidan was one, I've learned that I don't like being held to a dinner reservation time. I want to enjoy the parks and do what I want to do as we walk around. I don't like saying…oh we can't watch this parade because we're going to be sitting down for lunch/dinner at that time.

I am very thankful that we didn't do a dining plan or make a reservation for each day. It allowed us to eat dinner whenever/wherever we felt like it and to grab something from a quick service restaurant and to keep playing.

I also ate at the hotel's quick service location a ton while I was alone with the boys. It was easy to just grab something "to go" and bring it back to the room at the end of the day and to help the boys wind down. We even had a dining table and chairs in our Villa so it was very convenient.

Kid's Mickey Waffles from The Artist's Palette, the quick service at our hotel

Our last night with Krysta we went to Downtown Disney and ate at T-Rex (WAY overpriced and food was just OK….)

The boys enjoying some fine dining at Le Cellier. Aidan even ordered the kids' Salmon! The tables in wonderland card sure came in handy here ;)

We had lunch at Donald's Tusker House

If you like a good buffet that gets away from your normal "american" cuisine, like Chef Mickey's, then The Tusker House is for you! It was African themed and I found it to be very tasty. The boys however ate nothing but Mickey Waffles (since they were still serving some breakfast items at the time of our 11:25 reservation) and fruit.

The other thing that I must rave about was the attention that was given to us as customers with food allergies. When I made the reservation online I decided to fill out the food allergy section (for sh*ts and giggles) and when we were seated the hostess informed me that the Chef would be out to go over the menu with me.  Shortly after she took our drink order the Chef came out and walked me around the entire buffet, pointing out the items Mason could NOT have. He was very friendly and super helpful. After we were seated he even came back to our table with some "allergy safe" treats on a special plate just for Mason.

I give it high marks, even though it is in Animal Kingdom, which is my least favorite park. I totally intend on going back there next trip with Ryan, because I know he'll love it too, and at Dinner there are no characters so it's much easier to get a reservation.

The boys have a thing for Daisy & Minnie so they were very excited to see Daisy at our lunch! (We also saw Mickey & Goofy too).

Mickey Noodle Soup from Tomorrowland

Overall I think for this trip the Tables in Wonderland card didn't even save us the $100 we spent on it since we ended up eating mostly at places it wasn't accepted. We are not planning a 2014 trip because we are planning on going in  February 2015 for the Disney Princess Half Marathon, but if we were, the card is good for 13 months after purchase, so if we went again before the fall next year the dining card, plus mine and Aidan's annual passes, would still be valid…making them totally worth their money.