Hanging up my running shoes-Update on ZellyB

[michigandergirl]

Pooh & friends shirts are adorable!!!

 

[Jules76126]

Love your costumes for the party!

 

[ZellyB]

Pooh & friends shirts are adorable!!!

Love your costumes for the party!

Thank you!!

 

[ZellyB]

Mickey's Not So Scary

We arrived and were able to get scanned in quickly for the party and get our wristbands. We were directed toward the bypass where we got our candy bags and enjoyed looking at the decorations.




The decorations were great and we had fun just walking around and soaking it in. I know we took a ride on the People Mover and then Sophie suggested we get a shoe picture. We'd bought converse shoes to coordinate with our Pooh and Friends costumes.



The overall feel of the park was super fun with different music and lights and fog machines enhancing the effect.




I know we rode Haunted Mansion as evidenced from our pictures below...
Sophie and I were still feeling it and hamming it up



Chris and Paige were less excited I think...




After riding HM and BTMRR, we opted to wait to watch the parade (the Headless Horseman was soooo cool) before heading up to the castle to catch the Hocus Pocus show. It was fine, but I love that movie so much it was worth the wait to see the Sanderson sisters sing, "I put a spell on you". I know we hit a Trick or Treat spot at some point as well and I don't know if this is normal or because it was the last party, but the CM handing out the candy took a HUGE handful for each of us in our bags. I'd say her one handful probably filled my bag up over halfway. LOL No need to hit additional trick or treat spots.

There was one character picture that we knew we couldn't do without, so we reluctantly joined a VERY long line (I think it took almost an hour) to get this shot.




And it was worth every minute. The characters were so much fun with us. They were so excited at our costumes and we all got big hugs. I love this picture so so much!

Our original plan was to watch the fireworks next, but we were frankly getting really tired and the girls wanted to get a chance to ride Space Mountain in the dark, so we headed there instead. I think we only waited about 10 minutes when we entered the line just as the fireworks started. When we walked off the ride, we were happy we'd done it. The line had exploded! We were all exhausted by this point and had a very early wake-up the next day for the 10k, so we headed out from the party around 10 PM. We eventually collapsed into bed around 11 or so with alarms set to go off only a short 3 hours later.


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[mrsg00fy]

So glad you guys enjoyed the party. You certainly got some beautiful family photos out of it!

 

[jennamfeo]

Actually she was doing this whole Instagram post thing about being at the happiest place on earth with all deadpan expressions.

This is hilarious but I love that she still smiled while meeting the characters! I mean, how can you not?

 

[ZellyB]

So glad you guys enjoyed the party. You certainly got some beautiful family photos out of it!

We really did. Not sure I'd spend the money to do it again, but we absolutely enjoyed it this time.

This is hilarious but I love that she still smiled while meeting the characters! I mean, how can you not?

Exactly. How can you not smile when you just spent 3 minutes getting big hugs from Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore? Impossible.

 

[disneydaydreamer33]

Really great pictures! It looks like you guys had an amazing family trip. I can't wait to runDisney with my kids! My 13 year old is doing his first 10K on Thanksgiving with me, so I really think our runDisney trip needs to be sooner rather than later. Definitely chuckled about Paige maintaining her "sullen teen" look at Disney- very meta Can't wait to read more!

 

[SarahDisney]

Finally taking a few minutes to try to catch up. Looks like a great start to the trip! I love the Halloween party costumes and that picture of Pooh & Friends with Pooh & Friends is perfect!

 

[ZellyB]

Really great pictures! It looks like you guys had an amazing family trip. I can't wait to runDisney with my kids! My 13 year old is doing his first 10K on Thanksgiving with me, so I really think our runDisney trip needs to be sooner rather than later. Definitely chuckled about Paige maintaining her "sullen teen" look at Disney- very meta Can't wait to read more!

I was so happy to get to do runDisney with my girls. It was a great experience.

Finally taking a few minutes to try to catch up. Looks like a great start to the trip! I love the Halloween party costumes and that picture of Pooh & Friends with Pooh & Friends is perfect!

We loved the way the Pooh picture turned out.

Also, I swear I'm coming back. My Disney account is messed up and I'm having trouble getting it reset to get to my pictures. Grrrr.

 

[ZellyB]

Let's run a 10K!!

In a far too short amount of time our alarms went off and we were up and headed to catch an early bus. The girls were actually pretty good about getting up quickly and getting ready. A bus was waiting when we arrived and we were on board and headed for the start area quickly. As we were pulling into the parking lot, Sophie asked about a bathroom and I told her there would be port-a-potties she could use soon. What I didn't realize was why she was asking. We had walked about 20 paces off the bus when she suddenly stopped and threw up. ACK!! I pulled her to the side and she threw up again. I was already thinking that I'd have to get her back on a bus and to the hotel when a worker came up to ask if we were okay. We said we thought so and Sophie was saying she just thought she'd gotten motion sick on the bus. After about 10 minutes or so, she was feeling better and so we headed on to the start area. Poor kid had managed to get some of it on her shirt though and, of course, we'd brought no water with us. Chris managed to get a tiny cup of water from a med tent but the lines to buy water were huge, and she seemed okay, so we just headed to the corrals. Not the best way to start the day.
We were headed to corral D early though and got settled in for the long wait.


Eventually we started moving and pretty soon were looking at the start line!


So, I'd honestly been pretty worried about these races. The girls had done only very sporadic training and my own training had hit the skids as I posted here due to a back injury, but we were all feeling pretty good and ready to do our best. We settled into our intervals pretty easily and got through the first boring mile or two pretty easily. We had decided to skip on some early characters to be sure we would have time to stop for other characters later. I think Mary Poppins was somewhere along here but we skipped and we then saw Daisy but it was a long line, so we did a quick selfie instead.


The girls were doing great and I even felt pretty good, so we were just happy and having fun. And before we knew it Mile 3 was upon us.


Shortly past mile 3 was a VERY long line but we wanted to stop for our first character, so into line we went to see CARL!

So I ended up having to photoshop most of our pictures to take out poor little Sophie's stain on her shirt. and LOL

Somewhere shortly past mile 4 was another one we wanted to get and I think a first for me and Chris as well. Robin Hood!

Those two lines had been lengthy and there were a lot of walkers catching up with us, so it was getting a bit harder to maintain our run intervals, but we tried as best we could. As we were coming into Epcot there was another character the girls were excited to see with a relatively short line. Bowler Hat Guy.

I was not supposed to be the only one twirling my imaginary mustache by the way!

Anyway, on we went into Epcot with the sunrise upon us and ready to finish out the race.
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[ZellyB]

Yikes!! Balloon Ladies!!!!!
It was a beautiful morning in Epcot as we entered the park and we'd already been schooling the girls on looking for photopass photographers and smiling for the cameras. HA!
Once in the park, we decided for a quick phone booth shot

Lots of runners out for this beautiful sunrise

We knew we were wasting a lot of time, but I told the girls I didn't think we needed to worry about balloon ladies or being swept at this point since we were in the park, so we stopped off for another character while in France
The lovely, Marie


We planned on a quick selfie with SSE in the background, but someone offered to take our picture.


On we ran and somewhere along the way got several good running pictures. No idea where all of these were...



This next one cracked us up as it looks like Paige is saying, "No pictures, please!"


And then, of course, this one I already posted that gives me all.the.feels of my first Disney race with my girls.


We had one last character we wanted to get and that was Thumper. We pulled over to a massive line and had been there a minute or two when all of a sudden these workers on bikes came riding up saying (and when I say "saying" I mean SCREAMING at people...it was a bit ridiculous) the balloon ladies were one minute behind us and if we didn't get moving we'd get swept. At first I sort of blew them off, because seriously? you will sweep with like a quarter mile to go to the finish, but they just kept yelling and it was stressing me out and so we eventually bailed out and settled for a shot with the girls


Just as we finished this shot, we sure enough spotted the balloon ladies. Still now in retrospect, I call BS that they would have swept us as there had to have been literally a thousand people crammed into this area. It would have taken far longer to have swept everyone than to let them finish. Regardless, I panicked and we moved on. Little did I know that it had totally stressed Paige out...

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[ZellyB]

The Big Finish!!
Now we were truly in a massive crush of humanity and much as we tried to run again, it was basically impossible, so we were in a slow march to the finish. I could see behind us the balloons and was actually sort of excited about it. I mean, I'd never actually seen them before and they are sort of celebrities right? There was one man though who was honestly panicked about it. He was trying to push people aside or tell them to hurry up and I think he really thought they were going to pull him off the course. It's why I think all the screaming by those bike people was a bit counter-productive, but anyway. Very quickly we were seeing the finish line!


And just like that we were done. In this finish line shot we are way off to the left, but you can see the balloons right behind where we finished.



Oops. Maybe a little close for comfort. LOL

Anyway, Paige later proceeded to tell me that it had her super stressed and she was worried we were actually going to get swept which explains her expression on this finish line shot.


She is staring down that camera with an evil eye!!! LOL

But, once done she relaxed a bit and we retrieved our medals and walked through the longest finish chute ever created in the history of mankind (maybe a slight exaggeration but it was LONG y'all). We had a breakfast reservation and so didn't want to linger too long and headed straight for the buses. Sophie was really happy to have finished her first 10k and earned her first runDisney medal.


I hadn't been that excited about the Frozen theme 10k medal, but it actually ended up being my favorite of the weekend. It is just really pretty. And, no, the balloon ladies did not follow us onto the bus. That was a kiddo who had been spectating. We got back to the hotel and cleaned up and I had to take one more shot of my beautiful medal.


We had a breakfast reservation at The Grand Floridian Cafe. We got seated after a short wait and I ordered a tasty beverage to celebrate.


And I had the chicken and waffle. YUM!!


I don't remember what everyone else got. Then it was off to do some more celebrating at Magic Kingdom.​

 

[SarahDisney]

Yay! Congrats to everyone - especially Sophie rocking her first 10K despite the rough start to the day.

Definitely calling BS on the sweepers. Really??? I'm sorry Paige got so stressed out about it - I have no problem with them saying people are behind pace, but they can encourage people to speed up without screaming that they're going to get swept. Ugh.

 

[rteetz]

Awesome job on the 10K! That massive crowd at the finish is crazy!

 

[ZellyB]

Yay! Congrats to everyone - especially Sophie rocking her first 10K despite the rough start to the day.

Definitely calling BS on the sweepers. Really??? I'm sorry Paige got so stressed out about it - I have no problem with them saying people are behind pace, but they can encourage people to speed up without screaming that they're going to get swept. Ugh.

Thank you! I was so proud of Sophie. And, yes, I hate that Paige got stressed out. It just all felt over the top. But, all's well in the end at least.

Awesome job on the 10K! That massive crowd at the finish is crazy!

Thank you. It was a massive crush of people CRAZY is right.

 

[ZellyB]

Post 10k Magic Kingdom Time​

After our brunch at Grand Floridian we headed over to Magic Kingdom to enjoy the afternoon. And, it was looking a lot like Christmas in the Magic Kingdom.





It's insane to me how quickly they transition things. We'd been at the Halloween party the night before and yet literally overnight things had transformed. I cannot imagine the manpower that feat must take. We enjoyed getting to see the Christmas decorations. We mostly just spent time hitting some rides for which we had Fastpasses and hamming it up per the usual.









We all got COMPLETELY drenched on Splash this time around. It was nutso how wet we were! I'm pretty sure we went to see Hall of the Presidents (which Paige had never seen before) as well. And I, of course, wanted a castle picture with our medals too.



We had an early dinner reservation at the Wave, so we headed over there and got settled in for dinner. We ordered the delicious Bacon and Eggs appetizer.



that we demolished in seconds. I don't remember what every got, but it was another good and tasty meal at the Wave. We finished up our early dinner and headed back to the hotel for an early bedtime. It had been a long and tiring day and Paige, Chris and I had a half-marathon to run in the morning. Sophie was gloating that she got to sleep in. I'll admit that again I was really worried about how my back and lack of training would hold up for the half and I'd already warned Chris that if things went sideways I wanted him and Paige to leave behind for the sweepers. We were all in bed and, despite my concerns, I think we were all sound asleep by 9 PM though.

 

[ZellyB]

READY OR NOT - HALF MARATHON TIME!
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The alarm went off around 3 AM again and we were up and headed to the bus in no time. It was a tiny bit chilly this morning, so we wore some throw-down shirts just to keep the chill off. Paige had qualified for the E corral, so Chris and I dropped back to that with her. Sitting through the pre-race inane chatter again.



Eventually we were headed to the start line and go there just in time to see Mickey and Minnie.


Ready???



GO!!!



And we were off. We were able to settle into our intervals pretty quickly and warmed up within a few minutes and all was going well. Again I think we bypassed some character opportunities early on to gain some time on the balloon ladies. We didn't want to run into any issues like we had the day before and Paige was already a bit worried about it. I tried to assure her that with this being a half instead of a 10k, we'd likely be fine, but she was still nervous. My back was feeling pretty good and though a bit sore, it was't causing me much trouble, so I was optimistic. I think somewhere around mile 2 or 3 we came upon the first character we knew we wanted to get and while the line was long, it went fairly quickly.

Lotso!!

He was a new one for me and Chris as well, so we were pretty excited about it (regardless of my expression)

With our first character shot in hand, we happily headed onward and headed into Animal Kingdom around mile 4. We spied another character we thought would be fun and Paige was really starting to get into the character stops, so into line we went for Russell.



Onward from there and into Pandora. It was pretty neat to get to run through Pandora and there was a Photopass set up for a floating mountain shot, but the line was long, so we opted for a bad selfie instead.



Once past Pandora there was a character I really wanted to get, but the line was INSANE, so Kevin-selfie instead!



Then on around the corner and we had to stop for a lovely sunrise photo with Everest.



I'll admit that somewhere around in here, I was starting to hurt a bit and feel some fatigue and I was getting a little worried that I might have to slow things down and maybe let Paige and Chris go on ahead without me. Still we had a comfortable lead on the balloon ladies and I just kept telling myself that it was all in my head and that I was fine.

 

[KSellers88]

Don't feel bad about skipping the Pandora photopass. I stopped there and I am not sure what the photographer did, but you cannot even see the mountain thing behind me. LOL. Love that y'all did this as a family, so many amazing memories!

 

[ZellyB]

Don't feel bad about skipping the Pandora photopass. I stopped there and I am not sure what the photographer did, but you cannot even see the mountain thing behind me. LOL. Love that y'all did this as a family, so many amazing memories!

Well that's a bummer that the picture didn't turn out well.

I loved doing these runs as a family.