The Magical World of Disney

We spent spring break at Disney World in Orlando and it was fantastic! We debated whether it would even be worth going with Bridget as young as she is but we went for it and we all ended up having a great time.

 Main Street USA

 At the top of the Swiss Family Robinson tree house

 Watching the parade. B was really into pointing at all the characters.

 Waiting to eat at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. It has "character dining" meaning some of the Disney characters walk around the restaurant and visit you at your table. We were pretty sure after her experience with Santa Clause that she was going to be terrified of anyone in a costume but we couldn't have been more wrong! She absolutely LOVED them all!

Waiting for Winnie the Pooh to come see us.

 B's signature move...excited hand flapping.

 Desperately trying to get Pooh to come over.

 B loved giving the characters hugs and kisses

 B also loves dancing and we had plenty of opportunies to bust a move on a regular basis at Disney World. This is B doing her "knee bounce" move at the Magic Kingdom street party. We also went to the dance party in Tomorrowland with Goofy and Pluto. B ran right up to Goofy and held her hands out for him to dance with her and they grooved for a few minutes. It was hilarious.

 Lounging by the pool.

 Dinner at Chef Mickey's with Minnie Mouse.

 We were having so much fun it was too hard to stop and take a break so I think we pushed B a little hard the first couple of days. She got really good at falling asleep on the go and refused to wake up while we got her ready for bed at nights.

 After the Magic Kingdom, our favourite park was Animal Kingdom. We started the day with a safari and were lucky enough that all the animals were out and about. We even had some giraffes cross the road in front of us.

 It was pretty hot the whole week so we were glad they had these little water spots for B to play in to keep cool.

 B at the petting zoo.

 Eating lunch at Tusker House with Mickey. This was the 3rd day of our trip so B was pretty good at falling asleep in the carrier by this point and almost slept through the whole meal.

Luckily she woke up just in time to get a photo with Mickey and dance in the conga line.

Springtime in NYC!

B and I went into the city today and had a great time walking around and shopping. It is so beautiful here right now. We walked through the park on the way home and I had to stop and take a pic of my favourite clump of flowers ever! I am totally going to plant these back in Edmonton...if they can survive there.

I LOVE springtime in New York! Everything is blooming and beautiful. This is definitely one thing I'm really going to miss.

Note: I tried to "enhance" this photo in Elements but everything I did just looked worse and none of the automatic fixes did anything. That's how gorgeous these flowers are!

Point taken





We have a butcher's block in our kitchen to make up for the lack of counter space. It has wheels and B likes to push it around. The other thing she likes to do is pull things of the top of it like her soother or food we leave too close to the edge. The other day I cut up some strawberries and put them in a bowl for B. She wandered off somewhere to eat them and started making noise a couple of minutes later that she wanted more. Next she brought her bowl to me, and squawked a little bit more. I knew she wanted more strawberries but I think I was watching the news and waiting for some story so I was delaying getting her more. Bad idea. I didn't take into account that B was born and raised in Jersey and she knows how to get results. So next thing I know B comes toddling into the room in her teddy bear sleeper carrying the knife I left on the butcher's block and is heading straight for me laughing. I don't know how to negotiate with an 18 month old carrying a knife so B got her strawberries. Kate's been telling me for weeks to never leave knives on the butcher's block. Point taken.

These pics were taken at Liberty State Park across from downtown Manhattan. It was the coldest day of winter so far (a whopping -3degrees celsius) so we went to the park to soak in this mild winter, something we will probably never experience again after we move back home.

Christmas Past

Before we went up to Edmonton for the Christmas break we took B to see Santa at Macy's. She did so well last year, even smiling for the picture. What a difference a year makes.

Making our way through the line to see Santa is made a little easier with lots of things to see.

Happy, having a good time watching the dancing bears

All systems go on our approach to the North Pole

Houston we have a problem. Outside one of the many Santas at Macy's. She could sense him.

Oh the humanity. We thought that we might have a problem with her because she was upset by the Santa at our ward Christmas party.

She was so upset they didn't even take a picture of her. Luckily I brought my own camera.

Oh well, maybe next year.

A bonus picture: Santa at our ward party.

NYC Marathon 2011

When I knew that I was coming to New York for school one of the first things I was excited about was the potential of running the marathon here. Unfortunately, you have to enter a lottery which you have a low chance of winning. After 2 years of applying unsuccessfuly I joined the New York Road Runner running club and ran 9qualifying races starting in February 2010 in order to get a guaranteed spot in the marathon. Fast forward over a year and a half later, past my nine races, the birth of our first kid, a lot of training and there I was, about to run the 2011 NYC marathon. My dad, brother, and sister-in-law came out to run as well. Actually my whole family came out to either run or watch the race.

We had to be at the start area on Staten Island by 7:30am even though my start time wasn't until 10:10am. There are three seperate starting areas and start lines because two of the groups run on the top of the Verrazano Bridge and the third group is on the bottom level. There were 47,000 runners so the start areas were full of port-a-pottys.

My dad ran with a camera and took pictures throughout the race. This is at the starting line

After crossing the bridge the course runs through Brooklyn. This the first time where you see some of the 2 million plus spectators. Kate and I went down to watch the marathon last year and noticed that some runners had their names on their shirts which made it fun to cheer for individule runners. Shortly after I came off the Verrezano I was confused and had to turn back when someone called out my name; I'd forgotten that I had put my name on my shirt. It was fun. For the rest of the race whenever I needed a little pick-me-up I would run closer to the side for some spectator to cheer me on. At one point one of the other runners that I had been running close to for a couple of miles turned around and said to me "I'm going to pretend that my name is Jason".

There was a steady line of spectators all along the course.

Water stations every mile. Don't worry all of those cups were made from recycled products

After running through Brooklyn you cross into Queens. It was interesting to experience some of the different feelings of the neighborhoods. From main streets with small local stores to tree lined Brownstone neighborhoods. From Queens you cross the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. No spectators on the bridge meant it was quiet as you gained elevation going across the bridge, but just as you hit Manhattan you are hit by a wall of noise from the fans that seemed to be 5-6 people deep as you ran up 1st ave.

Some of the fans. We'd set up two places where they were going to be so they could take pictures. Even though my legs felt like they were going to explode as I came closer to both locations I forced myself to keep running so I wasn't walking as I passed them. The only problem was they were not at either spot but were somewhere else altogether.

You run up 1st ave. all the way up the island of Manhattan and cross into the Bronx only to turn around back into Manhattan and down 5th ave along the edge of Central Park.

Bridget was more excited about these balloons than the runners.

I don't know what he's wearing under that coat.

I'd sort of given up on seeing my family on the run, so I was surprised when I spotted them and relieved that I was running at that point. They were just inside Central Park within the last 2 miles.

Learning from experiences from my last marathon I knew that there would come a point where I would start to ask myself if the pain in my legs, the tightness in my quads and calves, and the fatigue was really worth continuing. Because I'd let myself ease off in past runs and having later been disappointed in my results, and also that I'd prepared for so long, I was able to mentally push myself past that point.

I did finish a bit slower than I wanted to, but I was still happy with my 3:45:39 finish.

We all met up after. It was so much fun, worth all of the training and waiting. The combination of the fans, the number of runners, and all with New York City as a backdrop made for an unbelievable experience.