Halloween 2012

12. November 2012 · Comments Off on Halloween 2012 · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

It was the saddest thing, not being home for my boys’ Halloween. I did my best to decorate the house — complete with a fresh batch of tree ghosts — but was away by the time my sons had their school Halloween parties, and other Halloween events (such as Jacob’s first boy-girl birthday party with dancing, which was Halloween-themed; he dressed as an Incredibles kid for it).

Enjoy some of the pictures from Halloween. Dave took all of them, most of them were texted to me over the course of the night. Sorry I’m so late with these….

We’re now in a place where the kids have many costume choices. I love how easily Jacob could don this for a birthday party.

The boys could dress up for Halloween at school. Timmy’s costume had to be a book character, so Harry Potter was our no-brainer option. Jacob had more liberties with his costumes, but couldn’t wear a mask, nor could his costume impede with school activities. That ruled out his Incredibles outfit, and also his Pikkachu costume, since it had a stuffed midsection and he couldn’t sit at his desk with it. So he put together this baseball player’s outfit easily. Completely last minute, good job!

On Halloween night, Jacob donned a Pikachu costume that a friend had made for her son years ago.  That particular son is now in college, and she had held on to the costumes.  It fit Jacob really well. I picked up the yellow-lycra bodysuit through Amazon, but I’m afraid it made him look more like a chicken from a distance…

Jacob didn’t mind.

Jacob even had yellow shoes, ha ha!

Timmy has a headlamp on his head.

The boys were quite happy with their take this year, they covered two streets, which may not sound like much, but it’s at least one mile worth of walking.

Summer Crafting

02. August 2012 · Comments Off on Summer Crafting · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Getting the family ready for Dragon*Con, Halloween and the Disney Princess running weekend all at once! I found the iron-on for stretchy-fabric paper at our local A.C. Moore.

The weather continues to get the best of us this week.  We were still able to hit the Pensacola MESS Hall again on Wednesday, and today I had some meetings on base while the kids stayed home and our neighbor’s son watched them.  With thunderstorms all around us this afternoon squelching our pool plans, I was able to catch up on some craft stuff.

Such as putting finishing touches on our Incredibles costumes.

“What in the world do you need Incredibles costumes for?”

Over Labor Day weekend, the family is heading up to Atlanta.  We got some Braves-Phillies tickets on August 31st, and then on Sept. 1-2, we are planning to visit Dragon*Con for the first time.

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Totally Rad 80s Party!

09. March 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Last weekend Dave and I were invited to a birthday party!  It was an 80s themed birthday party and Stephanie (the same girl I went to Disneyworld with a couple weekends ago) knows how to throw a great theme party!

She decorated her house with vinyl records, cassette “mix” tapes and posters of 80s movies.  Her Pandora radio was set to the 80s channel, and even her birthday cake was a Ms. Pac Man!

Hostess cakes and Ms. Pac Man!

Stephanie had been accumulating vinyl 33s and 45s at thrift shops for $0.50 each!

Since I was will in a costuming mood from my Disneyworld trip, I had a good time coming up with an outfit that brought back memories of circa-1983 Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Ferris Bueller all at once!

I don’t think my legs show up in any of the pictures, but I’m wearing black fishnet stockings with lacey ankle socks and stiletto heels. I have a huge fluffy black tutu ($8), part of the pink tulle skirt that I didn’t use with the Mulan costume from two weeks ago, a blank t-shirt with which I used iron on letters to say “Save Ferris” ($4) and Mardi Gras beads from last month. Dave’s shirt was a homemade iron-on of a Van Halen album cover from 1979. We bought his mullet wig, fishnet stockings and the black lace gloves and socks from Amazon for cheap.

The hair?  A scrunchie made from the bottom of my t-shirt, and LOTS of Aqua Net hairspray.

I couldn’t have planned this better myself!

The birthday girl and me!  Steph found this fantastic Dynasty-ish pink dress and she reminded me of Joan Collins!

Compare the gal on the left with this picture 🙂

Runner Girl Plays Dress Up, Part 1

08. March 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

I’m so excited to finally have time to sit down and share my experience with my first runDisney race a couple weeks ago!

Last fall I signed up to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon, whose route covers Magic Kingdom and EPCOT.  The race was on February 26th.  A neighborhood friend, Stephanie, and I made the trip together over a long weekend.  We had a wonderful trip and it was fun to be part of such a magical weekend.  There were nearly 20,000 runners.  While men are allowed to take part, they cannot win race awards.  There were about 1000 male runners.

Can you see me?  I am towards the right, just past the finish line.  Do you see the man in the light blue tutu to my right?

The training for this race was very similar to the program I did for the Gulf Coast Half Marathon last spring.  Like last year I was able to take advantage of the Pensacola Double Bridge Run as a good mid-point for training — and it was smart to incorporate the hills because the Disney course isn’t flat at all!

It’s tradition to dress in a costume for this race.  Needless to say, most of the women racing dressed as their favorite princesses.  Many of the men dressed up, also.  I chose to run as Mulan, due to her military and Asian backgrounds.

After ditching the tulle tutu option after a test run (I don’t know HOW all those other women did it), I opted to just stick to modern running clothing with a couple of additions.  I bought a pink running skirt, and I had several lighter pink running shirts to choose from already.

I had this old Susie Wong-style dress that I had bought in China years ago.  I outgrew the dress and the silk was looking worn out in spots.  I cut off the top and bottom to make a corset-style belt.

This could fit over my head and then zip into place w/ the original dress zipper.

This was the flower for my hair.

I after hot glue not holding the flower onto this comb during a run, I used floral tape to really bind it on.  It held up for all 13.1 miles!
A friend gave me this pretty lace scarf that served well as a gold sash and bow in the back.

Now that I had a costume ready to go, let’s talk about the race experience itself!

Stephanie and I arrived at Walt Disney World around 5pm Friday.  We headed straight over to the “Fit for a Princess” Expo, which featured numerous fitness vendors selling all the typical goodies.  We enjoyed samples of Clif Gel, Luna bars and got to test iPod armbands, headbands and other gadgets and gizmos.

I had wanted to look at the Dooney & Bourke commemorative handbags Disney had commissioned for the race.  They were sold out.  An employee said they had all sold out in two hours.  Gee, I wonder why they sold so quickly?  I wasn’t necessarily planning to buy one — I’m not a super Princess-ey kind of girl — but I still wanted to see them in person.

Forget the Princess race bag, this is the one I want!

We stayed at the Port Orleans French Quarter hotel on the Walt Disney World property.  This helped getting to/from the race venues more easily.

The landscaping and ambiance of this hotel is so beautiful!

We enjoyed a fun evening at the Boardwalk Resort.  We visited a piano bar called Jellyrolls and met up Debbie, with an Air Force friend who lives in Tampa now, as well as fellow blogger Rosalind of Girls Are Geeks.

Rosalind and me.

On Saturday, many runners who had their families at the resort with them took part in the Tangled Family 5K race.  I didn’t go to see the race, but I could see that being a nice warmup for the biggie the following day.

Steph, Debbie and I enjoyed a leisurely day at Magic Kingdom.  For the first time, I could spend the day at Magic Kingdom doing GIRLIE things!**

We browsed all the stores we wanted…slowly!  The lines weren’t bad at all, and we could manage our Fast Passes well enough to go on any rides we wanted to.  For the most part, we stuck to leisurely rides, but we didn’t let a trip on Splash Mountain escape us!

**On my 30th birthday my Mom and I spent the day at EPCOT…similarly doing girlie things and it was great!

Because we were wearing our race t-shirts, many cast members wished us “Good Luck tomorrow”.

This was about 30′ from the big drop at the end of the Splash Mountain ride.  The ride STOPPED for about 2 minutes.  Which is why I got this picture.

Enjoying some shopping!

We had dinner at Downtown Disney Saturday night, said goodbye to Debbie, and then Steph and I attempted to go to bed early — we had a 2am alarm set for Sunday morning!  But I was too excited — I hadn’t been this excited in YEARS about anything.  I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve!  I probably got about 3 hours of sleep before the race.

Stay tuned for Part 2…the race itself!