Sent from my iPhone…pardon the typos!
During the Disney Princess Half Marathon weekend, we played hooky off-resort and went to Sea World.
On our weekend trip to Orlando at the end of February, I was hesitant to invest in one-day Disney World tickets. The solution came easily to us. Thanks to the Sea World Entertainment Hero Salute program, military members and up to three dependents can get one day’s admission per year to one of the company’s parks: Sea World, Busch Gardens or Sesame Place.
We have taken advantage of this program many times, from Sea World when Jacob was a baby, to Sesame Place twice.
We met up our dear friends Andy and Suzy with their kids, who we joined on our last family trip to Walt Disney World in 2011 and Universal Studios in 2012. We absolutely LOVE hanging out with them and we’re so happy they took the time to join us last month. We spent the day before the half marathon at Sea World.
Even though most of my gardening supplies will be shipped to Colorado this June, I couldn't help myself -- it's not spring without planting SOMETHING. Besides, for the first time since moving here, I have some outstanding, perfect compost that will not be able to move with us. From left to right: yellow squash, Big Boy tomatoes, and assorted herbs. The herbs on the far right survived the winter: rosemary, sage, chives and curly parsley.
2013 Garden
2013 Garden
Our new toy. Thanks to GeekMom’s Amazon Associates credit.
In February I got my Amazon.com credit for all of the product referrals I did over the holidays for GeekMom. It was a very generous payout and we bought some goodies such as a pressure cooker, a hangar for our family’s running medals, and a Soda Stream.
We got a very basic Soda Stream model, which included the carbonator with CO2 tank, one 1L bottle and a sampler pack of flavor syrups.
The system is very straightforward, and doesn’t even require electricity: screw a water-filled bottle to the carbonator and depress a button on top to carbonate to the level you desire (they recommend depressing the button three times, we’re still trying to figure out how much carbonation we actually like).
We all tasted several of the sample syrups that came with the system and they’re pretty good. Dave noticed that all the syrups were surprisingly low-calorie and upon further investigation, we noticed that they ALL had sucralose (otherwise known as Splenda).
Our take from last weekend — not bad!
This past weekend our family made yet one more trip to Orlando, so I could run my 2nd Disney Princess Half Marathon, and the boys could experience the early mornings and fun people watching with me. We stayed at Walt Disney World’s newest hotel, a value resort called The Art of Animation Resort, and we visited Sea World with our dear friends the McNabb family.
We repurposed the Incredibles costumes we wore last September, which was our plan all along. Unfortunately, my plan was for temperatures to be in the 50s like it had been most of the previous 5 years of this race. Instead it was quite warm. More »
Just before the Gulf Coast Half Marathon, Pensacola Beach, FL, April 2011. There are many things I had to do before I was ready to take this run.
I’ve discussed before how my brain goes through some pretty funky thought exercises when I’m taking long training runs (as well as long drives by myself).
On Friday I took my last training run before the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon next weekend. This last run was somewhat delayed because the week prior I threw out my back somehow and I had to rest it for a week.
For this last run, I had to turn around after about 1/3 of a mile because I had forgotten something. This got me thinking about everything I have to do before taking a long run.*** I tend to get a bit Princess-and-the-Pea-ish about making sure everything is perfect, otherwise I could get miserable in a hurry.
We had a fun day today. I got to spend time with each of the boys at their schools. Then we went out to dinner at one of the very few restaurants that the four of us can agree on. Unfortunately, when you order sushi while everyone else ordered off the Chinese food menu, I had to get my dinner to go. That’s okay…it was all yummy!
Dave got me a charm for the Pandora bracelet I got for Christmas.
I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day too.
Enjoy some pictures from today. More »
Dave and I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert last week! The Pensacola show was at the tail end of the Lounging at the Lagoon tour.
Cross that one off our Florida bucket list!
We honestly didn’t know what to expect. We read about folks tailgating hours before the concert, but since the concert was on a Tuesday, and we’d have to deal with babysitting on a school night, we elected to pack our camp stove and take some marinated chicken to grill.
Dave and I also packed plenty to drink in our cooler: Margarita, whiskey sours and plenty of beer.
We left as soon as the boys came home from school, and arrived at the Pensacola Bay Center at 4pm. Four hours till showtime. We got pretty good parking, with the venue less than a 5 minute walk away. There were plenty of things to do, lots of people-watching!
Everyone dresses in tropical apparel; Dave wore one of his numerous Hawaiian shirts with flip flops, and I wore a Hawaiian dress.
I didn’t get good photos of the concert itself, but the Parrotheads of Pensacola did and put their album online here.
Our awesome tailgate setup!
Last year we went to Mobile and experienced some pretty serious Mardi Gras-ness. This year we kept it local, so here’s some pictures from the Navarre Beach Mardi Gras parade, sponsored by the Navarre Krewe of Jesters.
You had to get to the route quite early, since they close the bridge from the mainland to Navarre Beach 30 minutes before the parade started. We got a great viewing spot towards the end of the parade route. I thought it was the beginning of the route, oops. Which mean the beads were being rationed by this point. That’s okay, nothing will beat how much we got last year.
Also, we didn’t realize how many people brought their pets to the parade! There’s so little around here that welcomes pets, we didn’t even think to ask.
Our waiting spot for the parade. We arrived 90 minutes early, we had great viewing. We brought plenty of drinks and snacks.
This is a very brave gentleman. Very friendly too.
He was happy to take pictures with everyone.
Bright shirts, bright sky! This year I ran the 15K in my fastest time!
This past Saturday I ran my third and final Pensacola Double Bridge Run. This year the route was slightly different, and there were medals for the 15K finishers for the first time. This is also the first year the 15K race sold out (I believe they capped it at 2500 runners).
As always, I have to be on the buses before 6am to be transported to the race start, which this year was at the new Pensacola Maritime Park (where the minor league baseball team plays).
A lovely sunrise over my right shoulder (on the left in the picture) before the race started.
The first year I ran this in 2011, the weather was chilly and it was overcast the entire time. There was a brisk north wind that seemingly propelled me across the two bridges. In 2012, the wind was from the south, still overcast, but about 30 degrees warmer. You could wring out my shirt after finishing that one. And a south wind means it felt like I was running in place when on the bridges.
For 2013, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was in the mid-30s at race start, and around 50 degrees by the time we finished. The sun was in our faces, and I even had a little bit of a sunburn!
The sun was in my face during the entire race. With temperatures in the 30s and 40s, it was a welcome addition. I don’t like running with sunglasses, so I was essentially squinting the whole time.
I am testing the MapMyFitness iPhone app for GeekMom; the app mapped my route well, but it seemed to pace me pretty fast: 1:28 hours for the 15K (a little more actually, which is something I’m working out with the company), which is much faster than I usually run. My official race time is around 1:30 hours, which is more realistic.
I’ll say more about the app in my official review.
I also took many pictures on the route, and the pictures geolocate along the route in the app, which is also pretty cool.
One of the 22 pictures I took along the route. Most of them look like this, to be honest. In this case, I’m ascending the Pensacola Beach Bridge (the 2nd bridge of the two). On the entire route, the outermost of the northbound lanes were blocked off for us.
The finish is very inspiring, and the after party is a lot of fun. We finish the race near the Boardwalk section of Pensacola Beach, and the numerous businesses there work together to provide free food and beer to the finishers.
I love my medal! It’s designed in the spirit of my favorite gaudy sign (linked photo courtesy of Fotomom)!
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