We're All In!

Hey Everyone!  

This has been another busy week!  Lately, that seems to be the new normal around here. But I'm not complaining; I like to be busy.  It's a lot better than being bored. Nevertheless, I can't believe that it's already Friday!

My parents and brother came to visit over the weekend.  We had a great Easter Sunday. As I mentioned the other day, it was also my Mom's birthday on Sunday.  Usually she and Dad are away on their post tax season vacation over her birthday.  But this year, they decided to go away a little later than usual so Dad could do more work before his April 30th deadline.  Therefore, this was the first time in years that we were all together to celebrate Easter and Mom's birthday!

Mom didn't really want to do anything in particular.  Her only request was that we go somewhere new and enjoy the spring weather.  We ended up having brunch at IHOP before going over to the local beach.  Eliot and I had never been there, and we can get special parking passes since we live here.  It sounded like a good plan so off we went!

We enjoyed the sun, surf and relaxation.  We were some of the only people on the entire beach!  It was far too windy to play ball so we left the toys in the car.  However, we all got to blow bubbles.  Well, the wind blew the bubbles for us anyways!  Since we had large bubble wands, the bubbles were huge!  Each dip into the solution could easily yield 20+ bubbles when the wind blew.  It was a lot of fun.

Next, we decided to go exploring some more and we all went to find a campground we were interested in going to this summer.  It's still early in the season, so there wasn't much to see, but it was nice to know where it was.  After locating our destination, Mom requested that we have some ice cream at Dairy Queen.  It wasn't birthday cake, but it sure was yummy!

It was nice to see my parents and brother.  (I don't think we've all been in the same place at the same time since we went to Disney World!)  While we were together, we talked about the 2015 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.  Eliot and I had been planning to participate in it again. We assumed my family would be joining us, but we'd never actually talked about it.  I took the opportunity to ask everyone what their thoughts were...

Tuesday a few minutes before noon, Eliot and I sat at our computers ready to register. Eliot was registering himself, while I had the daunting task of registering 4 people.  I had a plan in place, and I was poised and ready to go.  After probably a hundred refreshes, (enough to crash on the site multiple times anyways) we were finally able to register.

Photo Source: RunDisney Website

Thankfully, my pre-planning worked.  I successfully got my mother and myself registered before I less frantically registered my brother and father.  And Eliot was registered before I finished.  A few hours later, some of the races were already filling up and selling out!

Here are the results of our registration for WDW Marathon Weekend 2015:

Melissa- Minnie 10K (6.2 miles)
Mom- Minnie 10K (6.2 miles)
Jeremy- Donald Half Marathon (13.1 miles)
Dad- Donald Half Marathon (13.1 miles)
Eliot- Goofy Challenge (Donald Half Marathon + Mickey Full Marathon= 39.3 miles)

My Mom and I both signed up to do the 10K that we originally planned on doing this year (2014) before it sold out.  I'm happy with this choice since I didn't finish the half this year. I'm confident that Mom and I can do the 6 miles together.  It will be a fun mother/daughter activity.  I'm focusing on finishing this race before eventually working towards doing the Princess and Tinker Bell half marathons.

Jeremy and Dad both decided that if they could do the half marathon this year, they could probably do it again next year.  I actually thought they might do the 10K with Mom and I so they could get a different medal.  But I'm excited that we can watch them and cheer them on when they cross the finish line!  (And the guys will be able to see us cross the finish line of the 10K!)  Plus, Eliot will also be doing the half on his quest to complete the Goofy Challenge.  Since all three of them are in the half marathon, Mom and I might even do the ChEar Squad so we can get a good view of the finish line!

Photo Source: RunDisney Facebook Page

Finally, my husband was seduced by the shiny 10 year anniversary Goofy medal.  To be fair, he's been waffling back and forth between the full marathon and doing Goofy ever since we got back from Florida.  He was leaning towards the full marathon, and then runDisney released the photo of the anniversary medal on their Facebook page.  Yep, that was all he needed.  I am very proud of him for challenging himself.  I just hope that it all goes well for him!  That's a lot of running over 2 days!

I'm definitely looking forward to going to Walt Disney World again with my family!  Plus, experiencing the races together is an added bonus!  Hopefully we'll all have shiny medals to show off by the end of the trip!  I'm also thinking about designing different t-shirts to coordinate with each of our races.  It would make for some fun photos!  I'm excited!

We're officially "all in" for Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 2015!!!  °o°