Our trip to Disney World!

As a Christmas present to Scott, I booked us a trip to Disney World for a long weekend! I chose the weekend of the Walt Disney World Marathon, and registered myself for the Half Marathon. I had to do this back in APRIL, and I kept it a secret until Christmas! Don't ask me how, since I am not good at keeping secrets... although I have a feeling I may have been a bit distracted in the months leading up to August....


We flew in on Friday evening. We lost 3 hours due to the time difference, so we were a bit... off. The race was starting at 6am, and I had to be on the shuttle by 4am. This meant that I had to get up at 3am. Is anyone calculating the time difference from California? That's right, to us it felt like.... midnight.

This is the first race that I've ever carried a camera through, and it was SO worth it! Here is the starting line- check out our race hosts on the stage (off to the left).


About 1.5 miles into the race, a friend from my running team found me. Among 15,000 people, she just happened to catch up and we ran the entire thing together! This was a blessing- we pushed each other along through the tough spots, and got to enjoy the fun ones together. We stopped in Magic Kingdom to get the obligatory pictures with the characters (check out how red my face gets when I run!):


After the race, Scott and I headed to the VIP tent (called the Race Retreat). Since this trip was his Christmas present, I decided it would only be fair to buy him a VIP ticket to thank him for the many races he's supported me through- especially these early, early mornings! We enjoyed a good breakfast, comfy seating, a big screen shot of the finish line, and massages. SO worth it!


Then it was time to play! After a trip to the hotel to shower and load up on painkillers, we headed out to Epcot to begin the rest of our weekend as big kids. Epcot was fantastic- and very much appropriate for adults to play! We went on what quickly became my favorite ride of all-time, Soarin'. Soarin' took us on a hang-gliding simulation all over the state of California! It was absolutely wonderful. We talked about that ride for the rest of the trip.


That night we went to Downtown Disney for food and drinks (and a bit of shopping). And wouldn't you know it? I found a scrapbook store!!


The next day was all about Magic Kingdom. After oversleeping by an hour and a half (we were EXHAUSTED from the early morning the day before), we headed to the Monorail and made our way to MK. Magic Kingdom is exactly like Disneyland, if you've been there. This was very nostalgic for both of us, since we had both been to Disneyland as little kids.


We stayed for fireworks that night, which were spectacular! And I just couldn't stop taking pictures of this castle! It kept changing colors, but you can guess which was my favorite:


On Monday morning, we knew we just had a few hours of play time left before heading to the airport. So we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Universal Studios) and immediately hit up the Tower of Terror.

OMG. What a ride.


Then we wandered around Hollywood Studios for a while, not wanting to leave any sooner than we absolutely had to. We wandered right onto this "movie set" of San Francisco. The buildings on the sides are real (as in, 3-dimensional), but the hill headed upwards is just a wall (starting where those white barriers are). Is that obvious to you? It was pretty darn realistic in person. I was impressed.



And now we're back into the swing of things! Sorry for the blog break (although I'm convinced that a total of three people read this... so I apologize to you three). I have many drafts begun already, so come back soon!