Wife Mother Runner #DSMMC Archives

Planning Our Disney Vacation This Spring

March 15, 2016

I don’t usually create a schedule or put together a to do list when it comes to what we will do on our Disney vacations; but this year we are going during a time of year we never went before and I am a little nervous about it. We never go during school vacations because it’s school vacation time and the whole world seems like they are in Disney during that time of year (besides Christmas). But I did some research tonight and am printing out some information and getting my bearings to help make some decisions and plans.

We are also doing things a little different this time. My Star Wars Dark Side Challenge races conveniently fell during the same time we were taking this trip; so some of my park touring may be altered slightly to accommodate my early wake ups for the two races. But we also didn’t purchase an annual pass this year like we always due. Last October the price of the Annual Pass increased to an amount that just wasn’t going to work for us. When we went in January for marathon weekend we were able to purchase park passes with my Dad’s military discount. This time we are going to purchase multi-day park passes through an employee discount website so we can purchase as many days necessary and we will just factor in some non-park days to this trip. All in all we won’t lose much. We just won’t be able to hop on the monorail some nights to go for a spin around the park on the train and do some rides at night. But since we are staying in resorts on the monorail loop we will take advantage of watching the fireworks shows from the beaches.

There are things I would like to do on this trip that we have never done with the kids before. Surprisingly, we haven’t taken them to the following attractions. Don’t judge, there never seems to be enough time and they always want to do their favorites! So here are a few of the attractions that are a must do on the trip list this year:

Enchanted Tiki Room
The Country Bears
Enchanted Tales with Belle
Indiana Jones
Star Wars Launch Pad
Jedi Training Academy for Adrienne
The New Star Wars Symphony in the Stars: A Galactic Spectacular fireworks show at Hollywood Studios

And I would REALLY love to try to be at the Magic Kingdom for rope drop to see the welcome show. I also want to do a water park and this year I found some great discounted tickets for Aquatica. Since we have done Blizzard Beach twice in the past, I am not opposed to trying something different. Again, this trip is about being cost conscious. We will do our grocery shopping and stock up our room with the essentials, water and alcohol to save on the cost of drinks and food and pack our lunches for the parks and mainly eat our dinners in a park or resort. We have a few reservations for some restaurants that we know we want to go to for sure.

The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival will be in full bloom during this trip so I will be doing my research and posting on my blog some great resources for what is happening for kids this time of year at Epcot. I heard that there are a lot of great kid-centric activities going on this year. I also want to have the children go around to each country and have their name written in the language of that country to put into their journals.

I am also planning on participating in Dapper Day and dressing up for the Magic Kingdom. Diana and Mandy and I are going to get all dolled up in cute dresses after the 10K and take pictures in the Magic Kingdom. Dapper Day celebrates “stepping out in style”. There is no specific period of time that is recreated; but the looks are vintage-inspired. Active and retired military are encouraged to wear their dress blues or service uniforms. I have never been a part of this before so I am looking forward to seeing what everyone looks like!

One last thing that I am hoping we will get to see is the Rivers of Light Show at Animal Kiingdom. This show is debuting in April and rumor has it, that it will be opening on Earth Day , which is April 22. So I am keeping an eye out to hear more about it and how we can participate in this event when it starts showing. It would be so neat to be one of the first people to see this new show! I will also blog about this new feature separately, so stay tuned! Despite all of the construction going on in Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, there is still enough for us to do in Hollywood Studios to keep us busy for a few hours that day and also allow us time to rest for the afternoon and then head to another park for the evening.

So as you can see, this trip is going to take a little bit of planning. I’m going to have to figure out which days will be park days, which days will be relax by the pool days and I also have to get to the Expo and fit my races into the vacation. It’ll all work out, this is nothing compared to Marathon Weekend in January! But I also do want the trip to be so busy with activity that it goes by in the blink of an eye either.

What else do you recommend we try on this trip?

2016 One Word Resolution

January 26, 2016

For the past few years I have been using a one word resolution around the new year as the word of my year. Last year the word I chose was Challenge, the previous year was Grow. This year is Joy. I want to bring joy back into my life. I want to bring it back into my running, my work and my entire outlook on things.

Ironically Joy is also a character from the movie Inside Out. I was fortunate enough to be selected last year to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration in Orlando and we had a sneak peek preview of the Movie Inside Out. The main character in the movie is Joy. I connected with her. She ran the main dashboard in the brain of the character Riley. Joy did everything she could to make sure that Riley was happy all of the time. She tried to ward off sadness, fear, anger and disgust. I feel like I am running the dashboard of life and my family’s life like Joy does.

I can’t lie, there have been times in the past year when I was lacking some Joy in my life. There were some really tough times. You may not see that in my blog posts or in my social media posts because I don’t show those sad times. I share the happy events that we are having. Who wants to hear someone complaining about life and the challenges they are up against or the sicknesses that they are fighting? I’d rather share my good news than my bad ones. But that still brings me to my point. There are things that I am going through in many areas of my life where the Joy is missing. I am working on that. That is my plan for this year. To change some of the things that lost some Joy and bring it back.

One area for certain was my running. Last fall I was falling out of love with training – not running, it was the training that I was hating. I was training for my marathons and was struggling with putting in the long runs required. Something happened, I think it was burnout, that made the actual training runs more of a chore than a time of enjoyment for me.

I just completed the Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge a few weeks ago and I enjoy running. The taper weeks leading up to that race were better for me. The pressure was off, the longest run was done and the little runs I did prior to the races were to stay loose and to keep my mind from going stir crazy. Now that I have completed the races I am in a recovery period where I am not pushing hard for speed or high mileage; but just getting out on the road when I want to for my pleasure. I do have to increase my runs soon to prepare for my next races but I am not dreading the training like I did last Fall.

This is a look of pure Joy! I was so glad to have completed my second Dopey challenge and I loved every minute of the races!

I want to add Joy back into my work. In December I was involved with a large project at work that was taking up many hours of my time. I had some very long work weeks; but I was also learning new things. I want to feel the joy of trying new things and testing things out and growing in my career. I had that for some time last year and then things got a little hectic where I felt like I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted to. So I want to make sure that I still enjoy my work and am growing from it.

For my family life things have been a little rough at home. I have to be honest. The kids are fighting a lot; they have been coughing since November and it seems like every 5 minutes someone is complaining to me about something that the other person said. I just had to pause writing this post to play referee about an elastic band that goes around the base of a toothbrush because the kids were fighting over what color they can use even though my husband did rock-paper-scissors with them to make it fair.

It must be something about the middle of winter making everyone nutty. Even though we just had a large snowstorm this past weekend and the kids can go out and sled ride there seems to be something wrong with the snow each time they go out. It’s melting too fast, or the sleds aren’t fast enough. Where’s the joy??? Time for me to don my snow pants and get back out there with them more to make insane sled riding paths and ramps, start a fire in the fire pit and bring the fun back into winter.

Motherhood isn’t easy, I realize that. I want to always have a good time. I know not every day will be days with smiles and happy children and husband. I know every day at work won’t be easy or fun. But I’m trying to change my outlook. I’m trying not to lose my cool. I’m going to work hard this year to fill my life with more Joy!

runDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge Medals Released

December 4, 2015

Are you running the Inaugural Star Wars Dark Side Challenge in April? I am! I try to run almost every inaugural event that runDisney launches. But then that means I have to keep running them so that I can eventually earn legacy status with their special recognition.

Today runDisney launched their medal designs for the Star Wars races in April and they look awesome! I wish I were running the Star Wars challenge in January in California so that I could also earn the Star Wars Kessel Run Challenge Medal. It’s all about the BLING!!!

Photo by runDisney

There was another teaser in the email which was the announcements for the registration dates and race dates for 2016 and some for 2017. As a fellow Mickey Miler, Eddie McCoy pointed out. There is the caveat at the bottom of the list telling us to stay tuned for 2017 additional race dates. Wonder what that means!

Photo by runDisney

Which races will you be running in 2016 and 2017? I will be running the Dopey Challenge, Princess Glass Slipper Challenge, Star wars Dark Side Challenge, Tinkerbell Half Marathon and the Dumbo Double Dare. With intentions of doing Wine and Dine when registration opens.

D23 Expo News

August 17, 2015

The D23 Expo took place August 14-16 in Anaheim, CA and it was a BIG deal this year. I had heard of the expo before and had been curious about it; but never was interested to attend. Then when I was at the Social Media Moms Celebration this past May, Jeffrey Epstein from D23 gave a presentation. The theme of his presentation was “When Did It Start For You?” While I found his presentation interesting, I felt like D23 was going to be a big deal this year. Apparently it was. There were tweets, Facebook posts, Periscopes and video blogs going up everywhere about this year’s D23.

The biggest news is the new addition of Star Wars Land on both the East and West Coast and then the addition of Toy Story Land on the East Coast. The Star Wars and Toy Story Lands will be at Hollywood Studios. Given the recent closings of several attractions at Hollywood Studios it is no surprise that something was going to happen there. If you follow any of the rumors in the Disney community, there has been a lot of chatter about a Star Wars Land coming to Hollywood Studios for a few years now. There was also a rumor that Cars Land would be coming to the East Coast; but I always felt that it belonged in the West Coast to give people a reason to travel out to Disneyland and see all they have to offer.

This is a BIG deal. I have been reading posts on Facebook recently with people showing sections of Anaheim being purchased by Disney. There was talk that it was purchased for a parking garage, to move Disney offices off property from the actual parks to an off-site location.

Source: Slashfilm.com

Star Wars Lands

The plans to bring Star Wars lands to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World is very ambitious. The Star Wars lands will have two signature attractions,. one including the Millennium Falcon and the other that puts guests in the middle of a climatic battle.

Source: Disney Parks Blog

What could this mean for the future of runDisney races? I bet there will be some EPIC races to come to runDisney when these 14- acre lands are completed. Imagine that? Two Star Wars lands on each coast, the coast to coast Star Wars race challenges, the MEDALS! It’s going to be so awesome and I have to take part in it!

Toy Story Land

Toy Story Land sounds awesome to me! Toy Story is one of my favorite movies. The new land being built in Hollywood Studios will give guests the perspective of being the size of a toy and explore the world of Andy’s backyard.

Souce: Disney Parks Blog

Source: Disney Parks Blog

Some of the attractions you can look forward to at Toy Story Land will be a family friendly roller coaster incorporating Slinky Dog’s back as part of the coaster, an Alien saucers attraction with the little green aliens taking a spin in their flying saucers, in addition to the already existing Toy Story Mania.

What does this mean for things already existing at Hollywood Studios like The Osborne Lights? Will this be the last year for it? What else will be going away in Hollywood Studios? Stay tuned to the Disney Park Blog and Twitter and my blog for the latest updates and news!

Inside Out Sneak Peek

June 13, 2015

Prior to our arrival to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, the agenda said that we would be going to Downtown Disney early in the morning on Saturday for a few hours. I suspected that we were going for a movie screening; buT didn’t know which movie we were going to see.

During the General Session on Friday, Jonas Rivera, Producer and Vice President of Production for Pixar happened to mention a little movie coming out called “Inside Out”. It was then, that we learned we were going to get a Sneak Peek into DIsney Pixar’s latest new movie.

Jonas shared with us what goes into the making of an animated picture. He showed us several of the different roles that the artists have and how much work goes into a movie. He said they make a movie nine to ten times before a movie is actually completed! The premise of the movie was inspired by the experiences ones of the team members was having with his tween daughter. I’m sure you all want to know what goes on inside the brains of your children. During Jonas’ presentation we saw movie clips, sketches and the voice artists of all of the characters. I was excited to learn that we were going to see this movie. I wasn’t sure if it would be Inside Out of Tomorrowland for our special sneak peek so I was excited to learn that it was Inside Out. I was even more excited after I saw more about the characters in the movie and the voice personalities.

On Saturday morning, after our ride-along video taping in the Magic Kingdom (more to come on that in a future post), we were bused back from the Magic Kingdom to the Yacht Club where we got on another bus to Downtown Disney around 8:30. When we got to the theater we had to check our cell phones in at the front. No video taping or photographs were allowed during the screening of the film. It was TOP SECRET! We then picked up our Grab and Go breakfast boxes, fruit, muffins, coffee, tea and juice and went to the theater. I have never been to the AMC Theater in Downtown Disney. The seats were very comfortable and the theater was really nice!

Before the movie started we were treated to some previews to Star Wars Rebels coming on Disney XD June 20. We also saw a preview to the new Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. I had seen it before but seeing the preview in the movie theater gave me goose bumps!! I didn’t consider myself a big Star Wars fan (I’m sorry, don’t shoot me!) I like the movies; but I don’t consider myself a Star Wars junkie. But now that I saw the preview I want to watch all of the movies over the next few months to get ready for the new movie. I can’t wait to see it in December!

We had one last surprise before we saw the movie. We Pixar short file called “Lava” which was adorable! We had the chance to see the entire movie but you can see a clip from it here:

Inside Out comes out in theaters on June 19th. We saw two thirds of the movie so we will be going to the theater to see the entire film! It was THAT good! Will you be going to see Inside Out this summer?

Tag: #DSMMC

Planning Our Disney Vacation This Spring

2016 One Word Resolution

runDisney Star Wars Dark Side Challenge Medals Released

D23 Expo News

Inside Out Sneak Peek