Having lived in the Hampton Roads area and my (Beth's) parents living in NC for the last number of years we are no strangers to hurricane warnings, gusty winds and flooding. When we moved to New Jersey we thought we traded in our hurricanes for blizzards. Apparently we were wrong!
The forecasts started looking pretty menacing at the end of last week with landfall predicted for somewhere in our fair state of New Jersey, storm surges of historic proportions, wind gusts and rainfall on top of it all. Last year we had the experienced one of the joys of home-ownership....a flooded basement following the rainfall from Hurricane Irene. So this year we were more prepared. We had gotten a big wet-vac for Christmas (thanks Karen and Mike!) so we pulled that out of the garage and set it up, ran the hose from the basement window to the street for easy drainage, pulled everything off the lowest shelves, etc. We located our box of candles (apparently we could open our own small Yankee Candle-esque shop!), checked batteries in flashlights, bought some canned food and wine and hunkered down, ready for the storm.
Sunday night into Monday weren't bad at all. We spent Monday cleaning the house, organizing things that had been neglected, vacuuming and all that fun stuff; basically taking advantage of Eddie being off of work. (This was the kind of work we usually have to do at night after Henry goes to bed, which neither of us ever feel like doing!) As the day progressed the winds started to pick up and the rain started falling (but not much). We kept the TV on all day and were amazed to see the flooding along the shore and coast even well before high tide. It was clear that it wasn't going to be a good night for many people.
By nightfall the wind was getting pretty strong and we were thankful that it did not rain much. Karen and Mike joined us for the evening (since the in-laws had lost power) and they reported lots of downed trees already. We put Henry to bed, broke out the moscato and hunkered down to watch the TV reports. (Sidenote: There was some hilarity when I discovered the twitter profile of "El Bloombito", which is a fake twitter account of NYC Mayor Bloomberg who always speaks Spanish at the end of his press conferences. The fake account is a spanglish version of a mixture of real things he might say along with some humor. It has made me laugh many times over the last few days.) We went to bed around 11pm and as I climbed into bed the power went out.
The wind howled and I had a hard time falling asleep with visions of flying debris and eventual flooding of our basement in my head. Thankfully when we got up in the morning we found only a few small branches and twigs down in our yard and a dry basement. We were still without power but we felt pretty lucky considering what we had prepared ourselves for.
We packed up some things and came over to Eddie's grandparents' house since they kept power. We've enjoyed just hanging around with family, playing with Henry and found out this late this afternoon that our power has returned to our house.
Seeing the reports from around the states really make us feel very lucky that we are all well, our house is safe and we had a warm place to stay.
Thank you to all of you that called, Facebooked, etc. your concern for us!
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Alphabet Adventure: Letter E
I'm not sure if it was the letter itself or just our moods/schedule last week but Letter E week was not very exciting. I had grand plans to do superfun activities with plastic Easter Eggs (like these), make a cute elephant craft, etc. but Henry was more interested in playing with his trains (he's OBSESSED right now) and I wasn't feeling creative so we had a simple week.
The Letter E craft for the week was an easy one. I used this as my inspiration but just had him color in these eggs, I cut them out and Henry glued them on a big letter E that I had cut out ahead of time.
We had "breakfast for dinner" one night and experimented with Picture Frame Eggs. I could only find our music note cookie cutter so that's what we used. Henry enjoyed the process but didn't care too much for the final product.
Other random notes from E week:
-We rode on an escalator and in an elevator at IKEA on Tuesday. I note the day of the week because they have free kids meals on Tuesdays. So we had some E fun (Henry loves escalators) and free lunch.
-I printed out the E sheet from the Tot Time Notebook ABC Tracing and Coloring Sheet. I've been doing this each week and Henry likes the pages. We're not pushing learning how to write the letters right now but he does like to try to trace the shapes and color in the pictures.
-The libraries in our area all have the alphabet book by Jane Moncure. Each letter book tells a story about a character that puts things that start with that letter in a "sound box". Henry LOVES these books and they are an easy way to illustrate letter sounds with familiar objects.
That's about all for E week!
The Letter E craft for the week was an easy one. I used this as my inspiration but just had him color in these eggs, I cut them out and Henry glued them on a big letter E that I had cut out ahead of time.
We had "breakfast for dinner" one night and experimented with Picture Frame Eggs. I could only find our music note cookie cutter so that's what we used. Henry enjoyed the process but didn't care too much for the final product.
Another E activity we did was playing with envelopes in our little mailbox. I wrote the uppercase letters that we've done so far with different colored markers on some small envelopes. I used the same markers to write their lowercase counterparts on a few sheets of paper and put them in their matching letter envelopes. I wasn't expecting Henry to actually sort and do much with these but wanted to have some lowercase letters hanging around since the majority of what toys, videos, etc. have is all uppercase. He enjoyed playing with the papers and putting them in and out of the mailbox. (This is an activity we will bring back at some point when he's older.)
Other random notes from E week:
-We rode on an escalator and in an elevator at IKEA on Tuesday. I note the day of the week because they have free kids meals on Tuesdays. So we had some E fun (Henry loves escalators) and free lunch.
-I printed out the E sheet from the Tot Time Notebook ABC Tracing and Coloring Sheet. I've been doing this each week and Henry likes the pages. We're not pushing learning how to write the letters right now but he does like to try to trace the shapes and color in the pictures.
-The libraries in our area all have the alphabet book by Jane Moncure. Each letter book tells a story about a character that puts things that start with that letter in a "sound box". Henry LOVES these books and they are an easy way to illustrate letter sounds with familiar objects.
That's about all for E week!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Alphabet Adventure: Letter D!
Another week is done...crazy. I can't believe that we're halfway through October, the leaves are falling off the trees and Christmas decorations are out at some stores. Where does the time go?!
We had another good week at Henry's Alphabet Adventure. This week we talked a lot about Ducks, Dinosaurs and Dirt.
Our Letter D craft this week turned out to be probably my favorites thusfar in our adventure. We turned a letter D into a Duck. This one turned out to be done mostly by me so that we didn't end up with a Picasso Duck, which I guess wouldn't have been the end of the world but I wanted to make sure Henry associated Duck with D.
(I noticed when posting this online before that he is drawing with his left hand. He usually draws/writes with his right hand but does other things lefty like batting and golfing. I have a picture from later in the week where he's using his right hand with a marker. Funny.)
D week was quite Delicious! Henry and I made Dirt Dessert, which is such a fun thing to make and to eat. Henry was in charge of smashing the cookies to make the "dirt". He really enjoyed this part of the activity.
He also really enjoyed being on Worm Duty. He didn't last long on this duty because he realized the gummy worms were delicious and started eating them instead of putting them into the dirt. (Smart boy!)
We got to share the Dirt with Eddie's family that night. They all enjoyed it but Henry didn't care about the dessert except for the worms, which he insisted be cleaned off before he ate them. (Strange boy!)
One night during the week Eddie and I took Henry to the local firestation because they were holding an Open House for Fire Prevention Week. We all had a really good time. Henry LOVED it all, especially getting to ride around the block in a fire truck! (I know Fire Truck has nothing to do with D week but he was so cute I had to share!)
After the adventure at the fire station we went to Dunkin Donuts so that Eddie could partake in some D Week fun too.
We also took a trip to the Dollar Store and found a fun pack of little dinosaurs that we brought home. We had some fun making dino footprints in Play-doh.
Henry has loved using bingo markers/dabbers for quite some time now so I was excited to find out that there are a lot of free printables on the internet that have the kiddos use their bingo markers to follow patters, make letters/shapes, etc. (They are frequently called "Do A Dot" in case you are googling for them.) I found a neat set on another mommyblog that goes with the alphabet that we haven't used much yet but I tried them out with Henry this week. He had fun and after going nuts on the first one he was more thoughtful/careful with putting the marker down only on the dots.
One thing that I loved about us working at a college (and now just Eddie working at one) is being able to be involved on campus in fun ways. I remember working at CNU pre-Henry and loving seeing our colleagues bringing their families to various campus events. The kids always thought it was really cool and the students (I think anyway) liked having little kids around. I am enjoying being able to bring Henry to Eddie's office for lunches now and again and also taking him to events on campus. One of the highlights of this week was getting to have some fun at Octoberfest at Ramapo College (where Eddie works). The event was for students and their families so there was a plethora of fun things to do like inflatable obstacle courses, balloons, carnival games, etc. Henry was in heaven!
One of his favorite things actually fit in with D week! It was a giant inflatable dragon that you could walk through!
We had quite a few D books in our collection at home (Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs by Sandra Boynton is a Henry-favorite) but I also got a few at the library. Turns out that there were two superpicks out of what we brought home! (We've even had to read them into E week!)
Dimity Duck by Jane Yolen and Duck Goes Potty by Michael Dahl were both hits. We read them dozens of times and they made Henry giggle, which made me giggle so everyone wins!
We had another good week at Henry's Alphabet Adventure. This week we talked a lot about Ducks, Dinosaurs and Dirt.
Our Letter D craft this week turned out to be probably my favorites thusfar in our adventure. We turned a letter D into a Duck. This one turned out to be done mostly by me so that we didn't end up with a Picasso Duck, which I guess wouldn't have been the end of the world but I wanted to make sure Henry associated Duck with D.
D week was quite Delicious! Henry and I made Dirt Dessert, which is such a fun thing to make and to eat. Henry was in charge of smashing the cookies to make the "dirt". He really enjoyed this part of the activity.
He also really enjoyed being on Worm Duty. He didn't last long on this duty because he realized the gummy worms were delicious and started eating them instead of putting them into the dirt. (Smart boy!)
One night during the week Eddie and I took Henry to the local firestation because they were holding an Open House for Fire Prevention Week. We all had a really good time. Henry LOVED it all, especially getting to ride around the block in a fire truck! (I know Fire Truck has nothing to do with D week but he was so cute I had to share!)
After the adventure at the fire station we went to Dunkin Donuts so that Eddie could partake in some D Week fun too.
We also took a trip to the Dollar Store and found a fun pack of little dinosaurs that we brought home. We had some fun making dino footprints in Play-doh.
Henry has loved using bingo markers/dabbers for quite some time now so I was excited to find out that there are a lot of free printables on the internet that have the kiddos use their bingo markers to follow patters, make letters/shapes, etc. (They are frequently called "Do A Dot" in case you are googling for them.) I found a neat set on another mommyblog that goes with the alphabet that we haven't used much yet but I tried them out with Henry this week. He had fun and after going nuts on the first one he was more thoughtful/careful with putting the marker down only on the dots.
One thing that I loved about us working at a college (and now just Eddie working at one) is being able to be involved on campus in fun ways. I remember working at CNU pre-Henry and loving seeing our colleagues bringing their families to various campus events. The kids always thought it was really cool and the students (I think anyway) liked having little kids around. I am enjoying being able to bring Henry to Eddie's office for lunches now and again and also taking him to events on campus. One of the highlights of this week was getting to have some fun at Octoberfest at Ramapo College (where Eddie works). The event was for students and their families so there was a plethora of fun things to do like inflatable obstacle courses, balloons, carnival games, etc. Henry was in heaven!
One of his favorite things actually fit in with D week! It was a giant inflatable dragon that you could walk through!
(Thanks to Kat for being our official photographer!)
We had quite a few D books in our collection at home (Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs by Sandra Boynton is a Henry-favorite) but I also got a few at the library. Turns out that there were two superpicks out of what we brought home! (We've even had to read them into E week!)
Dimity Duck by Jane Yolen and Duck Goes Potty by Michael Dahl were both hits. We read them dozens of times and they made Henry giggle, which made me giggle so everyone wins!
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Alphabet Adventure: Letter C
Letter C Week started out with a spur-of-the-moment trip to a local Craft fair. We didn't purchase any crafts or really talk about what a craft was so this doesn't really count. The only thing Henry got super-excited about was getting to climb in and on a firetruck (NOT a C word!). But he sure looked cute (c word!) doing it! (Thanks to M for taking this picture on her phone.)
Our Letter C craft this week was a Caterpillar shaped like a C. I printed the circles on cardstock and then let Henry paint them. This week we experimented with sponge painting. Henry didn't really want to stamp the sponges but liked smearing the paint around with the sponges. After the paint dried I cut the circles out and then we worked together to glue them to a C that I had cut out. He kept calling it his "hungry petapillar" so we made sure to watch an animated version of the story online and read the book after we finished the project.
I'm trying to do more cooking with Henry so this week we made cookies and also carrot bread. Henry didn't really do much assisting with the carrot bread as he was too busy chomping a giant carrot and Skyping with my parents while I did the rest of the cooking. (I had never made carrot bread before but it is pretty tasty. It was a good way to use up some carrots that were just sitting in the fridge.)
Here is Chef Henry on cookie day, wearing the apron and chef's hat that our friend Meredith made for him for his birthday:
We finished up C week with a big road trip south to Clemson! Eddie and I had not been to campus since 2009 so we were excited (especially Eddie) to share it with Henry. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with a former student that we worked with at CNU who is now going to grad school there. She was a perfect hostess and even helped us celebrate C week by having cookies for Henry to decorate!
We all went to the big football game on Saturday. We headed to campus early to enjoy some tailgating and to watch the marching band's pre-game performance. Henry was a trooper all day, especially considering he had to skip his nap because of game time. His favorite parts of the game were the balloons they let go at the start of the game, the fireworks after each score and getting to spell C-L-E-M-S-O-N over and over again during Tiger Rag.
Our Letter C craft this week was a Caterpillar shaped like a C. I printed the circles on cardstock and then let Henry paint them. This week we experimented with sponge painting. Henry didn't really want to stamp the sponges but liked smearing the paint around with the sponges. After the paint dried I cut the circles out and then we worked together to glue them to a C that I had cut out. He kept calling it his "hungry petapillar" so we made sure to watch an animated version of the story online and read the book after we finished the project.
I'm trying to do more cooking with Henry so this week we made cookies and also carrot bread. Henry didn't really do much assisting with the carrot bread as he was too busy chomping a giant carrot and Skyping with my parents while I did the rest of the cooking. (I had never made carrot bread before but it is pretty tasty. It was a good way to use up some carrots that were just sitting in the fridge.)
Here is Chef Henry on cookie day, wearing the apron and chef's hat that our friend Meredith made for him for his birthday:
We finished up C week with a big road trip south to Clemson! Eddie and I had not been to campus since 2009 so we were excited (especially Eddie) to share it with Henry. We were lucky enough to be able to stay with a former student that we worked with at CNU who is now going to grad school there. She was a perfect hostess and even helped us celebrate C week by having cookies for Henry to decorate!
We all went to the big football game on Saturday. We headed to campus early to enjoy some tailgating and to watch the marching band's pre-game performance. Henry was a trooper all day, especially considering he had to skip his nap because of game time. His favorite parts of the game were the balloons they let go at the start of the game, the fireworks after each score and getting to spell C-L-E-M-S-O-N over and over again during Tiger Rag.
It was a really great weekend for our little family. Henry was a super-trooper in the car and it was fun to share things with him. He and I looked through the pictures from the weekend on the computer this morning and he got excited about everything all over again. It's fun to know that we are building memories.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Alphabet Adventure: Letter B Week
After a successful Letter A week we bounded into B week with a trip into the city (New York City) to the Broadway Flea Market with some friends. We checked out the flea market and then met up with another friend in Bryant Park. Henry LOVED chasing the birds (another B word!) and got to ride on the carousel (not a B word but it was a fun thing for him to do). It was neat to watch him looking around at everything in the city. It will be fun to do this more as he gets older.
For our B Week Letter B craft we decorated a B to look like a bee.
My parents came into town on Tuesday so they got to have some Letter B fun with us.
We made a delicious Banana Cream Pie. Henry had fun making the pie (especially smashing the graham crackers for the crust with his hammer!) but didn't really like the product.
We experimented with a Glow Bath. This was Henry's favorite activity of the week. I found the information about it online and thought it looked and sounded awesome. I used a few highlighters to make the water black-light reactive, tossed in some glowsticks and glow in the dark animals (both from the dollar store) and flipped on the blacklight. The water did not glow brightly like I hoped but it still looked pretty cool, mostly because of the glowsticks.
Henry played for a long time in the glow bath. We ended up draining out the highlighter water and filled the tub again and put some Johnson and Johnson vapor bath soap in (Henry had a stuffy nose last week) and the glowsticks looked really neat under the bubbles. In the future we'll just skip the highlighter part of the activity and use bubbles.
Note: The Dollar Tree around here has packs of 15 glowsticks for a dollar. We did a second glow-bath later in the week sans-hightlighter water and three glowsticks with some bubbles were enough to amuse Henry for quite a while.
Bubble beard in the bath:
We also experimented with painting with bubbles. It took us a little bit to get the technique down but once we figured out it worked best to get clusters right down on the paper and let them sit until they popped we had some success.
For our B Week Letter B craft we decorated a B to look like a bee.
My parents came into town on Tuesday so they got to have some Letter B fun with us.
We made a delicious Banana Cream Pie. Henry had fun making the pie (especially smashing the graham crackers for the crust with his hammer!) but didn't really like the product.
We experimented with a Glow Bath. This was Henry's favorite activity of the week. I found the information about it online and thought it looked and sounded awesome. I used a few highlighters to make the water black-light reactive, tossed in some glowsticks and glow in the dark animals (both from the dollar store) and flipped on the blacklight. The water did not glow brightly like I hoped but it still looked pretty cool, mostly because of the glowsticks.
Henry played for a long time in the glow bath. We ended up draining out the highlighter water and filled the tub again and put some Johnson and Johnson vapor bath soap in (Henry had a stuffy nose last week) and the glowsticks looked really neat under the bubbles. In the future we'll just skip the highlighter part of the activity and use bubbles.
Note: The Dollar Tree around here has packs of 15 glowsticks for a dollar. We did a second glow-bath later in the week sans-hightlighter water and three glowsticks with some bubbles were enough to amuse Henry for quite a while.
Bubble beard in the bath:
We also experimented with painting with bubbles. It took us a little bit to get the technique down but once we figured out it worked best to get clusters right down on the paper and let them sit until they popped we had some success.
We also read lots of books that featured the letter B like Baby Beluga and Little Pig Joins the Band.
Overall, another good week of Alphabet Adventure. On to Letter C!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Alphabet Adventure: Letter A Week!
Note: The draft of this entry has been in my blog all week and I kept forgetting to post! We are already almost done with B week but here is A week!
A while ago I stumbled on some really great websites and blogs of other stay-at-home mothers that are doing "tot school" with their little ones. These varied from really structured curriculums to loosely themed weeks for the kids. I liked a lot of what I was seeing and decided that once Henry turned 2 that we'd embark on an "Alphabet Adventure" where each week we would concentrate on a different letter. He's always seemed interested in learning new things and has a tremendous memory so I figured we would both benefit from adding a "structured" part of our days at home.
I've collected a good deal of supplies, learning toys, games, etc. over the summer and have planned out a lot of what we're going to do over the next 26 weeks. It's been fun seeing what other mothers are doing and putting together plans for what Henry and I can do together.
Each week will have consistent components:
-Letter and shape dry-erase activities (a lot of tracing and circling) having to do with the letter of the week and various skills (like straight lines, curved lines, shapes, etc.). These are compiled in sheet protectors in his "school book" that I made for him. I printed the coversheet with some things that he really likes (train and Little Einsteins' rocket). He can write right on the sheet protectors and we can wipe them off so he can do the worksheets over and over throughout the week.
-Letter of the Week craft: We'll make a craft that incorporates the letter using something that starts with that letter. (i.e. apple print A, a D with feathers and a bill to make it a duck, etc.)
-Magnet/Dot Sheets: Henry loves playing with small magnets that I got at the dollar store and also bingo dotters/daubers. I've found that there are a lot of printables online that offer shapes, letters, etc. with open dots for kids to fill in with magnets or dots. I taped a sheet protector to an extra cookie sheet that we had and I can slide the worksheet into it and Henry can move the magnets around as he wants. (He LOVES this. I will probably post about this again later.)
-Three different "tot trays" with activities corresponding (when I can) with the letter of the week. These trays have activities that he can do by himself or with a little guidance from me. I have them in baskets under our coffee table for him to explore as he wants.
-Practical skill practice activities like gluing, hand washing, spreading butter, cooking, etc.
-Books gathered that go with letter of the week
This week we started our Alphabet Adventure with the letter A!
We got an early start since the family had their annual trip to Masker Orchard for apple picking. Henry got really into it and practically ate his weight in apples! When we got home Henry helped make an apple pie!
His "school book" had some uppercase and lowercase letter As in it that have dotted lines to encourage tracing. He's been calling them "railroad tracks" and is actually doing okay tracing the lines. He's used his book on his own this week, which is fun to see!
Other things we did:
-We used an apple cut in half to make an apple-print A craft for the alphabet book we'll put together as we go through the adventure.
-He practiced using his "chop sticks" (giant wooden tweezers) to transfer acorns from one container to another.
-His animals went on airplane rides during playtime.
-We read A books we got from the library like "Amanda and Her Alligator" by Mo Willems.
-We visited the animals at the local nature park.
-He and Daddy made a construction paper ant.
-We made and ate "Ants on the Log" using celery from Eddie's parents' garden. (Henry LOVED this!)
-We made an apple tree using a recycled toilet paper roll, some cardboard from our recycling bin and a few red pom-poms. The finished product was pretty cute.
Here is a picture of Henry "working" at his desk.
One Letter Adventure Week down, 25 to go!
A while ago I stumbled on some really great websites and blogs of other stay-at-home mothers that are doing "tot school" with their little ones. These varied from really structured curriculums to loosely themed weeks for the kids. I liked a lot of what I was seeing and decided that once Henry turned 2 that we'd embark on an "Alphabet Adventure" where each week we would concentrate on a different letter. He's always seemed interested in learning new things and has a tremendous memory so I figured we would both benefit from adding a "structured" part of our days at home.
I've collected a good deal of supplies, learning toys, games, etc. over the summer and have planned out a lot of what we're going to do over the next 26 weeks. It's been fun seeing what other mothers are doing and putting together plans for what Henry and I can do together.
Each week will have consistent components:
-Letter and shape dry-erase activities (a lot of tracing and circling) having to do with the letter of the week and various skills (like straight lines, curved lines, shapes, etc.). These are compiled in sheet protectors in his "school book" that I made for him. I printed the coversheet with some things that he really likes (train and Little Einsteins' rocket). He can write right on the sheet protectors and we can wipe them off so he can do the worksheets over and over throughout the week.
-Letter of the Week craft: We'll make a craft that incorporates the letter using something that starts with that letter. (i.e. apple print A, a D with feathers and a bill to make it a duck, etc.)
-Magnet/Dot Sheets: Henry loves playing with small magnets that I got at the dollar store and also bingo dotters/daubers. I've found that there are a lot of printables online that offer shapes, letters, etc. with open dots for kids to fill in with magnets or dots. I taped a sheet protector to an extra cookie sheet that we had and I can slide the worksheet into it and Henry can move the magnets around as he wants. (He LOVES this. I will probably post about this again later.)
-Three different "tot trays" with activities corresponding (when I can) with the letter of the week. These trays have activities that he can do by himself or with a little guidance from me. I have them in baskets under our coffee table for him to explore as he wants.
-Practical skill practice activities like gluing, hand washing, spreading butter, cooking, etc.
-Books gathered that go with letter of the week
This week we started our Alphabet Adventure with the letter A!
We got an early start since the family had their annual trip to Masker Orchard for apple picking. Henry got really into it and practically ate his weight in apples! When we got home Henry helped make an apple pie!
Other things we did:
-We used an apple cut in half to make an apple-print A craft for the alphabet book we'll put together as we go through the adventure.
-He practiced using his "chop sticks" (giant wooden tweezers) to transfer acorns from one container to another.
-His animals went on airplane rides during playtime.
-We read A books we got from the library like "Amanda and Her Alligator" by Mo Willems.
-We visited the animals at the local nature park.
-He and Daddy made a construction paper ant.
-We made an apple tree using a recycled toilet paper roll, some cardboard from our recycling bin and a few red pom-poms. The finished product was pretty cute.
Here is a picture of Henry "working" at his desk.
One Letter Adventure Week down, 25 to go!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Disneyland Half Marathon
For you blog-regulars you may remember reading a copious amount of posts leading up to the Disney World Half-Marathon late last fall. You may be surprised to read that I ran another half-marathon last weekend! I didn't write much about it here mostly because I wasn't writing much here, about anything....also my training was sporadic.
But I do want to write about my experience to share it with my readers but also for myself to reference in the future.
After we finished our races at Disney World in January, we (the Seavers Siblings) decided we wanted to take on Disney's Coast to Coast Challenge. They offer a bonus "Coast to Coast" medal to runners who completed a half-marathon (or longer) at Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California in the same calendar year. Yes...we were suckered in by the bonus race "bling". But you have to admit, it's pretty awesome:
As I noted before, my training for this half-marathon (13.1 miles) was sporadic, disorganized, lazy, etc. Part of the issue was the fact that I spent a lot of the summer away in VA/NC where I was busy with work/family/friends and it was approximately 402 degrees with 140% humidity even at 6:30am. Also, I didn't feel much inspiration to run and didn't really get back into my stride (get it...stride?!) until August, which was a little close to the race! My longest training run was only 10 miles because my 12 mile training run was scratched due to a hard lesson learned about putting Bengay-esque muscle cream on your feet the night before you run. (It makes your feet feel like they are on fire, causing you to douse them mid-run with the grape flavored sports water in the middle of the running/walking/biking trail....twice. I also ended up walking part of that "run" barefoot. Ugh. It was not fun!)
I went into the race weekend knowing that I wasn't going to be near my time from the Disney World half from January. This was disappointing in many ways but there wasn't anything I could do about it so I set a goal of 2:10 (that's two hours and ten minutes), which I wasn't even sure I could do based on my pace from my longest training run of 10 miles.
Ellen, Karen, Kevin, Mike and I got dropped off at the airport on Friday afternoon and started our journey west. We flew American Airlines and enjoyed their pre-flight safety video. (The man around 2:55 was our favorite part and we quoted his safety tip often during the weekend.) We had a short layover in Dallas before making it to California. (Ellen and Mike checked two states off their list that day!) Karen had arranged a shuttle for us to take us to our hotel so we met them and began our drive to Anaheim from LAX airport. We made it to the hotel around 1am local time, which felt like 4am home time! After dealing with some confusion about our reservation. (They told us that they room "held 5" but only had "two queen beds"....I mean, the room could have held 30 people but that doesn't mean there would be a place for everyone to sleep!) We got a roll-away cot delivered and had to rearrange furniture and put some chairs in our closet in order to make room. But at that point it was like 4am and we were a bit punchy (everything was hilarious!) and we just wanted to get to sleep.
The race expo opened at 9 so we planned to get there in time for that. It didn't turn out to be so bad getting up for it since our bodies thought 9am was noon. We had free breakfast at our hotel and then headed to the Disneyland Resort Hotel to get our race bibs and see the expo. Our hotel location was PERFECT as it was literally across the street from the Disney Parks and a short walk to Downtown Disney and the expo site. We picked up our bibs and explored the expo. For those of you non-runners reading this, the expo is a big convention hall full of vendors selling all sorts of running paraphernalia ranging from athletic wear (including running tutus) to energy bars, custom medal framing and muscle stretchers.
After the expo we headed into Disneyland. I had visited the park back in November 2009 when I was there for an orientation conference. The park has some of the same rides and attractions as Disney World but feels a lot different. The castle, for example, is TINY. I enjoy the park but find it a lot less magical than Disney World. Small castle aside, we enjoyed riding the rides, looking for hidden Mickeys and figuring out what we should eat with the race the next morning. We ended the night with a delicious meal at a Panera-esque restaurant in Downtown Disney. I really enjoyed my day with everyone. Since I am an only child I enjoy getting to have siblings of my own now thanks to marrying Eddie.
We headed back to the hotel for an early bedtime since we had to be in our starting corrals for the race by 5:00am.
The alarm went off at 3:35 and we started getting geared up. The hotel provided "breakfast" early for runners but it turned out to be some fruit and granola bars. It wasn't bad, I suppose, but no bagels, oatmeal, etc. that they had offered the day before. We headed out of our hotel around 4:30am and joined a sea of runners heading towards the start. When I say sea of runners, I'm not exaggerating. 14,836 people FINISHED the race so add on however many people started but didn't make it to the end!
We hit up bathrooms along the way (integral part of race prep!) and made our way to our starting corrals. Runners are broken down into a handful of groups based on either previous race times or estimated times. This keeps the elite (read: FAST) runners in the front where they aren't going to run over those less fast runners. Disney does things right: The National Anthem was complete with red rockets glaring at the appropriate time, there were countdowns for each corral's start, characters at the start, etc.
The weather was cool and not humid, which is my favorite! I was feeling really good at this point, both mentally and physically. (For me, mental state is almost a bigger deal than physical state when I run.) I started my watch, turned on my iPod and was off!
I had looked at the course map the night before and determined that the race had three parts:
1) Miles 1-4.something: Through The Parks
I enjoyed this part of the run, especially the part that took us through the California Adventure park because I had never been to that park. I really liked seeing all of the various sections of the park, especially the new Cars-land. (We had watched the movie for the first time the week before the race and I'm really glad that I did....that part of the park looked JUST like the movie!) The sun hadn't really come up yet so the lights were really neat. There were a handful of costumed characters in the parks. There were not a lot of spectator spots, which was very different from the race in Disney World. One frustrating part of this leg of the race was the first water station, which was set up in a narrow spot of the course and so it caused a bottleneck. I ended up having to basically slow to a walk because of the amount of people.
I knew that I wanted to keep a 10 min/mile pace and not push too hard towards the beginning. I was feeling good so I started to keep a faster pace.
2) Miles 4.something - 9.something: Streets of Anaheim to Angels Stadium
I expected the streets of Anaheim to feel like running through a city but really it was just like a normal town and pretty boring, really. Disney did coordinate local high school marching bands, cheerleaders, dance teams, mariachi dancers, and quite a few Antique Car Clubs to have things to hear and to look at along the way. My favorite part of this leg of the race was watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful.
I was still feeling good at a little faster pace and didn't even start to think like I was tired or didn't want to run anymore. I don't think I've ever felt so good mentally during a race!
In the last month or so I've realized that because my days are usually busy running has become a time for me to be alone in my thoughts and to think about my friends, family and others. Along the race route I found motivation for running by thinking of others that I was reminded of along the way. Things like the antique cars reminding me the strength of a friend who lost a car-enthusiast father to cancer or the sign from a cancer survivor reminding me of my cousin and her family, and even the headband I wore with tiny hearts on it to remind me of Henry and how amazing he was this past spring when he had to get his pacemaker really kept my mind in a good place as I ran.
3) Miles 9.something - 13.1: Stadium to Finish Line
We got to run into Angels Stadium, which was pretty cool. We came in the back right field gate, ran around the perimeter of the field, around home plate and back out towards left field. There were a lot of spectators here and they had the jumbotron on with a video of us running through the stadium. I liked this part of the run a lot and it really pumped me up to push towards the finish.
I still felt pretty good and pushed my pace a little bit more during this last part of the race that took us back towards the parks and to the finish line. I hit the 13 mile marker and pushed for a strong finish. Goofy was hanging out right before the finish so I gave him a high five and finished the race! My running GPS watch said that I had run 13.19 in 2:07:56 and my official Disney time was 13.1 in 2:07:53. Either way I beat my goal time by 2 minutes and felt great! (Seriously, I can't say how good I felt considering I had just run 13.1 miles...runner's high I suppose.)
I collected my finishers medal and then stood in a long line (obnoxious!) to get my Coast to Coast medal.
I picked up my water and snacks and headed to meet up with Kevin and Ellen who had finished ahead of me. We walked back towards the finish and heard them call Karen's name as she finished. We met up with Karen and then found a good place to watch Mike finish. It was his first half-marathon (and only his second race ever!) and he did it...and with a smile on his face! It was a good morning to be a Seavers-Mendez!
We got a post-race picture taken and we walked back to the hotel for showers. Once we were all de-stinkified we headed back to the parks! That's right, we had just completed a 13.1 mile race and we headed out to WALK AROUND the rest of the day. Crazy, but we did it! (That's what happens when you spend the money to fly across the country and get a two-day park pass....you get out there and take advantage!) We finished up what we hadn't done at Disneyland and then went over to California Adventure. I liked seeing that park without having to run through it! The park was fun (though not a place I'd want to spend more than part of a day) and we ended the night by watching their World of Color show, which was really neat. Think Bellagio fountain show with colored lights and Disney soundtrack music.
After the night show we walked back to the hotel, packed our bags and fell into bed since our airport shuttle was picking us up at 4! We all woke up on time and got into the shuttle for the airport. We made it to the airport and through security in plenty of time for our flight. We all wore our medals and race shirts and had two different people ask if we were Olympians.... seriously.
Our flight took us through Chicago's O'Hare airport, which added another state for Ellen and Mike! After a little layover we got on our final flight from Chicago to New York. We landed a few hours later and met up with Eddie's dad, who was our ride home.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend. I really enjoyed spending the time with the siblings and outlaw (what Mike and I call ourselves).
And now starts a new countdown.....126 days until the Disney World FULL Marathon. I've already started my training and am actually looking forward to the whole thing...I may not feel the same way when my long runs are 14..15..16..20 miles. But for now, I'm keeping my positive attitude and enjoying my runs!
But I do want to write about my experience to share it with my readers but also for myself to reference in the future.
After we finished our races at Disney World in January, we (the Seavers Siblings) decided we wanted to take on Disney's Coast to Coast Challenge. They offer a bonus "Coast to Coast" medal to runners who completed a half-marathon (or longer) at Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California in the same calendar year. Yes...we were suckered in by the bonus race "bling". But you have to admit, it's pretty awesome:
As I noted before, my training for this half-marathon (13.1 miles) was sporadic, disorganized, lazy, etc. Part of the issue was the fact that I spent a lot of the summer away in VA/NC where I was busy with work/family/friends and it was approximately 402 degrees with 140% humidity even at 6:30am. Also, I didn't feel much inspiration to run and didn't really get back into my stride (get it...stride?!) until August, which was a little close to the race! My longest training run was only 10 miles because my 12 mile training run was scratched due to a hard lesson learned about putting Bengay-esque muscle cream on your feet the night before you run. (It makes your feet feel like they are on fire, causing you to douse them mid-run with the grape flavored sports water in the middle of the running/walking/biking trail....twice. I also ended up walking part of that "run" barefoot. Ugh. It was not fun!)
I went into the race weekend knowing that I wasn't going to be near my time from the Disney World half from January. This was disappointing in many ways but there wasn't anything I could do about it so I set a goal of 2:10 (that's two hours and ten minutes), which I wasn't even sure I could do based on my pace from my longest training run of 10 miles.
Ellen, Karen, Kevin, Mike and I got dropped off at the airport on Friday afternoon and started our journey west. We flew American Airlines and enjoyed their pre-flight safety video. (The man around 2:55 was our favorite part and we quoted his safety tip often during the weekend.) We had a short layover in Dallas before making it to California. (Ellen and Mike checked two states off their list that day!) Karen had arranged a shuttle for us to take us to our hotel so we met them and began our drive to Anaheim from LAX airport. We made it to the hotel around 1am local time, which felt like 4am home time! After dealing with some confusion about our reservation. (They told us that they room "held 5" but only had "two queen beds"....I mean, the room could have held 30 people but that doesn't mean there would be a place for everyone to sleep!) We got a roll-away cot delivered and had to rearrange furniture and put some chairs in our closet in order to make room. But at that point it was like 4am and we were a bit punchy (everything was hilarious!) and we just wanted to get to sleep.
The race expo opened at 9 so we planned to get there in time for that. It didn't turn out to be so bad getting up for it since our bodies thought 9am was noon. We had free breakfast at our hotel and then headed to the Disneyland Resort Hotel to get our race bibs and see the expo. Our hotel location was PERFECT as it was literally across the street from the Disney Parks and a short walk to Downtown Disney and the expo site. We picked up our bibs and explored the expo. For those of you non-runners reading this, the expo is a big convention hall full of vendors selling all sorts of running paraphernalia ranging from athletic wear (including running tutus) to energy bars, custom medal framing and muscle stretchers.
After the expo we headed into Disneyland. I had visited the park back in November 2009 when I was there for an orientation conference. The park has some of the same rides and attractions as Disney World but feels a lot different. The castle, for example, is TINY. I enjoy the park but find it a lot less magical than Disney World. Small castle aside, we enjoyed riding the rides, looking for hidden Mickeys and figuring out what we should eat with the race the next morning. We ended the night with a delicious meal at a Panera-esque restaurant in Downtown Disney. I really enjoyed my day with everyone. Since I am an only child I enjoy getting to have siblings of my own now thanks to marrying Eddie.
We headed back to the hotel for an early bedtime since we had to be in our starting corrals for the race by 5:00am.
The alarm went off at 3:35 and we started getting geared up. The hotel provided "breakfast" early for runners but it turned out to be some fruit and granola bars. It wasn't bad, I suppose, but no bagels, oatmeal, etc. that they had offered the day before. We headed out of our hotel around 4:30am and joined a sea of runners heading towards the start. When I say sea of runners, I'm not exaggerating. 14,836 people FINISHED the race so add on however many people started but didn't make it to the end!
We hit up bathrooms along the way (integral part of race prep!) and made our way to our starting corrals. Runners are broken down into a handful of groups based on either previous race times or estimated times. This keeps the elite (read: FAST) runners in the front where they aren't going to run over those less fast runners. Disney does things right: The National Anthem was complete with red rockets glaring at the appropriate time, there were countdowns for each corral's start, characters at the start, etc.
The weather was cool and not humid, which is my favorite! I was feeling really good at this point, both mentally and physically. (For me, mental state is almost a bigger deal than physical state when I run.) I started my watch, turned on my iPod and was off!
I had looked at the course map the night before and determined that the race had three parts:
1) Miles 1-4.something: Through The Parks
I enjoyed this part of the run, especially the part that took us through the California Adventure park because I had never been to that park. I really liked seeing all of the various sections of the park, especially the new Cars-land. (We had watched the movie for the first time the week before the race and I'm really glad that I did....that part of the park looked JUST like the movie!) The sun hadn't really come up yet so the lights were really neat. There were a handful of costumed characters in the parks. There were not a lot of spectator spots, which was very different from the race in Disney World. One frustrating part of this leg of the race was the first water station, which was set up in a narrow spot of the course and so it caused a bottleneck. I ended up having to basically slow to a walk because of the amount of people.
I knew that I wanted to keep a 10 min/mile pace and not push too hard towards the beginning. I was feeling good so I started to keep a faster pace.
2) Miles 4.something - 9.something: Streets of Anaheim to Angels Stadium
I expected the streets of Anaheim to feel like running through a city but really it was just like a normal town and pretty boring, really. Disney did coordinate local high school marching bands, cheerleaders, dance teams, mariachi dancers, and quite a few Antique Car Clubs to have things to hear and to look at along the way. My favorite part of this leg of the race was watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful.
I was still feeling good at a little faster pace and didn't even start to think like I was tired or didn't want to run anymore. I don't think I've ever felt so good mentally during a race!
In the last month or so I've realized that because my days are usually busy running has become a time for me to be alone in my thoughts and to think about my friends, family and others. Along the race route I found motivation for running by thinking of others that I was reminded of along the way. Things like the antique cars reminding me the strength of a friend who lost a car-enthusiast father to cancer or the sign from a cancer survivor reminding me of my cousin and her family, and even the headband I wore with tiny hearts on it to remind me of Henry and how amazing he was this past spring when he had to get his pacemaker really kept my mind in a good place as I ran.
3) Miles 9.something - 13.1: Stadium to Finish Line
We got to run into Angels Stadium, which was pretty cool. We came in the back right field gate, ran around the perimeter of the field, around home plate and back out towards left field. There were a lot of spectators here and they had the jumbotron on with a video of us running through the stadium. I liked this part of the run a lot and it really pumped me up to push towards the finish.
I still felt pretty good and pushed my pace a little bit more during this last part of the race that took us back towards the parks and to the finish line. I hit the 13 mile marker and pushed for a strong finish. Goofy was hanging out right before the finish so I gave him a high five and finished the race! My running GPS watch said that I had run 13.19 in 2:07:56 and my official Disney time was 13.1 in 2:07:53. Either way I beat my goal time by 2 minutes and felt great! (Seriously, I can't say how good I felt considering I had just run 13.1 miles...runner's high I suppose.)
I collected my finishers medal and then stood in a long line (obnoxious!) to get my Coast to Coast medal.
I picked up my water and snacks and headed to meet up with Kevin and Ellen who had finished ahead of me. We walked back towards the finish and heard them call Karen's name as she finished. We met up with Karen and then found a good place to watch Mike finish. It was his first half-marathon (and only his second race ever!) and he did it...and with a smile on his face! It was a good morning to be a Seavers-Mendez!
We got a post-race picture taken and we walked back to the hotel for showers. Once we were all de-stinkified we headed back to the parks! That's right, we had just completed a 13.1 mile race and we headed out to WALK AROUND the rest of the day. Crazy, but we did it! (That's what happens when you spend the money to fly across the country and get a two-day park pass....you get out there and take advantage!) We finished up what we hadn't done at Disneyland and then went over to California Adventure. I liked seeing that park without having to run through it! The park was fun (though not a place I'd want to spend more than part of a day) and we ended the night by watching their World of Color show, which was really neat. Think Bellagio fountain show with colored lights and Disney soundtrack music.
After the night show we walked back to the hotel, packed our bags and fell into bed since our airport shuttle was picking us up at 4! We all woke up on time and got into the shuttle for the airport. We made it to the airport and through security in plenty of time for our flight. We all wore our medals and race shirts and had two different people ask if we were Olympians.... seriously.
Our flight took us through Chicago's O'Hare airport, which added another state for Ellen and Mike! After a little layover we got on our final flight from Chicago to New York. We landed a few hours later and met up with Eddie's dad, who was our ride home.
All in all, it was a really fun weekend. I really enjoyed spending the time with the siblings and outlaw (what Mike and I call ourselves).
And now starts a new countdown.....126 days until the Disney World FULL Marathon. I've already started my training and am actually looking forward to the whole thing...I may not feel the same way when my long runs are 14..15..16..20 miles. But for now, I'm keeping my positive attitude and enjoying my runs!
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