Once upon a time, I was a Lazy Lady. In 2011, I decided to train for a half-marathon and since then, I've done 5ks, 10ks, 15ks, a few trail runs and over fifteen half-marathons! I haven't lost my focus though; I'm still lazy, and I'm still frugal, so please pull up a chair and join me in my continuing endeavor to be healthy, frugal, and happy!
I’m so glad that I had the forethought to take today off. I
figured that I would be feeling much better by now, but it doesn’t hurt to have
an extra recovery day, even to just unpack and do grocery shopping that was
skipped over the weekend!
I’m in much less pain today, I don’t even need any Advil or
anything. My left ‘ring’ toe still hurts a lot. I’m beginning to think that I’ve
got the elusive “Black Runner’s Toenail” and it will fall off. I can’t bring
myself to take off my toenail polish though, so I could be way wrong.
As I unpacked all our goodies/swag, I realized that our bag
of pins and keyrings were missing! Oh, no! I think that in the craziness of “THREE
for EIGHT!!”, the little bag she put the pins in where lost somewhere. I shot
off an email to Disney and got a reply back later that day that a CM brought
them to Lost and Found and they would be sent to me soon in the mail. I love
Disney!
Other than unpacking, following up on a week’s worth of
email and Facebook and going grocery shopping, today was a day of chillin’ on
the couch!
Oh, and what did I pick up at the grocery store, you should
ask? Well, I think it’s my Celebration
Cake! Many, many (MANY) months ago (seriously, January 2012),
while on DisBoards, I posted the following on the WISH thread that I was going
to order a Publix cake when I crossed the finish line.
I technically ordered it before I even left town, but I
picked it up when I got home. It’s so colorful!
Purple with pink borders and flowers. Wow!
Yellow cake with buttercream frosting from Publix - I don't even bake cakes anymore - these are THAT good!
So sad – today is our last day here. My Princess Weekend is
coming to an end. I’m feeling less sore today, but still taking painkillers
(Aleve).
I always hate packing up on our last day. It seems so…
final. We loaded up the car and ended up
driving over to the Magic Kingdom. It’s
easiest for us to park either here or Epcot, because we usually end our trip at
one of these 2 parks. While in the parking lot, we debated whether or not to
bring our ponchos. We ended up bringing them (I refuse to pay for THREE more!)
and later in the day, we were glad that we had them!
I VOLUNTARILY walked to the front of the lot? YES!
Our first stop was breakfast. Breakfast for me doesn’t always have to be
bacon and eggs. Sometimes it can be FUNNEL CAKE! Funnel cake is really just pancakes that are
too big for their britches, anyway… Of course, by the time we got to Liberty
Square, it began to pour. Out come the ponchos!
We got our treats and tried to decide where to sit – the covered seating
by Sleepy Hollow was (of course) taken by people trying to stay out of the
rain, so we ended up covering our plates with napkins (it was only sprinkling
now) and trekked over to Columbia Harbor House and borrowed a table there. We devoured our funnel cakes, and made a complete
mess of ourselves, but man, it was a good funnel cake.
Behold the beauty of a Sleepy Hollow Funnel Cake
I wanted to continue getting photos with my Princesses, so
next, we headed back to New Fantasyland and got in line for Enchanted Tales
with Belle. This is pretty much the only way you can see her in her yellow
dress now (without doing character dining), AND you have to be picked to be in
the little show. I won’t say I was
desperate, but I tried like hell to shiver (like Maurice), clomp (like Felipe)
and march (like a knight), but who did I end up getting? Here’s a hint.
I got to be a Cast Member! Just kidding...
Yes, my favorite character, the Armoire! Jo Ann Worley is such a hoot (I used to watch
reruns of Laugh-In with my parents), and her ooo-OOOO is so fun to mimic.
So, all of us who were picked to be characters
in the show, danced and pranced and whatnot, and then finally is was my turn to
address Belle as the armoire – and how do we do that? By ooo-OOOOing, of
course! I let it rip, and Belle’s mouth
practically fell open. It was really funny! She probably doesn’t see a lot of
little girls (or women) who can hit that note!
Photo courtesy of Disney PhotoPass
Later, every person in the little show gets to have their
photo taken with Belle (the whole reason I wanted to do this), and when it was
my turn, she said to me that I was “quite the singer!” I won’t lie – it felt awesome to hear
that. Hubby was a Knight, so he got his photo taken too.
Photo courtesy of Disney PhotoPass
Exiting Enchanted Tales with Belle, we looked up at the sky
and saw that the clouds were gathering. So glad we brought the ponchos! Our
next stop was a ride on Voyage of the Little Mermaid, which has one of the
coolest queues in the whole park. The
ride itself is cute, but boring, and doesn’t last nearly long enough.
I think it's gonna rain again.
Back outside, we went to meet my next Princess – Ariel, in
her Grotto. We had a nice discussion
about how flippin’ your fins won’t get you too far – legs are required for
jumpin’, dancin’, strollin’ along down the… she couldn’t remember the word and
I told her it was “street”. I told her
that I dressed up as Ursula, which she didn’t approve of, but the character
handler interrupted the conversation to say that she remembered seeing me and
that my costume was pretty cool!
Hubby is all "Women... amiright?"
I really wish I had eyebrows.
The sky is looking even darker as we exited the grotto, but
I had to stop at the Little Mermaid sign for this – Ursula and my bling! I love
this photo, and a version of it is currently my avatar for my Google+ account!
Never underestimate the importance of body language - HAH!
I also took photos with Sebastian, Flounder, and King
Nipples (I mean, King Triton).
Jumpin' jellyfish - that's a big medal!
I am not a guppie!
There's only one problem left, Sebastian.... How much I'm going to miss her
By this time, it was around 3:30 or so, and we were ready
for lunch (linner?). Since we were near
Tomorrowland, we hit up Cosmic Ray’s, which wasn’t busy at all. We got our
nuggets and burgers, and my favorite – PLASTIC CHEESE for the fries, yum!
I was starting to get tired, but I didn’t
want our weekend to end, so we hit up the PeopleMover.
Ridin' the TTA during a Tomorrowland Dance Party makes for some fun times
Yes, I took a photo of my bling ON the
PeopleMover…
And it's fabulous!
It was time to continue Princess Hunting. Our next target was Jasmine, who met over in Adventureland.
I love the frame that Disney PhotoPass offers for this Meet & Greet
This photo makes me crack up - what was I thinking, and was it as bitchy as it looks?
Okay, so after the family got our photo taken, I asked if I could be in the photo by myself (again, trying to get ME and a princess). While we were jostling positions, Aladdin offered me his arm and asked "Do you trust me?" I did a total double take and said "what?", so he asked again, "Do you trust me?" with the cutest little smile evah, and I just freakin' MELTED people. ME, the most stalwart, commonsense "they're just kids" person about lost my knees right there. I popped my eyebrow and said "yes" and took his arm. One of my favorite meets EVER. Swoon.
Jasmine looks like she smelled a fart; Who cares? This is MY street-rat!
A quick ride on Pirates, and then we were off to Frontierland and Big Thunder, hitting FastPass thanks to our Super FastPasses we got when we were stuck in Pirates a few days ago.
Still rockin' the red nails, too - goin' on 3 days and only a few small chips
I love BTMRR, but I can only handle a ride or two, before my
tummy starts to yell at me – especially when I’m full of cheese.
However, full of cheese or not, the Kiddo had been talking
all week about getting a Mickey Bar to celebrate my run, so we stopped at one
of the vendors by the shooting gallery and picked up our celebratory Mickey
Bars. (This may be sacrilegious, but I don’t think they are all that… Give me
popcorn or a caramel sundae any day!).
Mickey Bar with 'chocolatey' coating.....Can I just have another funnel cake?
We ate our Mickey Bars on the way to Tomorrowland - the Kiddo wanted one more spin on Buzz before we left.
How does she get such high scores?
We made a stop at the Castle for one more family photo.
Might not be YOUR kind of family photo, but this is who we are!
Our final stop before heading to the car was a quick trip for
souvenirs. I had seen a cute keychain
online that was a cut-out of a Running Mickey and I really wanted it. I picked up a blue Mickey, a white Mickey and
a pink cutout Mickey (which would decorate my next purchase).
We also got a few pins and shirts. While at the register, there was a couple of
women in front of us who was yelling louder and louder at the poor cashier who
had rung up their purchases. From what I could gather, the women (who were
foreign) thought that ALL keychains were “3 for $8”, but only certain ones
were. Over and over, she hollered “THREE
for EIGHT!!!!” I about lost it, it was
so funny how she got louder and closer to the poor cashier, and the cashier
kept looking at me, trying not to smile, or worse – yell at the customer. My cashier rang up our stuff and bagged it
up and soon we were off to the fancy store across the street – where they sell
purses.
And what kind of purses do they sell? Dooneys of course! After my fondling session, I decided on a
wristlet, which was less than $80, and was FREE after I paid for it with my
Annual Pass discount and Disney Reward dollars.
Front of the bag (Yes, SSE is more important to me than Mickey)
I love DR dollars – I paid for this trip with my Disney Visa, and I get
2% cash (DR dollars) on any Disney purchase. My trip paid for my bag! I went through every single bag to make sure that
the pictures on the side looked good (some had weird patterns), but I finally
settled on this beauty! I love it so
much, and it feels so substantial for being such a small little bag. The next decision will be to decide what to
do with it? Make up bag? Special occasion bag? We’ll see.
Back of the bag, with a most intact Train Station (and very little of the stupid Sorcerer Hat)
We made the sad trek out of the park, with Cast Members
waving at us with big Mickey Hands, and made our way to the ferry (I think). We
picked up our car in the Aladdin lot and took our sad drive home. I hung my medal from the rear-view mirror so
that I could see it, and that 2 hour drive went by quickly.
I’m so proud of myself, and I look forward to doing so many
more of these. I don’t know WHEN (thanks, roof), but this won’t be my last
RunDisney run.
I ran a half-marathon yesterday!!!! I’m gonna wear this medal until they pry it out of my cold dead hands!
You bet your ass I did it!
I’m feelin’ it today!!!! I should’ve ice bath’ed a lot more yesterday, and walked around a lot more before getting on the bus to SSR. Oh, well, I guess lessons learned for next year. Walking was a chore for days, and we eventually gave my style of walking a name “Walking like Zoidberg” – the crab (was he a crab?) from Futurama. When I walked I kind of leaned back and cantered from side to side. It looked horrendous, but it helped, until I got warmed up.
Need a walking style? Why not Zoidberg?
Today we have reservations for breakfast at Trail’s End Buffeteria, my favorite buffet in all the World! It’s over at Ft. Wilderness, so, from SSR, it was a bit of a travel. The easiest way to get there was to just head to MK, and ferry over on the resort boat.
We were pretty much the only ones on the boat, so the Kiddo had the entire inside to herself, while I (needing the leg room) stayed outside in the beautiful Florida February air.
Boating to Ft. Wilderness and BACON!
Still surreal that I ran UNDER this yesterday
Anyway, we made it (slowly) to breakfast and sat down at a nice-size table (I think it was the same table we sat at last time!). Buffet here is $15.99 and includes a beverage. What a deal! It is without a doubt, the best place on property to get great bacon. The bacon you get at other CS places is so thin you can read through it, and greasy, but this bacon has a real tooth to it, and you have to chew it a lot before swallowing. Not too chewy though, nor too crisp. Just damn perfect bacon. Can you tell I like the bacon? Really, go here for bacon. And try not to hear Jim Gaffigan in your head while you eat it.
They also have delicious eggs, sausage and a potato dish that is pretty awesome. We always end up stuffed, and this morning was no different. Well, there was one difference – I didn’t worry about calories or how stuffed I was – I’m eating back the thousand calories I used up yesterday!
After breakfast, we headed to MK, of course! Our first stop was Snow White, right by City Hall.
After that was a quick pottie break, and then, since it wasn’t nearly as busy as it was over the weekend, we decided to give the Kiddo some freedom to explore the park by herself.
Hubby knew that I wanted some alone time to do photos, so all three of us went our separate ways and planned to meet up at the Adventureland rock bench (between AL and Liberty Square bridge) in a few hours.
I headed back to Town Square Theater. I could think of no one better to celebrate my medal with, than the Big Cheese himself. Plus, this line is usually long, and today it wasn’t. I was in and out within maybe 10 minutes and got a cute photo!
I'm taller than Mickey. I find that odd.
I found Mary Poppins with one of her penguins right outside and got a photo with her too, before making my way up Main Street, hitting (I’m not kidding) EVERY SINGLE Photopass photographer along the way!
Most of the photographers seemed bored, but some played along and I got some good shots out of them.
How did I do it? I dunno!
Nuthin' - just chillin' with my medal in front of Cinderella Castle. Like any Monday.
I just love this medal (oh, and that is that Sally Hansen nail polish I used that I mentioned on Saturday)
I also got a few really good ones with my Photopass!
The next thing I did, and I’d been looking forward to doing, was taking photos of my medal draped over the cute statues in the Hub. If I could’ve gotten close enough to hang it from Walt’s hand (the Partner Statue) I would have totally done that, but alas, too many flowers!
Here are some of my favorites.
Chip and Dale
Timothy Mouse (he's actually on the Dumbo statue)
Jiminy and Pinocchio
Donald looks like he's trying to auction it off
Bre'r Rabbit is rolling his eyes at my foolishness
Minnie, perhaps you need a smaller necklace?
Goofy is very confused - how did he get a medal?
Pluto is very happy with my medal
At this point, Hubby caught up with me and continued with me as I set out on my Princess Weekend Quest – get a photo with every princess while wearing my medal. (Spoiler – I didn’t get them all…)
First up – Tiana. She asked if I was going to have some gumbo after running all that way the day before. I thought it was a nice touch. Tiana has one of my favorite dresses, but what kind of corsetry (or sorcery) is under there to keep it up when little children hang on her? I always think that she’s gonna have a nip-slip one day and scare little children.
I'm not sure what's up with my face here - maybe gumbo farts?
Our next stop was Merida, one of my favorite princesses. Can’t fight the heritage, I guess! Her hair looked a little bedraggled, and she was a bit wee for my liking, but she was cute.
We are strong Scottish Women!
I got to shoot the arrow afterwards, even though I’m not a 5-year-old. I missed.
We headed back to Town Square Theater and met the princesses next.
Sleeping Beauty. I think she asked if I was tired after running all that way.
She's not my favorite princess - can't figure out why I don't like her much...
Rapunzel.
Love Rapunzel!
Cinderella.
Classic Old-School Princess Posing
If you are keeping track – I met 6 Princesses at Magic Kingdom today - Snow White, Tiana, Merida, Rapunzel, Aurora, Cinderella. Still need to meet Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahantas, and Mulan.
On our way back to the Adventureland bench, we caught the Main Street Philharmonic, which I love to watch, but never get a chance to see a full show because we are rushing somewhere. This time was no different, but I decided to pose for a photo before we took off. This is one of my favorite photos from the entire trip – I love Disney World! He’s so cute, too!
Toot toot, ya'll!
We met up with the Kiddo at the bench, and we decided it was time to head over to Epcot. We had a dinner reservation later, and I don’t like to rush.
Upon entering Epcot, we of course, rode Spaceship Earth. We always ride separate (I like to be able to stretch out!) and we ALWAYS thank the Phoenecians!
Last ride before dinner was Test Track. It’s better to go 67mph BEFORE eating dinner…
Dinner tonight is Via Napoli. We ate here back in October 2012 and fell in love with it, so of course I had to have it again for my awesome Princess Weekend! We were seated quickly, and we were lucky to get a booth – my butt muscles were still sore and my cankles were swelling to the point of sausage-ness!
Dinner consisted of 1 large pepperoni pizza and an order of chicken Parmesan with roasted potatoes. We divided the chicken into 3 parts so that we each got a little, then all 3 of us devoured the pizza too. It was a great meal, filling, and not too expensive if you do it that way. You could probably do it with lasagna or a pasta too!
Large Pepperoni Pizza from Via Napoli - such a thing of beauty
Chicken Parmesan and Roasted Potatoes - could they spare the potatoes?
After dinner, it was dark, of course, and I got a few nice shots before Illuminations began. (I didn’t bring my tripod, so no super-awesome fireworks shots here).
Fire! FIRE! - Shut up, Bevis!
We sat for a while after the show was over, both to let our food settle and to let the crowds head out, before we began making our way to the front. Since we take the Odyssey bridge back towards the front, Hubby noticed that Test Track was still running, so he and the Kiddo single-rider’ed it, then came out and said that there were unannounced Extra Magic Hours for the night.
I was EXHAUSTED by this time, so I told them to stay for as long as they wanted, but I needed to limp my way back to SSR and crash. They gleefully ran back to Test Track as I made my way towards Mousegear. Since I was single for the moment, I wanted to fondle some of the Disney Dooney’s. I didn’t pay for one of the special Princess Dooney’s but I really wanted to get something special from this weekend (more than just a magnet or t-shirt). I think I touched every bag in the section, and had a heart-attack multiple times from the sticker shock, but soon my feet were screaming more than my shopping gene, and I waddled my way to the bus stop.
Back at the room, I took off my shoes and put on some new band-aids on my toes. Pretty, huh? (I never noticed the gross hair stuck to my foot until I uploaded here - so BONUS!)
Yes, I have hairy, fat, man-toes. On normal days, I also have ankles.
I think Hubby and the Kiddo rolled in about 2 hours later. I was still awake, but just barely… What a long day!
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