Fall Festival 2011

Every year, our church has a Fall Festival.  It's pretty fun, and holds somewhat nostalgic memories for us as it is the very first event we attended at our church, way back in 2001.  Carly was in The Belly and Ben was nearly 3 and dressed up like Woody from Toy Story (umm, the original, not Toy Story 3)... he loved hearing these stories this year.  No, really.  He did.  He particularly loved the part about how we went to Jason's Deli afterwards and he lost his toy (um, Woody, complete with his name written on the boot) and how devastated I was over his For Real Lost Toy (umm, 9 months pregnant) which amazingly enough, we found (at Jason's Deli) 3 months later.  But I digress...

This year, Carly talked her brother into dressing up with her...

She wanted to be Doc Brown from Back to the Future (of course) and begged him to be Marty McFly, which of course, he agreed to... even though he's no fan of dressing up.  This is her trying very hard to NOT smile and look skeptical.

We signed up to be in the Line Up for Trunk or Treating, and apparently we were supposed to decorate our car.  You know, with fall decorations.  Which we don't really have many of, and we weren't going to decorate at all... but then it occurred to us our car KIND OF looks like the DeLorean (ok ok, Time Machine) seeing how it's Platinum Grey... so Ryan decorated it a little for us.

The Lightening Rod is my Uncle's cane, covered in foil... and those are Ryan's models lining up in the back, you know, in front of the Flux Capacitor.  Which makes Time Travel possible.  My favorite part was the movie sound track blaring.  So exciting!

Sadly, the Judges did not get our Theme... I think one might have said, "Where are your pumpkins?" hahahaha...

And here's Bam Bam and Pebbles.  Since we haven't seen them in a while!  Welcome back to Auntie's Blog.

And finally, a brief look at the Fiddler on the Roof (HillBilly Style) musical Ryan was in for the Entertainment of the evening...

Shout out to my brother-in-law, TIM for the flannel shirt rental.  THANK YOU!  Also entertaining for the evening was Ben and Carly dancing... at some point the musical took a very odd turn to include the Thriller Dance... Turns out, Carly makes a very good Zombie, and Ben wasn't too bad himself!  Baby Girl's got rhythm and we have NO IDEA where she got that from!

** Side note:  In case one is wondering... it took a full bottle of conditioner to remove the whole bottle of "white hairspray" from Carly's ratted out hair.  Which never even looked that white.

Tooth Fairy Correspondence

Dear 

      Tooth Fairy,

              This time you come over to my house can you give me five $ please. I love that you come around every night  that I have a  tooth fall out. You are one of my best friends, escpeically when you bring me money for my tooth    :]$. Now I’m a lot older than i was when my first tooth came out, now I’m starting to loose canines and molers. Pretty soon I’m going  to have braces all different colors. this is my 11th tooth not to mention it’s my first molar! Have a safe trip and NO TRICKS!!!!!

                   Sincerly,

                              Carly  

A Boy... Really. A.

Swim Season is in Full Swing.  Who am I kidding... it's ALWAYS in Full Swing.  Year Round Swim Team.  I should clarify, Short Course Season is in Full Swing.  It's our favorite course, and lasts until the end of February.  

September 17th, we headed out to Winter Haven, FL for a meet... early in the am.  At least the sunrise was pretty...

Both kids swam really well, but BEN got his Best Ever Time for his 50 Freestyle, clocking 28.18 seconds!!  This is also what is known as an "A Time" in the realm of Motivational Time Standards that are put out by USA Swimming (official business there!)  This time is also a Junior Olympic Cut, which is VERY exciting... I hate to bring up the Aging Up issue, so I will refer back to THIS POST... and this will be the case again, but we are still CRAZY PROUD of him!  He swam this race again the past weekend and cut even MORE time off, and now his best is 28.12... those 0.06 of a second are huge in the world of swimming.

Just a fun picture of the water... (and probably a Line Judge)

We are so proud of BOTH of you.  It's why we spend so many hours on the Pool Deck cheering you on.  Even though you don't love the cheering (Ben) and even though the cheering completely distracts you and makes you wave at us (Carly!).

Carly's Newest Endeavor

Pretty far behind in my blogging, which stinks, since I get it printed into a book at the end of the year and it serves as my Very Classy Scrapbook.  I don't want to forget these fun moments, so I will fill in... now.  

In August, Carly went for a Kind of Last Minute Audition for the Gulf Coast Children's Choir.  It's a local youth choir organization that Ryan's best friend, Rodney, (aka, Uncle Rodney) works with.   He actually directs the older kids.  Anyways, he's been talking it up for years, and FINALLY we remembered in time to get the Girl to an Audition.  The audition involved her attending an afternoon of their choir camp with all the other Already Members, then singing and reading music and various other exercises, with the director (not Rodney).  I must say: She's NINE, so I thought this might be a little overwhelming, you know, to try and break into a group that's already been working together for a while.  You know, kids she doesn't know, blah, blah, blah.  

Silly me.  

We dropped her off in the New Enormous Multi-Million Dollar Music Building at the University of South Florida and she ran right in without a backward glance.  She spent the afternoon with these complete strangers (Uncle Rod did stop by for a brief visit/spy mission), then we showed up at the end for her audition.  She, of course, made herself right at home and introduced herself all around... why do I ever worry about this kid???  When it was time to do her solo act, the director suggested that non-family members leave (there were several people waiting around for their child's audition, etc) and Little Miss goes, "Oh, I don't mind... they can stay!" and proceeded to sing the song she was randomly asked to sing, read some music, and sing some scales.  All with the big old smile on her face!  She's never really done much of this kind of stuff, so we were pretty impressed that she learned so quickly and duh, is a natural.  ANYWAYS, she got in:)  And she's been made an ALTO:)

Couple pics from her first night of rehearsal...  she thinks she's all that, seeing how it's at the university!

And her Get Up for the first night... I was at work (practically right next door!) and got off just as they were finishing (very convenient, I might add!).  She's had several rehearsals and a performance so far, and she JUST LOVES IT!  She jumps in the car very excited and happy, so it's pretty fun to see.  She told us this past summer she wants to be famous and be a singer like Selena Gomez, so we told her she has to learn to sing correctly, then she can do whatever she wants:)  She's taking it all VERY seriously!!

Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon

Somewhere around April, Ryan and I signed up to run the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  We did it last year as a relay, but this year we planned on just doing the whole thing individually.  Seemed like a great idea, until I broke my foot a month later.  I was pretty determined to get going, and as soon as the doctor said I could start running again (middle of August), I made myself get out there.  Starting with a stroll around the neighborhood.... that took nearly and hour.  The weeks before THIS race, the furthest I had tried to do was 6 miles.  I was hoping to at least get to Hollywood Studios for this race, which was mile 9.  

This is the Expo, the night before.  This one holds special memories for me, since we've been to Disney Expo's so many times.  I loved going with Ryan's family in 2006, and of course, with my sister Laurie the last 2 years.  I took this picture to send to her on txt... she was missed!  It's Crazy Chaos.

Since this race starts at 10pm at night, the kids stayed home with my parents and Ryan and I had a fun Kid-Free Weekend in Orlando.  The Rays were in the playoffs, so for our BIG DATE, we both just really wanted to watch the game.  Since it wasn't on in our hotel, we went to a sports bar.  And had a very romantic date, parked in front of the enormous screen, sitting on the same side of the table, watching baseball.  It was VERY FUN, but completely dorky.  Fortunately, there were a few other couples doing the exact same thing...

Race Day... we got to Epcot early (there's a transportation bus from there to Wide World of Sports, where the race started at 10pm) in the evening and walked around a little bit... 

Mostly we wanted to go to on SpaceShip Earth, because who can go to EPCOT and not ride that fantastic ride??? It NEVER gets old!  

The Warren's happened to be at EPCOT on this day, so they finally found us sitting down on a bench.  I will admit to telling Debbie I wasn't walking to meet her anywhere since we had to run 13.1 miles in a few hours and I was too nervous to expend any miles.  She was kind enough to walk to me.  In my defense, they had to walk by us on their way out anyways. 

Finally at the start.  We are always in different starting corrals because Ryan is way faster, and I am always back with the other walkers/pretend runners.  For this race, as with other Disney races, it takes a good 30 minutes after the race starts to even get to the start line...

So, my run went pretty good!  My foot felt completely fine the whole time, and I was enjoying myself... I was VERY THANKFUL for each mile I was able to complete, and just kept on going.  It was fun running through the Animal Kingdom and then along the highways to Hollywood Studios.  We have lots of "Running Memories" from previous races so that is a little entertaining while you are out there.  

Ryan was CERTAIN that if I got INSIDE Hollywood Studios, there would be no more "pick up buses" and they would just let anyone who gets that far finish.  He didn't think they'd be able to get the buses in the park.  This race had a 16 min pace requirement, which is usually not much of an issue (even though I walk a lot), but I wasn't sure how my foot would hold up past 6 miles.  So I trotted into HS thinking I had made it and kind of slowed down... well, I was getting pretty tired approaching mile 11, and was in the process of txting him "I'm dying.  Bury me with my medal" when I hear and smell a diesel engine!  THERE WAS A BUS!  Right inside the park!  Leave it to Disney to find a way to drive an enormous bus inside the park.  I did not make eye contact and started running.  Oh boy.

Just outside HS at mile 12 there was ANOTHER bus waiting... I was kind of annoyed to have to KEEP running!  HA!  But I did... and finally crossed the finish line.  In about 3 hours and 36 minutes.  I was in tears by then... not because i was in pain, I actually felt pretty good!  I was just so very thankful to have been able to actually finish, and to be able to run again after my Horrible Summer with the Boot and the Crutches.  

They were serving beer at the finish line.  Thankfully they had sprite as well.  And gatorade, but I was REALLY tired of drinking gatorade!  There was also a party for everyone inside Epcot at the Wine and Food Festival, but we were too tired to want to walk all the way through the entrance gates, around to the countries!  We walked right to our car and drove to the hotel!