So, Tom’s birthday fell on the weekend of the Inaugural Avenger’s Half Marathon. We had missed the registration for the kids’ run for the previous Disney half (which occurred over my birthday weekend), so we registered for this one. Our intent was to run together, but Tom’s foot is still out of commission. 🙁
This was Chloe’s first kids’ race, though! And, we did get to spend a little bit of time in the park. And, of course, we wanted to see family (why can’t weekends expand in time???)!
So yeah, we registered for this race for a few reasons: 1) it’s Dylan’s last year for Disney Kids’ runs! 2) it’s always fun to run inaugural events and 3) it’s in southern CA and we can see family as well, and 4) we actually love taking the kids to Disneyland–their joy and excitement is priceless.
So, here are the kid finishers on Day 1 of being in southern CA (we arrived again at around 3am).
Dylan was actually sick — pulled out of school on Thursday when I noticed him looking lethargic during my volunteer shift in his classroom. By Saturday, he was still a bit sluggish, so we were worried about him. We were also wondering how to keep track of all of our kids after their separate races.
After lots of questions to the staff there, we discovered that Cameron and Dylan could run the same race, so Tom went with them while I went with Chloe.
And, Chloe ran! It was so sweet. She clung to my arm the entire time, but she ran. This is actually better than many kids who just cry at the sheer immensity of the event and who don’t understand all of the cheering, etc.
But, she IS #3, so she knows running events have snacks and water, and she’s all about THAT!
Here’s how far she had to run! Whoa, I know…short and sweet!
I had suggested that they run Cameron’s distance instead of Dylan’s because I was still worried about Dylan being tired and maybe even relapsing, but they stuck to the course for 7-8 year olds.
Cameron zoomed ahead, but of course, she was 100% healthy (but she also has boundless energy!)!
You can see it in Dylan’s eyes that he is not 100%, but he rallied–as he often does. He’s such a trooper.
That’s right: we went to Disneyland after the kids races and we had drum roll vegan gumbo! Yum. Satisfying. Downside was that we’d read about vegan Mickey Waffles, but it turns out they were part of a Character Buffet that cost $30 per adult and we weren’t about to spend over $100 for the 5 of us to eat a few waffles with some fruit!
Disneyland is all done up for the holidays, though I picked the wrong f-stop to show the decor behind the kids (whoops!)
I just like this photo because it shows how happy they are to be in the park!
We did return to the park after the half-marathon (I placed 4th in my age group, 68th in gender group and 350th overall (10,500 participants)! No PR, but it was windy and these are the best results in a big race that I’ve gotten so far). We came back to the park for the vegan waffles–Carnation Cafe will whip up a batch on demand (pancakes, too). Too bad they were gummy. And we waited for about an hour. To Disneyland’s credit, they paid our bill AND gave us a free fast pass.
The kids’ current favorite ride is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so we used the fast pass on that one! Then, it was off to Casey Jr (for Chloe) and the carousel before heading back out. Oh, we did see Steamboat Willie and rode the train (much to Tom’s chagrin–he was waiting at the restaurant and told us to come back at 10:30). Now I know the train ride is about 20 minutes long and there is not enough time to watch Steamboat Willie cartoons AND ride the train if your table wait time is a “mere” 45 minutes!
Chloe just does not like the Big Train, so everyone has to ride the little one. Luckily, nobody minds!
Poor Chloe didn’t like the darkness of the theatre. I just thought we’d pop in since it was something “new” for the kids and we like to try to do at least 1 new thing whenever we come to the park.
For the record, Dylan and Cameron liked the cartoons well enough!
Once done with Disneyland for the morning, we headed back to Studio City to celebrate Tom’s bday with his family!
Dylan loves his cousins!
And, yes, it was another extraordinarily short weekend, but that’s all we have these days! Jobs, school, lessons of various sorts…We’ve seen LA family more than we’ve seen Bay Area family…it is really that crazy!
