He should know he's being watched

The other night I happened to turn on the video monitor a while after putting Joseph to bed, only to discover that he was laying there, singing to himself. He does this periodically, but I love that he had started singing his own version of "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." Listen in carefully!

More Thanksgiving Pictures

I am stealing these from Lisa' blog because they are great! I love the shots Lisa got of Maddie having a blast going down the slide!

 

 

 

Thanksgiving in Detroit

Another successful Jeppson family Thanksgiving is in the books! This year we left for Detroit after Joseph's thanksgiving event at school on Tuesday and knew we would have to stop along the way. We made it to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan before lake effect snow made driving tricky. Wednesday morning we got up and hit the road hoping the weather wouldn't be too bad. We made it to Grandpa Joe's house around 1pm and the kids were so excited to be done with the car for awhile!

I don't think Maddie knew what to make of the house full of kids, but Joseph was really happy to see his cousins again. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and relaxing. 

The kids had a lot of fun this trip playing with the various iPads and leap pads that we're floating around the house. 

Maddie tried her best to weasel her way into the iPad line, and decided loving on her big brother might help her cause. 

Please Jo Jo? Nope. No love. 

Oh well! At least Maddie figured out how to say "iPad" on this trip!

On thanksgiving morning we woke early so we could head into downtown Detroit for the turkey trot. Lisa, Linda, Dan, Joe and I were all going to take the kids to do the Mashed Potato Mile, and then Dan would take the kids home while we ran the 5k. 

Pre race inside the cobo center where it was nice and warm. 

Another pre race shot at the starting line. It was pretty cold but the kids handled it well. They became even more excited when it started snowing right before the race started!

The obligatory monster face, and realizing it is fun trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. 

Joseph and Ethan ran together for the first half of the race and we're having lots of fun. Joe snapped some great pictures that he will have to add here. A bit past the half way point Joseph started to get upset and wanted to stop. Walking and fussing turned into tears and some serious whining, although I think he was just getting over heated from his layers. We unzipped his coat a bit and coaxed him to the finish line on his own two feet!

Joe and me before the 5k. This was race #13 for me for the year. In January I decided to make it a goal to complete 13 races in 2013 and was happy to meet that goal with a familiar fun run! The snow made the ground really slippery and we saw a few people fall along the course. That, combined with the sheer number of people meant we weren't going to have a great pace but it was fun at least. 

Maddie really kept herself entertained this year. Being a new walker, she was quite content to just wander the house doing her own thing. 

Rosemary was the new baby at thanksgiving this year, and she was amazing! Luckily she's used to sleeping through lots of noise with 3 older siblings to deal with. I still couldn't believe she could sleep right through ping pong games with the big kids on the other side of the room!

Yup, sound asleep. So sweet!

Friday morning we revisited an indoor golf center that we tried out a few years ago. They used to have indoor mini golf, but apparently took it out since Joe has last been there. We didn't stay for too long, but the kids had a lot of fun playing the arcade games and trying their hand at the practice putting green. 

Yes, Ruth and Joseph were actually driving! Joseph could just barely touch the gas, but he managed ok. 

Miss Maddie wasn't too thrilled with big bird, and really just wanted to climb the stairs up to the higher decks of the range. Too bad! 

Friday night was our annual bowling night. 

Joseph had it all figured out right away, and I was surprised how much Maddie enjoyed helping to push the ball down the ramp. She will definitely be ready next year!

Saturday we had to pack up and head back home, but before we left we all took the kids to an indoor bounce play place. I'm so glad we found it and that they had an open bounce session because it was the perfect way to let the kids play and get some energy out. Mine were already tired from a fun few days with the family, but this was all they needed to ensure the first few hours of the road trip looked like this:

Maybe next year we will be able to fly or spend more time in Detroit. I hate that we spend so much time traveling when we could be visiting with family instead. But it is fun watching the kids all growing up and seeing the family expand each year!

Timmy the Xmas elf

We like yogurt

These two really don't understand how siblings are supposed to behave

Play with me!!!

She's really walking!

We have had so many false starts, but I'm happy to report that this week Maddie really has started walking! She will now walk across a room without too many stumbles. The exception is each morning when she is so excited about all of this and seemingly has forgotten she can now walk. When she wakes up, she starts going, giggles a bunch with every few steps and frequently loses her balance. It is really cute to watch.  Thanksgiving with the cousins is about to be really nuts this year with yet another walker in the mix!

Taking a drive

I showed this video to Maddie and she grinned and said, "baby!"

7 is getting better with his camera

...and so it begins

--
- Joe VI

...and so it begins

--
- Joe VI

Race Recap: Disneyland Dumbo Double Dare (10k and Half Marathon)

I realized I never blogged about our trip to Disneyland over Labor Day weekend with our great friends, the Bowlings! After we ran the Disney World races in January and learned about the brand new Dumbo Double Dare race to be held over Labor Day weekend at Disneyland, we decided to fork over more money to the happiest place on earth for the most expensive races on earth again! I was more excited about the idea of doing a 10k, another flat half marathon, and the excitement of leaving California with 4 new medals - one for the 10k, one for the half marathon, one for completing the Dumbo challenge (running a 10k on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday), and one for completing the Coast to Coast challenge (doing a half or full marathon in Disney World and Disneyland in the same year). Oh, and an adults-only weekend trip always ranks high on my list of things to do!

We flew out on Friday morning, with Joe, Scott and Tricia leaving super early from KC so they could get to the race expo and packet pickup as soon as it opened. None of us had any idea how congested the whole process would be! In January it was crowded but relatively painless - we were in and out in under an hour. Not the case this time! They had to wait 3 hours in lines just to pick up the race bibs, and then another line for the shirts. And if you wanted to buy additional race merchandise, because your race shirt was ENORMOUS and they can't swap sizes for you (seriously runDisney, why do you keep doing this???) - well, forget about it, because that line was another 3 hours long! Just to buy overpriced, Disney merchandise! I was glad to roll in a few hours after them so that I didn't have to deal with the lines for nearly as long, but disappointed that I wouldn't be able to get any fun finisher shirts or another car magnet.

Oh well, we had more important things to do, like going on rides!

 We opted to spend the rest of the day touring around the parks, and headed to California Adventure for a late lunch. We ate at Flo's Cafe in the new Carsland. It was really cute, and the food was pretty good! After that, we headed over to the Paradise Pier area, rode Toy Story Mania, and wandered around a bit.

It was pretty hot out, and as we were thinking about stopping for a drink, we heard some music drifting from a nearby venue... And quickly lost Joe who was so excited! He thought they were the River Rascals from his childhood days at Disneyland... although a quick look at the average age of the musicians and how long it has been since he was a kid made him unhappily accept that they were a "newer" version of the same band he loved(s).

We had lots of fun enjoying rides without waiting too long and not having to be on a child's schedule!

 Because this trip was right after Joe's birthday, I asked if he wanted to do anything special. I suggested a dinner reservation for the Blue Bayou, the restaurant surrounding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Each time we'd been to Disneyland previously, Joe had commented how he always thought it would be neat to eat there. The restaurant is themed to look like it's a New Orleans restaurant patio overlooking the bayou and right at the start of the ride. Scott and Tricia were happy to try it out, so we were happy to score a normal dinner time reservation. The meal was awesome, we had a great server, and it was a lot of fun to see the riders and take in the ambiance.

Saturday morning we woke early to get dressed for the inaugural Alice in Wonderland 10k. We opted to "dress up" for this race instead of the half, particularly because Scott wanted to take the half more seriously (he had hopes of PRing). We schemed and decided on running together as Cinderella and her ugly step-sisters. I made the costumes for all of us in the days leading to the race, and think they turned out great, if I do say so myself!

We (ok, the boys) got lots of comments, and everyone seemed to love them! They had a lot of fun slapping hands, posing for pictures and generally having a great time.

This race was a great course - it spent about the first mile and a half outside the parks, then we entered California Adventure, wound all around that park, crossed over into Disneyland, and ran down the streets of Downtown Disney to the finish line.

As we were nearing the finish line, Joe thought we should do something fun, and we opted to have me take off my shoe and hold it out, as if it were the glass slipper for the boys to chase. I agreed, paused briefly to take off my shoe while the boys hammed it up for the spectators, and then took off in a sort of sprint for the finish. I was really excited when Scotty discovered this picture  posted on the runDisney website! 

Us posing with our finishers medals after the race. We all had a great time, and even though it felt like we were going fairly slow (ok, we were going pretty slow) and didn't have any set pace idea, the boys helped me to a 10k PR!

We headed back to our hotels, showered, changed and Joe and I met up with his cousin Robert and his family to spend the rest of the day at the beach! It was nice to leave the Disney property and enjoy a gorgeous day outside relaxing. Around dinnertime they drove us back to our hotel so we could have an easy dinner and get to bed relatively early. The alarm was going off even earlier Sunday morning for the half marathon!

One of the things I really loved about racing at Disneyland, as opposed to Disney World, is how much more convenient it can be to get to the race. This time, instead of having to leave the hotel hours before the start of the race, which is already at an ungodly hour (typically 5:30 or 6am), we were able to get up about an hour or so before the race, walk the 2 blocks down to the start line, find our place in the corral and be ready to go!

I was feeling great for the race, although it was considerably warmer than I had anticipated. I had trained wearing a fuel belt and didn't want to have hydration issues, so I ended up running with a bottle of water through almost the whole course. The half had us start almost immediately in California Adventure again, but this time it was early enough that you could really see the World of Color water lights glowing - the picture below doesn't do it justice!

A quick 12 miles and 2 hours later and we were running back down that same finish line chute as Saturday. I had high hopes to PR this half marathon, as neither of my earlier 2013 races had turned out well. We still ended up slower than I wanted, but I did get a PR in the end and had a lot of fun, so that's all that matters!

I don't know that I would return to Disneyland to run another half marathon, as I think the race at Disney World was much better - better organized, better on course entertainment, etc, but it was still fun. It just lost a lot of the Disney feeling early on, as we were only in the parks for the first 5 miles, and then spent the rest of the race running through industrial Anaheim. The bands performing, 1.5 mile long old car show and run through Angels stadium made it a bit more exciting, but definitely not worth the inflated price Disney charges for these races.

After showering and relaxing for a bit, we were able to meet up with another of Joe's cousins, Laura, her boyfriend and their daughter and spend the day back in the parks. We headed to the castle to take some pictures, and since we figured there would be lots of people in the park and it was Hope's first visit, Fantasyland.

Hope seemed to love the Dumbo ride, and we all enjoyed the A/C in Small World!

We then took the train over to New Orleans square, grabbed some lunch, and then rode Splash Mountain. The Haunted Mansion was closed (bummer!) but we rode a few more rides before deciding to take an adults afternoon in California Adventure and met back up with Scott and Tricia. We ended up enjoying a few drinks on a patio and commiserating with a few other runners about the Disney races. Tricia did not appreciate that the patio at the Italian restaurant didn't serve any bread (although they did inside the restaurant), so I ran over to the sourdough factory across the way, bought a giant loaf of bread, had it sliced and brought it back for us to eat. It was probably a great decision as all of the drinks were starting to hit us, and we polished off quite a bit before deciding to carry on with our afternoon.

We then remembered that on a previous trip to Disneyland, in 2008, we had our picture taken in front of a wall, and had hoped to do it again. Except we only had vague memories of were this wall was...

After a bit of thinking, I managed to put us in the vicinity of where I thought we could find it, in California Adventure. Turns out, I was right! I'm pretty sure neither one of us would have imagined returning 5 years later, having left 2 kids behind to run 19.3 miles in 2 two days, but here we are!

We met back up with Laura, Brian and Hope for dinner in Downtown Disney, and then parted ways again after realizing we had wanted to see the World of Color show. Seeing the colors in the early morning definitely had me intrigued, so we made it back for the last show of the evening. It definitely did not disappoint!

We had one day left on our park tickets, so we opted to spend our last day, Monday, cramming as much as possible into the morning before needing to head to the airport.

There was a lot of this:

 And plenty of this:

Which meant that the cab ride to the airport looked like this:

All in all it was a great holiday weekend! I still feel a little guilt about leaving the kids at home and going to Disneyland without them, but it was definitely an awesome trip and I know we will be back with them again someday soon!