We are creeping back into the heat here in Florida and it’s only going to get worse!
Total miles: 52.48
Fun places I ran: Disney World! Other than that, just the normal routes in our area.
Races I ran: Run Disney Dark Side Half Marathon — I am working on a full race recap to come with a lot of pictures!
Favorite running thing this month: REST. As much as I hate to say it, I took a FULL WEEK off this month from running and working out. Following spring break, I was having what I thought to be groin pain. I stopped my first long run of the month after two miles because I didn’t want to push it. I ended up at the chiropractor and he said it was my hip flexor and psoas muscle, as opposed to my groin. Aside from resting, I have been focusing on stretching. I ran my race last weekend and it hurt pretty badly on Monday, but has healed up nicely this week. I definitely will be listening to my body over the next few months. I want to go into marathon training completely healthy!
Longest run: 13.44 miles
Non-running workouts: I got on the elliptical a few days this month. I say it every month, but now that I don’t have any races on the calendar, I will be doing a lot of strength training in the coming months.
Next month: I am dedicating the month of May to fundraising for Team RMHC and the Chicago Marathon. If you’d like to donate to a great cause, visit my Team RMCH page!
Crosby is officially three and a half years old as our month of half birthdays comes to an end.
He is doing so well in school and receives great academic reports from his teacher. The not so great reports come in the form of “jumping from cot to cot during nap time”, “climbing the bookshelf”, or “standing on the chair”. There was a solid week this spring where we received a call every day due to some sort of incident report that needed to be signed. He also gave us a scare this past weekend at Disney which resulted in a visit from the paramedics (stretcher and all!) at the resort. He got a nice goose egg on the back of his head coming down the water slide and ended up acting very strange around dinner time. Thankfully, we think he was just dehydrated and there was no need for the stretcher. I can’t say enough about how amazing the Disney staff and paramedics were though!
Crosby started his first season of soccer this spring! I’d be lying if I said it’s been a fun experience. After seeing how interested he was in the fall with Kenley’s team, we thought he would go out, practice, play, and love the sport. Our expectations were way too high. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of tears during both practices and games. He will occasionally play in the game if Greg or I run around with him. He will even run up and kick the ball, but is upset when someone takes it away. We have a few games remaining, so hopefully he turns a corner, but I am not getting my hopes up!
Below are some of Crosby’s favorite things:
Color: red and orange
Food: apples and pears
Thing to do: go to school
TV show: Paw Patrol
Book: Cars
Part of school: the swings
Dessert: gummies
Sister: Kenley
Construction truck: bulldozer
Song(s): Tooty Ta!
Lunch: sandwich
Animal: tiger
Outfit: bathing suit
3.5 years notes
Weight – Probably around 35 pounds
Height – Around 38 inches according to the theme park rides
Hair – Light brown/dark blonde
Teeth – A full set of 20
Eyes – Brown
Clothes – 3T and some 4T; size 10 shoes
Diapers – Size 2T/3T undies
Likes – Legos, taking apart Legos, doing puzzles, Moana and Maui, sleeping, swimming, ice cream, the Moana soundtrack, school, Paw Patrol, Mickey Mouse, reading books, picking up sticks, brushing his teeth, pancakes, riding his balance bike, playing at the park, doing whatever Kenley does, dinosaurs, cuddling, hugging
Dislikes – soccer, throwing up, getting woken up in the morning, getting into trouble
She continues to thrive in school and VPK. We are rounding out the end of the year in just over a month then she will officially be a kindergartner. Registration and orientation at her new school are just a couple weeks away. While she is thrilled, it’s going to be an adjustment for me. They’ve been talking about going to kindergarten a lot at school. Her teachers encourage drop off at the door to help start the transition and her class has been eating lunch in the cafeteria, rather than in their classroom. Each little thing she tells me, I get tears in my eyes. We also have been reading Kindergarten, Here I Come and The Night Before Kindergarten. Both of the books are super cute and I highly recommend them. She rarely takes a nap anymore at school, but will still take nap at home if she’s tired enough.
Outside of school, she’s currently playing soccer. This is her fifth season! I can’t believe that it’s already been two years since her very first season. She is playing with the same team that she played with in the fall and it’s been a really fun season so far. Once soccer is over, we’re considering starting basketball or gymnastics in the summer. If you ask her, it will be gymnastics. She loves to be outdoors, ride her bike (without training wheels!), and swim in the pool.
Continuing with the half birthday tradition, here are some of her favorite things:
Color: purple and pink and violet Food: candy, carrots, apples, and stawberries with sugar on it Thing to do: find Easter eggs TV show: the cartoon Rapunzel Book: the You Choose book Part of school: run on the playground Dessert: chocolate cake with donuts on top Brother: Caleb Construction truck: a purple dump truck Song(s): Fight Song (Rachel Platten) Lunch: peanut butter and jelly (sunbutter) Animal: cheetah Outfit: a dress
Over spring break, we headed over to Port Canaveral to finally embark on the Disney Dream! We originally booked our trip for October 2016 but didn’t board the ship due to Hurricane Matthew. We opted to re-book for spring break since the kids would be off school, so we waited another five months to set sail. For the whole month of March, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest reading all about the ship, what to do, what not to do, etc. and I still didn’t feel prepared for what was to come.
We drove over to the ship on Monday morning. The embarkation process was super quick and easy. We got checked in and right on the ship. I carried Crosby on my back in the Ergo so we didn’t have to worry about him wandering off. It worked out great for getting on and off the ship.
Once we were on the ship, we scoped it all out, had some lunch, and went to our rooms. We had connecting rooms with my parents and the rooms were huge! We lucked out when we re-booked and these rooms must have just opened up. They were twice the size of the other rooms on the ship and we had two windows! We are certainly spoiled for future cruises. I didn’t ever get a picture of it, but the couch turned into a bed and the top bunk came down from the ceiling. The kids took turns sleeping in the top bunk which was big fun for both of them.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at Nemo’s Reef splash pad and the pool until it was time for our muster drill. After that was over, we headed up for the sail away party and waved goodbye to Florida for the week.
Dinner the first night was at the Enchanted Garden. We didn’t end up seeing the show the first night because the kids (and adults) were already exhausted, so we figured we wouldn’t push our luck on the first night.
On Tuesday, we docked at Nassau, Bahamas, but we decided to stay on the ship. We took advantage of all of the fun activities planned throughout the day. The daily schedule was action-packed! The kids went to the Oceaneer Lab and Oceaneer Club, which we referred to as “kids camp”. They absolutely loved it! Crosby’s favorite part was Andy’s Room and Kenley liked Pixie Hallow.
One of my favorite things throughout the week were the random character sightings. We saw so many characters, but some of them were by happenstance and those were way more fun! On the way to breakfast on the first morning, we ran into Pluto and Goofy! We also saw Stitch, but weren’t able to snap a photo with him.
After naps, the kids were off to kids camp again and the adults headed to a mixology class. We made a variety of drinks and it was very informative. We ended up back in the same bar that night to order one of the drinks we made.
We also did some swimming on Tuesday and enjoyed shorter lines on the AquaDuck since some passengers were still at the port. I was surprised that we didn’t do more swimming throughout the week, but we rode the slides as often as we could. The Mickey pool was shallow for the kids, but there was also no jumping allowed, so Crosby got called out a few times (I know that doesn’t surprise you!).
Kenley got to meet Belle before we had dinner in the Royal Palace on Tuesday night. Dinner each night was amazing!
Instead of seeing the villains show, the kids went to camp for a little while after dinner and we headed to the Pink Wine & Champagne Bar and Skyline for some after dinner drinks.
I’ll share about Castaway Cay, pirate night, and our day at sea in the next post!
Stay tuned!
Happy Friday and happy April! Apparently I haven’t shared my loves in about a month (and I can’t even get them posted on the right day), so we have a lot to catch up on, let’s get started.
o n e
In the world of sports, college basketball and March Madness has come to an end. I am sad to see basketball go, but I am excited about the new regime at IU. UCF ended their season in the final four of the NIT tournament, so that was exciting! Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to any games this year, that’ll be a goal for next year. Greg is thoroughly excited that baseball is back. He also opted to sit out of fantasy baseball this year, so watching games has been more laid back than it has been in years. Let’s go Mets!
I don’t know why it took me so long to try coconut milk, but I’m obsessed. I’ve completely replaced my coffee creamer with it and I had it on my cereal this week. It’s delicious! My new drink at Starbucks is iced coffee with vanilla and coconut milk. I swear I’ve been talking about it all week. As far as dinners go, we’ve been having a lot of our usual favorites, but we are definitely adding these grilled shrimp tacos with avocado salsa in to the rotation. Yum!
f o u r
We were late to the game with watching Moana, but Greg randomly brought it home a few weekends ago so we finally watched it. It is SO good! I think Greg and I may have liked it even more than the kids. We’ve also been listening to the soundtrack nonstop on Spotify, which is just as amazing as the movie. If you haven’t seen or listened to it, I highly recommend it. We also saw the new live action Beauty and the Beast the day before we left on the cruise. It was also really good!
i started saturday morning at 4:45am for a whopping two mile run. i was having some groin pain, so i figured it was better to be safe than sorry, but it was great seeing these mamas!
soccer saturdays are underway! crosby had his first game ever. he started out great but as soon as someone kicked the ball away, it all went downhill from there. it was a typical first soccer game with a bunch of three year olds, hilarious.
the girls cheered on the boys before it was time for their game.
this pretty much sums it up.
the little monsters are back in action!
he was much more content being a spectator.
kenley played really well! it was a great game.
from kenley’s game, she and greg went straight to monkey joe’s to celebrate luke’s birthday!
having so much fun!
sprinkler fun before jumping in the chilly pool!
after a busy morning of meal prep, grocery shopping, and a haircut for crosby, we headed down to celebrate hudson’s birthday!
The Gilbertson Family 