Glass Slipper Challenge Weekend

This year, Disney introduced a new race to their Princess race weekend. They created this thing called the Glass Slipper Challenge where you run a 10k on Saturday and then do the half on Sunday. Of course its crazy, but we still signed up. I didn't train at all. I hadn't ran more than 3 miles since August :/ But it was still tons of fun. The night before the race, we went to the expo and to Magic Kingdom for their new light show. 

Picking up our packets

I did actually run the 10k and only stopped for like 3 minutes. This was my slowest 10k but I felt good about it. It was a lot of fun. You ran through Epcot's World Showcase and Disney's Boardwalk. It was a lot less crowded than the half. Next year, I think I'll just run the 10k. You get the magic of Disney without the ridiculessness of waiting 30+ minutes for pictures with characters.  And of course, Blaine didn't run even though we all tried really hard to convince him. Maybe next year :) 

Running towards the finish line 

Woody, Little Bo Peep, Little Green woMan :), Jessie and Buzz

After the race, we ate breakfast at Keke's (so good), took a nap and then went to Animal Kingdom, sore and all. It was pretty rainy and the park was decently empty so we got to do most of the rides and even got a picture with Mickey and Minnie. 

Obviously, we were dead tired the next day. But this year's half wasn't as bad as last years. Last year I "cared" about my time and was anxious to finish and didn't really enjoy the Disney aspect of the race. Knowing what to expect, this year we took our time, took pictures with as many characters as we could and had tons of fun. Also, the weather was a bazillion times better than last year. It was extremely hot. This year there was a breeze, some fog and it was just cool, especially for Florida. 

Before we began - I don't even remember being fully awake for this picture

I wish I would've gotten a better picture of my cape. It was beautiful. My mom did a great job on our costumes. 

This was the cutest photo op but the line was crazy long
- like as long as a Disney ride type of line

storming the castle :) 

We were looking down at the photographer there 

With Woody in Frontier Land

Last year, I really wanted to take this picture but didn't want to wait in line. So glad we did this year. 

At the halfway mark they played "Let it Go" 

This crazy basically forced me to run this thing - love her for it. 

Kim got the most attention for her costume. Kids and adults along the sidelines were shouting things like "I like warm hugs too!" or "Don't melt!" at her the entire time.  

19.3 completed!

It was a lot of fun. I really don't think I'll do the half again. But that's what I said last year. Anyway, it was a great weekend! 

New Year's

For New Year's Eve, we stayed in Miami. We tried to make it up to Gatlinburg with my aunt and family, but it was impossible with Blaine's work schedule. Bruce's parents were nice enough to invite us over for dinner. Afterwards, they had a small party with friends and people from church. I realized that since we've been together, we haven't spent a New Year's in Miami. It has either been in Orlando, Delaware or Gatlinburg. So it was nice to ring in the New Year here being that we are now both calling Miami home.

I made this no-bake cheesecake. One of my 2013 goals was to make cheesecake.
Barely did it in time!  

Papo and Rue were partners the whole night.

For New Year's Day, we slept in as we went to sleep way later than we're used to. At night, we played glow-in-the-dark monster-themed mini golf with Bruce, Damaris, & my mom (she just watched). Of course, Blaine won but we all had some pretty good holes (and some hole-in-ones). The place played tons of 80s music and Michael Jackson, so obviously my mom and sister had to bust some moves. We had a lot of fun.  It was a great way to spend the first day of the year.

Christmas

Christmas was different this year. We had the tradition Noche Buena for Christmas Eve which is basically the only kind of Christmas that my family celebrates. I love it and its always a lot of fun. This year, Bruce's parents and grandmother joined us as well as some of my uncle's family that recently arrived from Cuba. There was tons of good food and the weather was perfect. We ate outside, had a mini fireside about the birth of Christ, danced a little and waited for Santa to come (Santa comes early for Noche Buena because he obviously needs to start a little early to get all those presents delivered in time ;).

Rue received a lot of gifts from family - can you tell she's spoiled?

With my beautiful sister!

Love her

These 2 are always next to the food.

So handsome 

Blurry attempt at a group picture

After Santa dropped off all the presents for Ivan in the backyard (something else weird that my family does), the adults opened there presents. It was really nice. We were definitely spoiled by the amount of gifts we received. But the best gift of the night was a surprise gift for my grandfather by my aunt and uncle. Once we were picking up all the wrapping, by aunt acted like she found one last gift behind the tree for my grandfather. He opened it and couldn't believe his eyes. She prepaid for him to go on a 16-day trip to wherever he wants to go in Europe. He even got a little emotional. My grandfather loves to travel. Ever since my grandmother passed away, he hasn't been able to travel internationally again. So he was beyond excited when he opened this gift. It was a pretty neat experience.

On Christmas Day, Blaine and I opened our gifts. I wanted to make a big breakfast, but Blaine woke up early and said that he would take care of it. He returned with 2 dozen donuts from no other place but Dunkin Donuts. He's keeping the Dawson tradition alive. Granted, we didn't even come close to finishing 1 dozen but it was nice starting and instilling family traditions from both sides of the family. For lunch, we had grandma Dawson's meatballs. It really made us miss her and miss all of the Dawsons in general. Christmas just wasn't the same this year without a trip to Delaware/Idaho! But we did have a great time opening our stockings and gifts. Blaine got me a really nice pet monitor (its a monitor for anything but I call it a pet monitor for now :]) so that I may check up on Rue when I'm out and about. We're trying to un-crate train her so this will help out with that. After we opened gifts, we went to the movies with my mom, Papo, Damaris and Bruce to watch Anchorman 2. It was a relaxing day and it was so nice to have Blaine not working for real (he is always working even on Saturdays/days off). 

Our Christmas tree this year - my mom made me those bows

Photo on our Christmas card

I was a little sad to see Christmas go so quickly, but I'm grateful for the opportunity we had to spend time emphasizing and thinking about the most important birth ever. Blaine's parents got me the prettiest Willow Tree nativity starter kit and I loved looking at it everyday. It really helped me focus on Christ and not get caught up in the craziness of shopping (I only went to the mall once for gifts - record breaking! So grateful for online shopping & amazon). We appreciate all the holiday cards, gifts and well-wishes sent. We hope you had a very merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was different this year but just as nice. For the last 4 years, we've been going to Aunt Jan's for Thanksgiving. We tried visiting Idaho again, but flights were too expensive by the time we figured out Blaine's work schedule. So we decided to visit Massachusetts because Blaine's parents were also spending Thanksgiving with Brian and Kim.

We barely made our flight. First of all, I was working until late that day. When we tried getting our boarding passes, my flight itinerary wasn't showing up. Ends up being that I didn't have a seat on that plane. We had to buy another plane ticket right on the spot for me last minute. Obviously, we were beyond furious because American Airlines did charge our credit card for that flight that "was never bought." We just didn't have the time to complain because we would've missed our flight. Needless to say, we will never fly American again. But, we made it to Massachusetts safe and sound and it was worth every penny we did (over)spend.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Cowdens, Brian and Kim's good friends that we've met before. We really really missed Aunt Jan's cooking but dinner was still great. The boys played football outside and we drank hot apple cider. We played with the kids for hours and hours on end. After dinner, the adults played Catchphrase. It was a lot of fun.

Tucker man! 

Watching the boys play football

We snuggled on this couch for most of the day.

The next day, I went Black Friday shopping with Kim, Eileen and little Chase. I didn't get a ton of shopping done due to the lack of space in my carry-on but it was still fun to have girl time.

We hiked Purgatory Chasm on Saturday. It was a pretty cool experience. I've never seen anything like it. It's .25-mile-long, 70-foot-deep chasm of bedrock. There were a ton of abrupt precipices and sharp edges and caves created by boulders. By some miracle, nobody was hurt. Blaine pulled a neck muscle pretty bad but he lived :) At night, we made cookies for everybody with Ashton and Chase's help. 

Sliding down "sliding rock"

This was crazy scary.

It was a beautiful day!

On Sunday, we drove to Hockessin and just hung out at home. We didn't have much time and didn't get to see all of our family or any of our friends. But it was still nice to stay in Hockessin. Kerri, Connor and Jason came over for dinner. Connor is already taller than me and is catching up to Blaine.  The next day we got up bright and early to go to the airport and grabbed some Wawa hot chocolate on the way there. We definitely wish we could've stayed longer. We love visiting our family in Delaware and the Northeast!