Happy Halloween

Alea went as the American Girl doll McKenna as her book character to school. Alea loves Halloween and made this crutch for herself over the summer. She made the Duct Tape cast last week for an added touch. Alea did all of the decorations herself. I hate decorating for the holidays. 

One of Alea's friends had her birthday party today after school at the local roller rink. 

They girls had a lot of fun. They had the entire place to themselves.

Alea and her bestie.

They were trying so hard to stay standing up while on their roller skates.

Davin made the Razorback pumpkin at work for a contest. He won a pizza lunch for his group. 

(That is a several hundred dollar prize.)

Alea was upset that we don't dress up for Halloween so we wore our superhero shirts. 

She made Davin wear a red blanket as his cape.

They trick or treat together every year.

M was a witch and Alea was her pet bat.

Davin's Razorback pumpkin.

Davin added water and dry ice to one of Alea's pumpkins.

The last night of youth volleyball

Way to go girl! Way to move your feet!

Alea is getting her award from her coach. The prego lady in the background in Jenny, the club director. Jenny is from Bulgaria. She played volleyball in Russia as a young teen and then came to the U.S. to play volleyball at the U of A. I tell Davin that she is our Bella Kaolyli (U.S. gymnastics coach).

Team Blue and Team Red

My volleyball star!

Silly face.

Yea!

A run with Alea

Mondays are usually my rest days but since I took a rest day on Saturday I decided to go out and do at least one mile today. When I got home and started helping Alea tackle her homework I was trying to figure out when to fit in a run. At about this time Alea remembered she left a birthday party invitation in her desk that she has been telling me about for days. I told her we could run up to school and get it if we could RUN and get it. She agreed. Round trip, including some hallway walking, we did 1.16 miles tonight. I was glad we got to do a run together and that I got a mile done today too. Alea kept doing a robot run which was cracking me up. She also likes to show me her speed walking that includes her sticking her bottom out as far as she can, walking fast, and shaking her bottom. She made me laugh the entire time.

Castaway Cay

On our last Disney cruise (when Alea was in first grade) we booked another Disney cruise while on board to get a discount. We were able to push out the date of our cruise until we were ready to use it. We are going to go on our first seven day cruise this summer. It is a Western Caribbean cruise that leaves from Florida and travels to Costa Maya, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman, as well as Disney's private island, Castaway Cay. Our cruise leaves on June 8th. Our 15th wedding anniversary is June 6th so this will be our 15th anniversary present to ourselves. I have recently started planning and thinking about this trip. I want to take a day or two before the cruise and spend it in Disney World. We went to Disney World on our honeymoon and our 10 year anniversary. I am thinking about flying out on the morning of the 6th, swimming and exploring the hotel in the afternoon, and having dinner on a Disney property that night.  The next day I want to get a one day park ticket and spend the day at Magic Kingdom. On Saturday the 8th I want to have a character breakfast at the Polynesian resort and then head to the port for our cruise. 

Today while I was researching Disney cruise info I discovered there is a 5K on Disney's Castaway Cay island. It isn't an extra cost and I am thinking about doing it. Davin has been very supportive of my running and racing but when I told him about this 5K he asked me why I would want to do this. It will be humid in the Caribbean in June. I can only sit on the beach and do nothing for a short amount of time but we will be at CC all day. Davin and Alea love to hang out in the sand all day. I have to fight off the boredom so this will be a good activity for me. Also, it is the last full day of the cruise so I will have plenty of extra 'fluff' to work off. 

I thought I would share some pictures from our last Disney cruise that focus on Castaway Cay.

This is Alea at the port before we boarded the ship. She looks so little and young here!

At Castaway Cay. That is the Pirate of the Caribbean ship from the movies in the background. 

My cutie with the Disney ship in the background.

Alea with the Pirates ship. The back side is open because that is the side they filmed from. 

It is pretty neat to see.

Look who we ran into on the beach!

This is  a great photo spot on the island.

I need to get this weight thing in gear so I can at least look this skinny... preferable skinnier. :)

A Sunday Run

The thought crossed my mind to skip my run today and just make it a complete do nothing weekend. Instead I got off my bottom and tried to get Alea to go for a run with me. She and her daddy rediscovered one of their Xbox games so Alea ditched me for video games. I did three miles today in a really good time (considering it wasn't a race day). I wore long sleeves for the first time and that went well. During the middle of mile 2 I got a little warm on my arms but for mile 1 and 3 I was glad for the long sleeves. It was very bright and sunny out but the wind was nice and cool.

Saturday

I slept so late today I'm embarrassed to tell you how late. Let's just say that our favorite weekend restaurant place closes at 2pm and I had to hurry and get ready so we could get there and eat before they closed.

When we got home Davin and Alea carved pumpkins and I built a fire in our fire pit. We save our junk mail that shouldn't get thrown out so I got to burn about six months of old mail. That was productive.

Now we are all showered and smelling better and are planning for a relaxing rest of the day. We may order in pizza later for dinner.

I love lazy weekends!

My new running partner

Alea and I will be running our first race together next weekend. It is called the Heroes for Kids 5k. Haley decided not to do it with me. I was fine with this because I wanted to see what how I could do on my own with only my own brain to encourage me. As I was registering I decided to ask Alea if she wanted to do the 5k with me or if she wanted to do the 1 mile fun run. She said she wanted to do the fun run with me. I told her I was doing the 5k so she could either do the 1 mile on her own or do the 5k with me. She said she wanted to do the 5k with me. So sweet. Two weeks after the Heroes for Kids race is the Girls on the Run 5k that we will be running together. I told Alea that she and I needed to practice running together. We are going to run together this weekend but tonight when we got home we had some time so we decided to go ahead and go out together. Alea is training for the GOTR 5k at her school and I am training for it at mine. We ran/walked 2 miles together. I ran more than Alea but even an 8 year old can keep up with my running by simply walking. She is so cute because she wanted to take her MP3 player and ear buds with her on our run so she could be a real runner. She was so relaxed the entire time just listening to her Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez music. I  on the other hand listen to Vietnam war era music while I run. Almost all the music I listen to on a daily basis was recorded before I was born. My favorite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival.

I don't think she knew I took this picture.
She was so peaceful just walking and listening to her music.

My little running buddy

I decided that I have been taking too many "rest days" lately so I decided to go out for a run tonight. I took Sparky with me and we ran most of a mile. We did a 16:30 minute mile and Sparky ran just as much, if not more, that I did. This is great for Sparky because if I walk or run too far I usually end up carrying him home.

I thought I would share a picture of Sparky since this post is about his awesome running skills. This picture is at least two years old. He is wearing his "Little Sparkler" shirt. It's pretty cute since his name is Sparkles. Although he answers to any of the following:
Sparkles
Sparky
Barkles
Barky
Sir Sparkleton
Sparky-Barky
Sir Fluffer Butt
Barky Barkerson
The Sparkenator
The Poopenator
Bubby
Captain Fuzzy Butt
Sparkles Rosebud Billingsley

Believe it or not...he actually knows that all of these mean him.

Pumpkin Patch

Alea loves Halloween, picking out her costume, and going to the pumpkin patch. In fact, she almost always starts planning for Halloween right after her birthday...in April! Today we were able to make it to the pumpkin patch and she had a great time picking out her 'mommy, daddy, and junior' pumpkins. She also found a tiny white pumpkin to be the Sparky pumpkin.

Looking for the perfect pumpkin.

She named this pumpkin "Junior".

Pumpkin patch bliss!

Heading to the car with her finds.

Volleyball Tryouts

Warming up before tryouts begin on day 2.

(Did I mention she was also the cutest girl there?)

This weekend was the volleyball tryouts for club volleyball. Alea was by far the youngest and shortest girl there. Tryouts were form 4-6 on Saturday and 1-3 on Sunday. They ran drills, played mini games, and did sessions that focused on a specific skill (bumping, serving, setting, spiking/hitting, etc.) While they were doing all of this different coaches were scoring them. Alea is in the 12 and under division so there were girls there a lot older than her and girls with a lot more skills. There were some 11 year old girls that could jump serve and get the ball out of bounds on the other court. Wow! There were also some 10 and 11 year old girls there (I don't think there were any 9 year old girls) that were similar in skill level to Alea. The girls with similar skill sets had more control of their bodies and more maturity to understand the drills. Alea did a good job though and we are proud of her and I think she is proud with herself too for hangin' with the big girls. There were probably around 80 to 100 girls there trying out for the different teams offered for 13 and under. The 15 and under and 17 and under girls will tryout next weekend.

We don't expect her to make a team...our idea was for her to have this experience trying out and to learn and become more comfortable with volleyball in this setting. There is a chance she will make a team and at first I had the wrong attitude about that. I kept seeing her and the other girls with her similar skills and was thinking how expensive club is and that we would probably decline the bid if she gets offered a team because her team will lose all of their games and matches. Then I was watching the 11 year old girls that were so amazing and realized that they started somewhere. If Alea makes a team it won't be about winning it will be about the practices and developing her skills. They practice twice a week for a couple of hours each practice. If she makes a team I hope one practice is on the weekends so she isn't too overwhelmed during the week. 

Alea was number 76. I told her '76 was a good year. ;)

Girl Scout Fun Run

Getting ready for the Girl Scout Fun Run.

Alea with her Girl Scout friends getting ready for the 1 mile fun run.

The starting line.

Friends!

Here they go!

Run, Alea run!

Here they come!

Emily with her mama. Go Emmers and Haley!

Heading to the finish line!

Her eyes are on the prize.

The finish line is in her sights!

I love this picture!

Alea with her participation ribbon. She came in 5th among the Brownies! So proud of her!!

Watching the 2 mile fun run.

A finish line reenactment.