Flashback Friday: My first 5K

I ran my first 5K race on November 19, 2011. I did the Couch to 5k program to train for this event. Actually, I've been doing that program for over a year, off and on, but this time I decided to sign up for a Saturday 5K so that I had a goal to work towards.

This 5k race was called "How the West was Run". We ran around the West End of Sierra Vista. When I arrived to sign in, the ladies asked if I was walking the course. I said, "NO! I am running. I've been training for months." They looked really surprised that a 200+ pound person would run the whole 3.2 miles. But I was determined. And they seemed very happy that I would try it.

Before the Race -- I am SUPER excited! And nervous.

My mom came with me to take pictures and cheer me on. It was fun to have someone there to support me, because I was running the race by myself.

Listening to the final instructions before the race began

There were a lot of people running the race, but there were also a lot of people walking the 5K. There were some very serious 5K racers, and then there were a lot of people like me who were there to challenge themselves to get healthier. I didn't feel like the odd man out at all.

And we're off.

This was the First Annual West End Run. They had teenagers with red vests at every turn directing us to where to go. It was a pretty nice course. My goal was the run the entire course, but during the 3rd mile, there were this little hill that looked like a steep mountain. I was already extremely exhausted and I didn't think I could make it up there, so I walked it. And then I couldn't get myself to start running again for about 1/2 mile. At that time, I was fairly close to the finish line, so I took every ounce of energy I had left, and forced myself to run the last 1/4 mile.


I finished at 41 minutes. My second goal was to run it in under 45 minutes, so I was very pleased with my time. And I wasn't even the last runner to cross the finish line. There were still two people behind me!

Now I have a time-to-beat when I run my next 5K. And I will run another one (or two) in 2012!

Embarrassing Moment

On Friday, I went to a farewell party of a German federal employee who has worked here a year and is now returning back to Germany. We were at his German Liason officer's house and they made us the most wonderful dinner! I really love German food and man, oh man! did I indulge!

During the course of the evening, the other members of the group drank wine, beer, and then they got out the harder stuff. They each tried a shot of something I'd never heard of, but as they were pouring the drink, our host set each shot glass on fire before passing them out. It was weird, but it was funny to watch the people taste this drink.

I didn't want to be rude and just leave, especially since it wasn't a rowdy or rambunctious party. It a nice dinner party to say farewell to our German co-worker.

I started feeling really tired about 10:30PM and finally asked for my coat to leave. Our host stuck out his hand, so I took it and shook it while saying...to our host... in his house... "Thank you for coming, um...I mean, thank you for letting me come." What did I just say?! He was probably thinking "Are you sure you didn't drink?" Haha! I was so tired I didn't even know what was coming out of my mouth. I guess I get drunk by proximity because everyone else there seemed to hold their liquor quite well.

Haha! That was embarrassing, but I always seem to do something like that. Makes life more entertaining. :)

Flashback Friday: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

This is my first Flashback Friday. I thought this post was appropriate for Friday the 13th!

Welcome to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Enter Hogsmeade with Kelli and I...

See the Hogwarts express...

Walk the street of Hogsmeade...

Look through the windows of Honeydukes....

(Buy lots and lots of chocolate frogs for your friends and family)

Look in Zonkos Joke Shop...

(This Puking Pastilles display was pretty gross...the girl was continuously puking that blue shiny stuff)

Play around with all the fun stuff...

Continue window shopping at the Owl Post...

And at the Book Shop...

The pictures of Gilderoy Lockhart really moved, like in the books and movies. Pretty cool!

Withdraw some gold from the Gringott's ATM...

But be on the lookout for Sirus Black!

Choose your wand in Olivander's...

(Kelli got the Elder Wand and I got Hermione's wand)

And meet Mr. Olivander himself...

Try out a couple of spells along the way...

Eat lunch at the Three Broomsticks...

And try your first cup of Butterbeer...

YUM!!
It tastes like butterscotch and short bread cookies. Very, very yummy! We had to go back and get seconds later in the day. :) There are two kinds, cold and frozen. I recommend the frozen. It's more like a butterscotch slushy with froth on top!

Finally, enter Hogwarts and walk through the coolest queue you have ever experienced!

Unfortunately I did not bring my camera inside the castle, but it really was a cool line into the ride. The ride itself was very innovative, but it made me really motion sick, so I didn't really pay attention to it because I was trying to keep myself from being really sick. But the queue! The queue was just amazing. Let me try to explain...

You first enter the queue out in the gardens. Then you enter the castle through the dungeons. You pass Snape's office and classrooms. You meander through the great hall and the moving staircase area with portraits floor to ceiling that talk to each other. You walk into Dumbledore's office where he is talking to his visitors (and it looks like he is actually there...no animatronics, it's more like a life size hologram). Then you pass by the fat lady portrait while she tries to break glass with her voice and enter into the Gryffindor's common room where a life size Harry, Hermione, and Ron are making plans and mischief (same hologram effect). Ron even makes it snow on everyone by doing a spell gone wrong. Finally you pass the sorting hat that explains the ride a bit and then you enter the ride itself.

We went when there wasn't a long line (they opened that part of the park an hour early for people who stayed on property, so we were able to avoid the main crowd), so we basically ran through the castle with no wait to get into the ride. I bet if we had to wait, it wouldn't feel very long with all the detail and things to look at and be entertained by along the way. I liked the queue way more than the ride itself, can you tell?

If you EVER get a chance to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter inside the Orlando Island of Adventure theme park, DO IT!! It was tons of fun and the goodies we bought there were just as amazing as you would imagine.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It is unbelievable how fast 2011 came and went. It was a year full of events, both big and small, but for some reason I had a hard time finding my way to this blog to tell you about the happenings in my life. I took the pictures, but I never made the time to upload them. I will try to fix that this year. I also want to try to catch up with things from years gone by, so I have a record of them somewhere, therefore I am going to start a new thing called "Flashback Fridays" where I will write about something from the past couple of years and post them on Fridays.

I am excited about 2012. It seems like it will be a good year and with a new year comes the sense of starting over again and being hopeful for things to come. In the past, I've made some grand resolutions that I had a hard time keeping. Most of them fell by the wayside. This year I thought I would resolve to things that would help me achieve my end goals. So instead of saying, I will lose two dress sizes, I am resolving to exercise 150 minutes a week. I ran a 5K last November and I want to run another one this Spring, so this 150-minutes-of-exercise-a-week resolution will help me achieve that end goal as well.

Another resolution I have is to get to work before 8am every day. With exercising in the mornings, it is sometimes difficult to get ready for and arrive at work before 8am, but I am resolved to do it this year. I hope by having this resolution I will have better time management and the end goal of being able to keep up with my house, or being able to keep up with my church calling, or being able to finally complete the many unfinished projects I have in my closet will be easier with having an extra hour after work to accomplish things.

So there you have it. This year I WILL be successful! The first week is over and I already can say so far so good. These resolutions are going to be pretty easy to keep. I am excited for the rewards and benefits by sticking to them. Bring it on, 2012!

Our favorite rides in Disney World

We have several favorite rides in the four Disney parks and we always make it a point to go on most of these rides multiple times.

In the Animal Kingdom:

• Expedition Everest (though we have to limit riding this roller coaster to 3 times back to back because it starts to make us a bit sick, especially the part where train goes backward).
• Kilimanjaro Safaris (We always go on this safari first thing in the morning because the animals are usually up. We saw everything this time. And we took plenty of pictures which I will post later.)

In Disney's Hollywood Studios:

• Toy Story Mania! (this is a fairly new ride, but loads of fun. It is very popular; hence it was our longest wait of the week when we road it in the afternoon for our 3rd time that day. Ride it first thing for only 20 minute waits.)
  
• The Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror (our all time favorite. We have probably been dropped in this elevator nearly 100 times counting all our visits to this park, as well as to the one in California. Love it, Love it, Love it!). Here's a picture to prove how much we love it:

• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith: (This ride seems to be going through its annual or bi annual refurbishment when we go, but this time it was open. It is fun because you are riding in a huge limo, and because you go from standstill to high speeds in just a few seconds. Very fast and very fun).

In the Magic Kingdom:

• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (This ride is a bit more fun in California because the guns are not attached to the car, but it is still a great ride. We are SO SERIOUS when we ride this ride, trying to get as many points as possible as we shoot at the targets.) By the way, this is the only picture we DIDN'T pose for.
  

• Space Mountain (This is just a very nostalgic ride. Another thing we love to do is pose for the pictures. I bet you couldn't guess. :) This one cracks me up!)
  

• The Haunted Mansion (Another very nostalgic ride. The Hitchhiking Ghosts were a bit different this time too. Instead of just sitting in our pod with us, they actually took our heads off (well, pictures of our heads that is) and bounced them around a bit. It was very funny. We even found and bought Jim Shore figurines of the Hitchhiking Ghosts at one of the parks. Love it!)
  

In Epcot:
We only went on these rides once each since this is a very large park with A LOT to see and do. This is our longest day of the week by far, but it is also probably one of my favorite parks in Disney.

• Soarin' (very peaceful ride)
• Ellen's Energy Adventure (Funny and educational show/ride with Ellen DeGeneres)
• Test Track (Fun and fast ride where you are a part of testing cars for road readiness)
• The World Showcase, that feature pavilions from Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, United Kingdom, and Canada.

I love exploring all of the countries in Epcot! And it's fun because I've visited more than half of the countries in person, so I enjoy seeing the different landmarks and how Epcot interprets them. The only one that bugs me a little is in Italy because the Doges Palace is on the wrong side of the two columns of the Piazzetta di San Marco. And I would have thought the leaning tower of Pisa would be a more recognizable landmark than the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica, but that's just me. I still love going to visit the pavilion, so I guess it really doesn't matter anyway. :)

We went to Disney World!

Kelli and I enjoyed a week long adventure to Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando. Six parks in six days. The first four days at Disney World and the last two days at Universal Studios. I know...we are ambitious, but this time of year the lines are extremely short so we can do everything we want, and ride our favorites multiple times, while still getting back to the hotel before dinner (that is, except the day we went to Epcot. That is a very large park, plus we made reservations to eat dinner in the Italy Pavilion). Most of the wait for the rides were 15 minutes or under. Often we just walked onto the ride. The longest line we experienced was for Toy Story Mania. We waited 40 minutes...but even that is not too bad. And the queue itself is very entertaining (which is typical of all the rides in DisneyWorld and Universal Studios Orlando) so the wait did not feel too long. Check out some of the pictures of the queue (this is when the line wasn't too long):

Mr. Potato Head talked to the people in the queue, sang songs, and posed for pictures. It was really funny to watch.

I love all the detail of the toys, like this Lincoln Log house, the Scrabble board roof, the tinker toys, the Lego supports for the room, the monkeys, etc. So much fun!

This is our fourth or fifth time going to Disney World and Universal Studios together. We absolutely LOVE it! This time we were even brave enough to use the new Disney Photo Pass system. There are A LOT of photographers around each park and you can have them take your picture at different photo stop spots. They then scan those pictures to a very convenient card you can carry and use at every Disney park. Then at the end of your vacation, or when you return home, you can view them online. Here are the best ones from around the parks. We started these on Day 2 so we don't have any Photo Pass Pictures from the Animal Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Epcot

Stay tuned for more posts about our trip...

Red Light Ticket

I had a nice surprise in the mail in February. Apparently, I ran a red light in Tucson (Kolb and Speedway) in December and I was served with a Red Light ticket two months later. I don't remember running a red light, but there was my ugly mug right there captured on the ticket. My first ticket ever (well not including the one for 5mph over that really didn't count for much).

I did some research about tickets you receive in the mail, and everywhere I read said to not do anything about it because it is not a legal ticket if an government official (aka Policeman) did not personally hand you the ticket. Online advice said to take a chance that no one would come and serve you a ticket, that the court would forget about it, so that is what I did...nothing.

It was about two weeks before my court date when there was a knock at my door at 9pm. I opened the door and there was a man there to serve me the ticket. Ugh! I gambled and I lost! I had to scramble and go the court house in Tucson (I took off early from work to go, and got pretty lost in downtown Tucson...what a crazy area!!). I had to get my court date extended so I had time to go to Defensive Driving School. I had to pay a fine for the man to come to my house. And I had to pay a fine to get my court date extended. What an expensive gamble to have lost. My ticket was over $300, so I didn't want to pay that. With the fines and the admission fee for driving school, I still saved about $100 from the ticket.

On April 30, I went to the boring Defensive Driving school. I learned a lot, and I fulfilled my obligation and the ticket points did not go on my insurance. The most important thing I learned was that you cannot enter the intersection and stop to wait for oncoming traffic when turning left. You have to wait at the white line and then make a full turn. If you are stopped in the middle of the intersection, you are a hazard. Everyone does that, I've noticed...especially in Arizona. Now I will wait at the white line until the coast is clear and I can make my turn safely, even if it means people behind me honk at me.

I will also now try to avoid red light cameras. :) However, I just read that Sierra Vista is about to get four cameras in the near future. Yuck!

What I learned from this experience...don't trust the online advice about these tickets. I would have saved about $100 if I had just done what the ticket asked me to do in the first place. Lesson learned.