One New Years Day we didn't do anything. We broke out some of JJ's toys from his birthday that we hadn't opened yet and just lounged around. On the 2nd we met John's parents and Kim and Paul for breakfast and then went and looked at some model homes and then Kim and Paul headed back to Idaho.
Sunday the 3rd was my birthday. It pretty well sucked. John got really sick on Saturday (I think it was this Saturday....) and JJ was still sick. As you can see in the picture he really didn't feel well. He never falls asleep with us holding him and that's what he did.
After sleeping with John he woke up and came to me and went back to sleep. Poor little guy.
This picture was post nap. His crazy bed head. I am about ready to get his first hair cut, but I love his crazy hair.
This picture was taken on the 7th. So I don't have any pictures between the 3rd and 7th, but here is what was happening. On the 4th I called out of work to take JJ to the dr because he was so sick on Sunday and I think maybe he threw up that night... anyways I took him in and they sent me for a chest x-ray. It always throws you for a loop when you expect to get an antibiotic and sent on your way and they send you for x-rays. For my little baby? So we got the call that afternoon that the x-rays showed he had pneumonia. So we were on antibiotics for that and still low grade fevers and a lot of night waking. The new year wasn't the fresh start I had hoped for.
I was trying to get mentally ready for our upcoming Disney trip but with everything going on it wasn't easy. Here is my new wallet and purse; both Harvey's. The wallet has some of the vintage Disney posters. The purse JJ has decided is his and that he loves it.
This picture was on January 7th. It was the start of some cold weather for us and just a grey cloudy day at work.
This was one of my birthday gifts. It's a fun distraction some days at work.
This was on the 10th and I think this was actually the weekend John was so sick and barely came out of the bedroom. I laughed pretty good at this because he's told not to touch the dogs food and water and technically he wasn't.
Sometimes I feel like our house is so small and there's not a lot of room for him to play or stuff to keep him entertained. Especially when dad is sick and so is he and it's not warm enough to be outside, but a laundry basket is always fun.
He loves that purse. He will sit with it on his lap while we drive. He can't even see over it, but it keeps him happy so whatever.
So now my pictures jump to California, but let me tell what happened before that! On the 11th I took JJ back to the doctor because I didn't feel that he was getting any better. He'd been on antibiotics for a week and it just didn't seem better. We got sent for another chest x-ray and we got told that the pneumonia while it hadn't spread it hadn't gotten any better. They also added that now he had RSV. We were put on a 2nd antibiotic and sent home with a nebulizer and told to do breathing treatments at least 3 times a day.
It's not a good day when you find out your son has RSV and obviously can't go to daycare. They weren't really clear on how long we needed to keep him out. One person told us as long as he's coughing he's contagious and that could be up to 30 days. Another said as long as there isn't a fever. Another said as long as he wasn't real mucousy. I was panicking because we both have jobs and I couldn't expect to dump JJ on John's mom for a month. Plus we had this California trip planned from 6 months before and we'd be out probably at least 2K if we didn't go. Oh yeah, and also I went to the doctor because I wasn't feeling well and ended up on amoxicillin and a steroid.
We decided to go to California because he didn't seem to be getting any worse. Here was a picture from the plane on the way there.
This is where I should probably break this post into 2 but oh well. We got to Orange County Friday morning and got a cab to the hotel. We were staying at Paradise Pier which is one of the Disney Resorts. We decided to splurge a little on the hotel because we didn't want to be miles away on race day trying to get to the corrals at 430 AM. It was not too bad in terms of getting to the parks, but more on the race day stuff to come.
We were to the hotel by probably 830AM. So we dropped off our bags and went to find some breakfast.
We had decided not to go into the parks on Friday because we didn't want to wear ourselves out knowing we had an early morning the next day. So we wandered Downtown Disney and went to the expo to see the race merchandise and get our packet pick up. Here is a picture of some of the medals.
I don't think any of us got any of the race merchandise. I wasn't in love with anything. We spent a lot more time over in the expo. New Balance puts out race shoes. You have to make an appointment to try them on. Stephanie got an appointment so while she tried them on I grabbed them and tried them on too. Glad we're pretty much the same size shoe. I liked them, but I am just not a sneaker type person so I decided not to spend the money on them. I spent enough on other stuff.
John and I had both forgotten to grab any of our energy gels so we picked some of those up. We both got new hydration belts. I am highly skeptical of them for women because my last one doesn't stay and bounces around, etc. I have only been on one run with it so far, but I LOVE IT.
We got some Oofos. Apparently this is big with runners? I don't know, but I like wearing them. I decided I wanted some compression socks. I don't run with my compression sleeves anymore but I also don't run 6 miles all the time so I bought some of those. I don't remember what else we bought, but they took a lot of our money.
Also in the spirit of the weekend we went to Star Wars. It was a nice way to kill the afternoon and not our legs and of course I love the movie.
After the expo we headed back to the hotel to see if we could get a room. I think this is the order we went. I don't know. Either way we got a room at some point and were pleasantly surprised to have an awesome park view. Also ironically and literally our room was right where our corral was. We could have walked out our room and like 5 feet the corral but because you have to go through security and such we walked probably a mile in a circle.
Good view at night too. I saw a brief moment of World of Color but didn't get a picture.
Race day! Our start time was 530 but we were supposed to be there at 430. I can't remember what time we got up, but we all made it there in plenty of time. Again if we'd known it was right outside our room we might have slept in and tried to sneak into the corral.
I think we heard there were 25K runners between all the races and around 10K (ha ha ironic?) for the 10K. We were in one of the further back corrals so we actually started probably around 545.
This was approaching the starting line. They were playing clips from the movies and such. It was fun to have the Imperial Death March or the opening sequence, etc. Set a fun tone.
I was happy with the course because there wasn't much straight areas so you were constantly turning and it gave you a lot to look at and take your mind off of what you were actually doing. That being said, because you cut through back lots I was so freaking lost! Also, after standing around in our corrals and stuff for a while by the time we started running we had to pee. The first mile or so was outside of the park so there weren't really bathrooms. I told Stephanie if she saw a bathroom to grab me, but we got separated and both stopped at different ones.
I picked probably the worst bathroom to stop at because there was a line and only 2 stalls. I should have left and gone to another one but once I had decided I needed to go there was no going back. John said I probably wasted 5-10 minutes in there.
I tried to take a few pictures but I wasn't really going to stop and move to the side and take a picture so all of these with my phone are blurry. But here is the castle. It did get congested in a few places where the trail narrowed like through the castle.
Here is by It's A Small World. They still had it decorated for Christmas which I highly prefer this to the all white non-Christmas lights.
This was coming down Main Street in Disneyland. This was the 1/2 way point. I actually ran this part alone because John had stopped for a bathroom by Indiana Jones and I kept going. He caught me right after this. I got separated from Stephanie and Bart early and I figured with my bathroom stop I was way behind them. Well, I was surprised when about mile 4 they suddenly passed me. I thought the trail was going to loop around so I slowed down and moved to the side so we could high-five when they came by but it didn't.
Coming into Cars Land. This was pretty cool because it wasn't too long after sunrise. This was right before mile 5 I believe. I could definitely tell that I usually run about 2.5 miles because at about 3 miles my body was like ok that's it! I was happy that my shins and feet were doing pretty dang good but my hip flexor was hurting pretty bad by about 3.5.
I guess I didn't take any more pictures after Cars, but we all finished. I didn't finish in the time I was hoping to see but for my first 10K and for it being a Disney race, I'm told it wasn't bad (thanks Liz).
We got our medals and grabbed some of all the food they hand out and got our pictures taken (I just haven't bought any yet) and headed back to the room to change! The medals are no joke. They are freaking awesome and I love it.
After showers and some food we headed to the parks. I can't remember what Stephanie said her pedometer showed but we were at like 10 miles pretty early in the day. I'm sure we got some good mileage that weekend.
I don't remember what all we did Saturday... I know I ate the most delicious, amazing pickle ever while we waited for Indiana Jones (I think I needed the salt). We had dinner at Blue Bayou; it was yummy. We did the parade Saturday night. Because of our dinner reservation we were too late to stake out a good spot out front and we didn't want to stay out for the late parade and we got the most awesome spot right by It's a Small World where we could see the fireworks, the parade, and be right there to get the monorail afterwards to head back to the room! We also got to see mean Stephanie come out and tell some guy where he could go. (Don't worry I was right there with her and would have told the guy the same thing!)
This was a new parade I hadn't seen before and I loved it. Watching it I couldn't help but think how much JJ would probably love it. I can't wait to take him sometime in the near future!
Everytime I see the princess' also I think about Nick's girls. I don't know if they're too old or not but I hope they would love them too.
We went back to our room pretty early since it had been a long day. John, Stephanie, and I went down to the hot tub for a quick soak before it closed. I think it was that night as I was laying in bed thinking Stephanie and Bart aren't even in bed and I am going to pass out. And I did. I was completely exhausted.
Sunday was the 1/2 marathon. I thought about getting up to see Liz in her corral but that was just a nice thought. Because the corrals for this were also right outside our room we had a heck of a time trying to get across the dang street to get to the parks. I was probably within 5-10 minutes of seeing Liz and her mom come up the final stretch.
I'll throw this in here now. Liz is a friend I met online in a music chat room called Turntable like 3 years ago. Turntable is shut down and this group has migrated to several other music rooms. A handful of us have stayed in touch through other means as well as the chat room and Liz is a huge inspiration to me on my running because she does all these awesome 1/2 marathons. Well, when I found out she was going to do this run it's part of the reason I signed up for it too, but I didn't dare do the 1/2. But that she was going to be there from Florida and then her boyfriend with her from Texas (another online friend) and me from Arizona... there was no way that all three of us could be in California from different states and not meet face to face. We had hoped Chris and his family would make it down too so we could meet but they had a busy weekend with birthdays. So the fact that we kept missing each other was almost comical. I would message them and find out there were at the Matterhorn when I had just left that area 15 minutes earlier. Or they were at the ferris wheel and I was there about an hour later. We just couldn't get our timing right.
Sunday we focused on California Adventure. We got Tower of Terror done; a favorite for us all. Yep, we're some of those that stage their pictures on this ride. This one was so funny to us I had to take a picture of us all. We also got in Screamin' California, Mickey's Wheel of Death, Toy Story Mania, and a few others. Some of those might have been Monday too. We hit most of the rides we really wanted though, I think. Radiator Springs we got for John. We were also dumb enough to do Grizzly River Rapids in January. Finally I didn't get soaked on it! We did it right before going back to the room for a mid-day shoe and outfit change.
So Monday afternoon we were headed home. I still hadn't met up with Liz and Mike but we were going to make it happen somehow. We finally agreed to meet in front of Flo's cafe as they were headed to Radiator Springs and we were headed to Disneyland for Hyperspace Mountain. It was so fun/cool/nerdy to meet them! Liz's parents were there too and they were very nice. I was happy to see neither one of them was catfishing me :-) This was a highlight of the trip for me.
Is it weird nowadays to meet friends online? I don't know, but I am glad I have had the chance to know them through our shared love of 80s music and now met in person. Liz is also a huge amusement park guru so we have that somewhat in common too. Mike likes hockey so he's ok by me. I'm going to get us to Florida to do Disneyworld with Liz if I can.
Then we were headed home. I took this picture because obviously to get to Arizona we don't fly over an ocean so I thought maybe the pilot was taking us to Mexico or something. No such luck.
We got home with no incidents and John's parents and JJ picked us up. JJ seemed to be doing better and Chris said he'd had a good weekend; so that was good. We took him to the doctor again on the 18th and they said the pneumonia was gone. They didn't give us a clear picture on the RSV but we kept him out of daycare the rest of that week too.
We've taken him back since then and he had a bit of a struggle wanting to be there and leaving dad. It made John feel bad and it made Laura feel bad. It seems though that we are getting over that. So hopefully he can like going to school again.
I can tell that JJ is feeling better because he's eating better. Knock on wood he's eaten quite a few of my dinners lately. It makes me feel so accomplished that I made something he'll eat.
Nick, John, and I signed up for the Hogwarts Running Club and the Molly Weasley Ugly Jumper Run. It's a 5k virtual run. Liz's mom told me about it. It benefits charity and sounds like a fun group. Looking forward to my run coming up.
Nick and Shar invited us over for a bonfire and smores and hot chocolate. We went down for a little while before JJ's bedtime. I think he liked it. The kids liked playing with him and he got to try marshmallows for the first time. He loves them.
He's started to expand from just Baby First TV to Disney Jr too. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a favorite.
This past weekend was a nice weekend finally. I mean finally because we had a good weekend with JJ. It was much needed after the past month of sickness. We were able to get outside and play a little and run some errands and he took a good nap and mom got to go for a run and dad worked on his truck. I think everyone was happy. I know I needed a good weekend like that.
John had made dinner reservations for Hillstone on Saturday the 30th. Our anniversary is 2/2 but that's ok. So Jim and Chris came to watch JJ so we could go to dinner. It was delicious as always and nice to have an evening away.
Finally to wrap up the month I have no idea what was going on here I just think the picture is funny. This guy is so goofy and silly I love it. He likes to chase the dogs, play hide and seek, he comes running when he hears the bathtub. He likes to throw his balls, and he's so loving. He will come up and just give you a love that melts my heart. His smile is amazing and his laugh is the best part of my day.
