Okay…time to finally break down and rewrite the posts that I lost while away!

So on day 1 we were signed up to take part in the Meet-Up Tweet-Up in EPCOT with Jeff Galloway.  This is a really fun new feature for runDisney.  We were automatically signed up as “media” but this is an event open to ANYONE!  The event will be posted on the Disney Parks Blog.  They give you an e-mail address to contact and it is a first come first served event.  This particular event was open to the first 100 and it was a GREAT time!  I was invited to the event in January for Disney Marathon Weekend but my plane didn’t get there in time so I missed it.  That made me extra excited for this one!  

I’ve heard each of these meet-ups is a little different but they all take place in EPCOT, before opening time.  If you are a Disney fan, it is SO cool to run through the park with a very small group of runners!  When we first arrived (dark and early), we checked in, were given a super nice runDisney shirts (it is so soft and comfy), and the latest issue of Fitness Magezine…sweet!

EPCOT in the morning!

 We got a little time to mingle with all the other ladies and I ran into Courtney!  It was extra fun because I first met Courtney two years ago at the Princess Half (we were both on the Virtual TNT team). 

After some intros, they divided us into two groups.  We had the option to go with the run/walk/run group led by Jeff Galloway or to go with the run group led by Bob (of runDisney), Rachel Booth (2 time Disneyland Half winner, and now the first Coast to Coast Winner!), and THREE TIME Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton.  I’ve met Jeff twice before and absolutely adore him.  He is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met; one of those people who is truly happy for everyone around him, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to run with a female elite and a female Olympian (Jeff, of course has also been both an elite and an Olympian but I was up for girl power).  Well we hit the ground running.  Literally.  This run was nothing more than a “jog in the park” (literally) for these ladies, but before I realized it we were cranking away sub 8′s.  I managed to stick to the front of the pack with Rachel, Bob and Kelly, but was FEELING it…it was so super humid that morning!  But we started to the lose the group and I was VERY thankful for the quick rest we took waiting for the group to come back together.  We got to run through all the countries in EPCOT and before I knew it we were back at the Beer Garden (thank goodness), and dripping from head to toe!  Great morning wake up! 

me (with the crazy hair), Kelly (snow white), and ELITE RACHEL BOOTH (leading the pack) as we set out. HOW COOL?

the hair. Seriously? Rocking the Sparkle Hearts skirt!

We were treated to a wonderful breakfast and got to hear from Jeff, Rachel, Bob, and Suzy.  Suzy was incredible…I got to chat with her one on one for a bit and I adore her.  She has a magical personality, and so truly beautiful inside and out!  She now speaks about her struggles with depression, anxiety, exercise addiction, and eating disorders and how running helped pull her out of it.  Hmm…her story sounds a BIT familiar.  It was amazing to talk to her and she really took the time to talk things out with me and gave me her personal e-mail to chat further.  Wow.  I’ll do a deeper post on her later but she is really a magnetic personality.

seriously...isn't she adorable??

Jeff Galloway

Rachel Booth!

Rachel said something I totally admired.  She said when it comes to running, sometimes she thinks about giving up but she said, “How can I tell my kids to chase their dreams if I don’t have the courage to chase mine”.  Well said Momma!

Suzy

Suzy was so beautifully honest about her struggles and told us an incredible story about one of her Olympic experiences.  I’m excited to share all of that with you! 

Bob and Minnie!

Bob was a wonderful event host and a great pacer for our run!  I really enjoyed chatting with him about all runDisney has to offer!

And they had more surprises for us! 

We all got tiaras!

Minnie hung around for some photos!

Snow White and Rapunzel came to visit as well! My Rapunzel photo came out super blurry : (

Also, each participant was given a complimentary 1 day Park Hopper Pass for the parks!  AWESOME surprise because Disney Tickets gets pricey!  It was so much fun but we had a long day of events ahead of us so we had to gather ourselves and say goodbye to EPCOT for the morning.

runDisney Media/Blogger Crew! These ladies are ROCKSTARS!

More fun to come including Kids Races, Tangled Royal Family 5K, Dinners, Parks, Half Marathon, and more! 

Thank you so much runDisney for this experience!

runDisney provided accommodations and event opportunities 
for this weekend.  All opinions expressed are 100% my own 
(as you can tell from all my past Disney experiences!)

The internet here is spotty at best.  I just spent 45 mins typing up a post…hit publish…and the whole post disappeared.  Not in drafts.  Not anywhere.  So sorry wonderful people!  I’ll get back to the post soon but for now follow along the journey through twitter

@crazyponytail

So I get home from work and was telling my mom a story about something that happened.  As I was doing this I noticed there was a ziploc bag with a bunch of pieces of Lindt dark chocolate in it.  I love dark chocolate.  And I was starving.  So as I was telling the story I start eating one of the pieces.  My mom is smiling and slowly laughing which confuses me because the story really isn’t all that funny.  I start to notice that this is the strongest most bitter chocolate ever.  Oh well…

And then I start to realize something tastes totally off.  Then my mouth starts burning at which point my mom is cracking up and I’m spitting it out in the trash.

Apparently my parents have a new found love for chilli pepper infused chocolate.  I rather unexpected surprise.  I’m not amused. 

I like spicy and I love dark chocolate.  But I’ll keep them separate from now on.  My sinuses are still searing.  

Yes I’m corny.  So anyway…for the past couple of weeks I was sad that I would be missing this year’s Disney Princess Half…aka like my favorite half marathon of all time.  All about ladies feeling like Princesses!  It’s a race with all different shapes, sizes, ages, walks of life, etc. and it is perfectly acceptable to wear a tiara and frilly dress.  But alas…Disney is pricey.  I just couldn’t justify it. 

Well clearly runDisney realized that this race just wouldn’t work without me being a part of it.  That ray of sunshine would be missing at 3AM in the morning of race day!  Because today I got an e-mail.  It went a little something like this:

Yep.  Go run the Princess Half?  Let them put me up at a Disney Resort?  Paid meals and hang out with other awesome ladies?  And blog, tweet, fb, and write the whole time!  Okay Okay, you win.  If I MUST, I guess I’ll go. 

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!  I literally squealed out of excitement!  I love runDisney.  Like its a real, true, deep love. 

Thank you to runDisney and Fitfluetial, Inc. for this awesome opportunity!  Can’t wait to share the adventure with you guys!  So what if I’m in no shape to run distance right now (the longest I’ve run since Goofy is 8 miles…like once).  Oh well.  The real question…WHAT WILL I WEAR????  Gotta pull something together quick!  Are you running Princess?  Let me know!

Valentines Day is like freaking Christmas for elementary school kids.  I mean I remember getting excited to pick out my class Valentine’s every year…and I remember the year my brother’s teacher said all Valentines had to be hand made…my mom just LOVED that.  But seriously.  This is craziness.  Bags and bags and bags of stuff were brought in today!  But oh well…let them have their fun while they still all like each other right?  Because I have been with these kids since August and grown pretty attached to many of them, I decided to take the time to right a personal note to each of them on giant foam hearts I found super cheap at Target.  Seemed like a good idea…24 hearts later?  Not so much.   But I’m glad I did it…they were so excited! 

By the time my planning hour rolled around I was ready to take a deep breath.  Oh goodness…24 sugar fueled second graders.  I was excited to send them to art by noon!  I started walking down the hall toward the copy machine and the hallway was mostly quiet.  My classroom is on the very end of a hallway and I saw someone walking down toward me on the opposite side.  Someone with roses.  I thought that was super sweet that someone had come to deliver flowers.  But as I got closer…the more familiar the “delivery guy” looked.  Then I realized that the familiar looking delivery guy just happened to be my boyfriend.  At first I was super confused and then I was so excited.  I was completely surprised!  Apparently he had called the school the day before asking if it would be okay and what would be a good time.  He managed to come by between classes.  And he was even dressed up in a tie.  It was so incredibly sweet and meant so much to me.  Presents are nice.  The roses were beautiful.  The card was perfect (he managed to find a running oriented Valentine’s card!), but him taking time out of his busy day and putting the effort into surprising me like that meant everything.  I even got a bit teary eyed when I realized it was him just because it was so unexpected and so sweet.  I’m a total routine person so I was a bit overwhelmed by being taken by complete surprise but it was a wonderful feeling.  Thank you love!  You made my entire month! 

my view for the rest of the day : ) sitting on top of my planning binder

 And tonight I had a wonderful track workout with some of my favorite running people!  It was a wonderful day : )

Hey all!  With Disney Princess right around the corner I realized I never finished my recap of this year’s GOOFY Challenge!  I am currently working on that because as always, Disney does you RIGHT and I have a lot to share.  But for now I am recapping last year’s Disney Princess Posts.  I am signed up for this year’s but let’s just say hotels are expensive and I just don’t have the funds for it at the moment so doesn’t look like I’ll be going : ( Super bummed but of course I will continue to sign up for runDisney events because well…they are amazing.  If you are contemplating running one of their events…check out these posts and DO IT!  I had one of the best weekends of my life last year at Princess.  You will too!

VIP Princess I

VIP Princess II

VIP Princess III

Goofy Challenge 2011: Half

Goofy Challenge 2011: Marathon

Goofy Challenge 2011: The Finish!

Princess Half 2010

Disney Half 2010: My First Half EVER

Yep.  I’m mildly obsessed.

I promise this isn’t turning into a teaching blog…its just happens to be what has taken over my life the past few months.  I have another week after this week with my current class.  I’ve been with them since August and truly, they are such a great group of kids and I am really going to miss them!  I hope my next class will be just as awesome although I’m jumping from second grade to fourth grade which is basically dog years.  HUGE change in those 2 years.  But more on that as that comes…the good thing about switching schools is I have a TINY bit of down time (as in I obviously can’t just jump right into a new class and teach full time…although I will be doing TONS of portfolio work and work in the classroom, I won’t be responsible for as much of the curriculum as I currently am).  So maybe…just maybe I might be able to talk about something different…but for today, this is what I did.

We are working on an engineering/technology science unit.  I’m piloting the program AKA no one else in Baltimore County as ever taught this unit and I basically get to be the guinea pig to test it all out.  Without going all primary teacher on you…what these engineers who designed the program thought would take 6 days total has already taken 10 and we have yet to start the final lesson.  They have SECOND GRADERS learning about force, work, energy, etc.  It’s awesome but obviously takes some time to stop, slow down, and try to explain these concepts in ways they can understand.  So the past few days they have been designing sails for a model raft.  Their goal was to make a sail that would make the raft move the furthest on a set track.  AKA I get to set all of this up.

I got to school super early in order to get this set up.

those white rectangles are the "rafts" I got to make suspended on fishing line tracks. Don't try to understand. It made my head hurt.

Anyway I realized the actual design for the rafts weren’t as sturdy as I’d like (have 24 second graders use them to test their sails meant they need to stand up to some rough 8 year olds!) so I mad to do some last minute “surgery” on the rafts to reinforce them.

And it resulted it this.

Yep.  I sliced my finger open…with a pair of safety scissors…while constructed “rafts” out of Styrofoam trays and straws. 

But that’s okay because we are also reading “Officer Buckle and Gloria” this week (AKA a story about a police officer and his dog who do safety speeches at schools).  This little mishap will lend itself well to our “Safety Tips” lesson tomorrow…

And that my friends…if my life at the current moment.

Yet another adventure in second grade.

One of my students broke her arm a couple of months ago.  It didn’t heal right so she went to the doctor to get it checked out.  When she came into school later that day she told me she was going to start therapy for her arm.  We talked about how I used to go to a PT and even though it can sound scary, the therapists makes you feel much better.

Fast forward to recess.

This same girl is noticeably upset and I ask her what’s wrong.  She tells me she’s upset about therapy.  I, thinking she’s still nervous about having to go, reassure her.  She says, “yes I know but _______ told me I’m, wrong!”

Me: Wrong about what?

Student: Therapy.

Me: What about therapy?

Student: __________ says that therapy is only for moms and dads who fight a lot!

Well that wasn’t the playground discussion I thought I was going to have but something about the innocence of kids is do sweet.  And well ___________ I’m sure mommy and daddy really appreciate you sharing that insight with us. 

Just had to take a second away from lesson planning and watching silly TV shows to share a quick story from my second graders today.

We are currently working on word problems in math.  Today we were working on eliminating unnecessary ( <– OH MAN I just spelled unnecessary right on the first try! Small victories) information from the problems in order to solve them.  One of the problems went like this:

There were 50 slices of pizza at the Super Bowl Party.  There were also 50 chicken wings.  37 of the pizza slices were eaten.  How many pizza slices were left over?

When I asked them what part of the question they don’t need one kids said, “get rid of the chicken wings!” to which I replied, “Yes!  But who can tell me why?”.  Another little girl raised her hand tentatively and said, “well…my mom says they are fattening?”

Moments like that…it’s hard not to laugh out loud : )