Disney Half-Marathon!

So this past weekend was the long anticipated Disney Half-Marathon! I was pretty nervous, but it ended up being pretty fun even despite the FREEZING RAIN AND SNOW!!!!!!!! It was soooooo cold, I never thought I'd be warm again!

We decided to splurge and stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for the weekend (me, my parents, and brother). My Dad and brother did the half as well (and were much faster than me! lol)! We got so lucky and were upgraded to a savannah view at the lodge, meaning we could see the animals from our room!! That was SO neat!

Grandma and Joe also came up for the weekend to hang out and support us, so that was nice as well! :) We even got to have a nice lunch after the run and Christine met us at Bahama Breeze!

Another reason I went this past weekend was because it was an annual meet up for all the girls I have met on the DisneyBrides forum I've talked about before. We had a big meet up at the Grand Floridian to chat and take pictures, and a couple meals a bunch of us went to, which was really fun. One of the girls actually ran with me because we were at about the same pace and I am SO thankful for that!!! I don't know what I would have done during those 13.1 miles without her!!

My time wasn't that great (nearly 3 hrs) but I was determined to just have fun and enjoy the run- all $130 worth!!! :P So we stopped for a couple pictures with the characters they have along the sides, etc. We really didn't walk or stop that much, but we were stuck in the last corral so a lot of time was spent weaving and trying to pass people and there were SO many people there, it never really opened up enough to get past everyone slower than you...

My wonderful hubby came to some of the viewpoints along the way and cheered us on! Then he grabbed my mom and they met us at the end (with coffee, more gloves and hats! lol) I was SO excited when I saw the finish line!!!!!!! Then to get the covetted Donald medal was awesome!!!

My dad and brother did awesome! I can't remember exactly what their times were but it wasn't much longer than 2 hrs if I remember correctly.

I'm already planning the next half-marathon where hopefully the weather wont be so crazy!!! My running buddy and I are thinking about doing another Disney half-marathon in October! It's the Wine and Dine Half-Marathon during the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. You run and then get food and wine samples- totally up my ally!!! This one you get to run through 3 parks (Animal Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios, and Epcot) so it seems like it might be less long roads like this one seemed to have. We will definitely make sure to get in a different corral this time. :)

Oh and when do I start work? lol. Don't know yet! It is taking a while to get everything processed through HR but hopefully by Monday! I'll definitely post about that when there are any updates. :)

I hope everyone's doing well and enjoys the update from MickeyTown! :D

Orlando Residents Now!!!

Well, we are officially moved to Orlando now!

I will try to do a longer update soon with pictures, but just wanted to post that. E-mail me/facebook me if you would like our new address! :)

The Half-Marathon is this Saturday and I am no where near ready! I'm so nervous! As long as I finish it and don't get picked up, I'll be happy lol. I'm just excited to be in Disney!

I hope everyone is doing well and had a wonderful holiday season!!! I can't wait for lots of new beginnings and adventures in 2010! Stay tuned! :)

Lots of NEW Updates!

So for those of you who haven't heard- I GOT THE JOB at UCF (University of Central Florida)!! I will be the Coordinator for Career Development there, mainly doing career counseling with students, doing presentations and workshops, etc. I'm so excited!

It's been a whirlwind lately. I graduated two saturday's ago, left on the following Sunday for SoACE (southern association for colleges and employers- my old boss and I co-presented there!) which was through Wednesday. We got to stay at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville! Got back Wednesday night, left Thursday night to stay at my parents for the night so my Dad and I could get up early to head out to Orlando to look at places for David and I! David can't take any time off right now... the holiday's are so busy and he's getting ready to be tranferred to a store in orlando.

After 3 full day of seeing apartment after apartment (and after 1 small mental breakdown on my part), we decided on a place! I uploaded pictures every night to share with David! LOL. In the midst of all that, we took an hour or so to go see the campus so I could show my Dad around a little bit. He even got to see where I'd be working!

Ultimately we decided on a townhome that is in an apartment community near the international airport. It's a pretty good midway point, as David and I are both on the opposite ends of orlando basically with our jobs. We're so exited to have more of a "house" feel and a GARAGE!! yay! lol

The official move-in date is the 31st of this month, so I have a LOT to do! Unfortunately David wont be able to come down until probably a week later, so it's going to be interesting to say the least trying to get everything down there and unpacked.

Oh and the half-marathon is in like 2 weeks?? UM CRAP! haha. The past couple weeks I have had NO time to run or do anything, which sucks considering I'd been training for months... I finally managed to run this morning for a pretty good 5 miler. I'm hoping to do 10 miles this weekend, 11 the next, and then hopefully be ready for the half the following weekend (13.1 miles). Wish me luck! Should be interesting.

So, LOTS of changes, that are exciting but scary and overwhelming all at the same time!

Oh, and yesterday was my birthday! Dad and I decided last minute to go to Disney for my bday while we were down there anyways, because this year on your birthday you can get into Disney for free, AND military and retired military get free tickets as well... so we had a wonderful day at the Magic Kingdom and soaked in the magic and Christmas spirit! It was much needed after a very stressful past couple of days.

I hope to post regularly on here about things going on with us while we start a new adventure! I'm excited to share with everyone. Please leave us comments! :)

Love,

Laura and David

I'm baaack- been TOO long!

Sorry to go MIA to anyone who is still reading this!

I really should be going to bed, but wanted to give a few quick updates...

1) I GRADUATE with my masters of education in college student personnel administration on SATURDAY!! I can't believe how fast this snuck up!! I can sign my emails Laura Crouch, M.Ed!! lol

2) I am going to SoACE (southern association of colleges and employers) from Sunday (day after graduation)-Wednesday to present on my offices Career Exploration Teams! It's in Nashville and I get to stay at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel- so excited!!

3)I LOVE Christmas time!! Here is the tree all set up. It puts me in such a good mood to come home to the place all warm and cozy and christmas feeling! Also, I've recently learned my love for Black Friday!!! Mom and I went this year and boy did we shop til we dropped!!!

4) I'm actively in a job search! Being that I will be done with school in a week, I can no longer work in my role as it as a "Graduate Assistantship." I just got back from an interview today with University of Central Florida for a Coordinator of Career Development position there and I am really excited about this potential opportunity. If you have a moment, think some positive thoughts for me! This could be a very excited time for David and I!! I had a great interview so ultimately even if I don't get this position, I'm so excited that I feel confident about it and that I really put my all into it, no regrets.

5) I don't think I've posted about this since I've been gone for so long, but I got to visit one of my best friends in DC last month and that was AMAZING!!! I am already dying to go back!

6) One of my good friends just got married to David's younger brother Dean a few weekends ago! Now I have two awesome sister-in-laws who were already my great friends.

I think that's all for now!! I will leave you with an adorable picture of "Princessosaurus" getting her bath LOL.

What I hate about running... LOL

So the biggest thing I hate about running is.....

ROADKILL!!!!!

I ran past two things of roadkill on my 4 mile run this morning (YAY for getting up before work and going though, that rarely happens!) and it's SO gross!!! I hate it. I never see it until it's right in front of me and then all the flies that are on it fly up in my face and I want to puke!!

Just wanted to rant about that for a second.... haha. Hope everyone's having a good morning!

On a plus... other than that, it was a pretty good run! I got to use my new ipod and it worked great, I love it! I did a pretty good pace, I think I did 4 miles in under 42 minutes, which is great for me! I was excited. Then at work I went next door to get coffee because they have dunkin donuts coffee for 50 cents if you go before 9:30 and I made it just in time AND they had hazelnut flavored coffee which I LOVE!

So other than the road kill... good morning! :D

NASPA, Disney, Career Fair, OH MY!

LOTS has been going on, as usual!

I went to the the NASPA Florida Drive-In the week before last in Tampa at University of South Florida! I co-presented on the SGA Summer Leadership Series I developed and implemented with my internship supervisor. It was a great experience, but our session was last so some people had already headed out to beat the traffic so we didn't have a huge group by any means.

After that we got to go to Orlando for the weekend and I went to Disney World for a day! I went with two people who had never gone before and they wanted to do all 4 parks... it was a fun but exhausting day!!! My feet have never hurt so bad! I was limping for days. haha! Here is a pic of us at the Magic Kingdom! They are fellow graduate students in the College Student Personnel Administration program (CSPA).

Last week my office had our Career Fair we have every semester... only this one was a little interesting in that the campus when into LOCKDOWN right in the middle of it!!! There was a murderer who went into hiding in the woods on our campus and they locked down all the buildings and their were k9 units, helicopters, etc. looking for this guy. It was crazy! None of the employers could leave which they weren't too thrilled about, and no students could enter at that point because all the buildings were locked. It was nuts!! They finally found the guy though, so that was a relief.

Other updates... training has been going BAD. I got all out of wack with the NASPA trip and then Princess decided to EAT my ipod!! ugh!

Well after whining about it all week, David surprised me with a new hot pink ipod nano!! He also got me a new nike + system which syncs with the ipod and tells you how many miles you have gone, your pace, etc. I think this will be a good motivation for me to get back into the swing of things! I went for a decent 4 mile run last night... I'm sore this morning. David was behind me on his bike yelling at me to "push it! keep it up!" lol.

Also, we recently got a new couch! Here are some. We love it, it's so comfy! Someone else in the family loves it too. ;)

Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to David who has really started developing his love for cooking! lol. He's always liked to cook (and I've basically always HATED it haha) so he's really started to take over, and we're both loving it! I included a picture of stuffed portobello mushrooms he made with prawns, and yesterday he made eggplant which was yummy! Last week was mexican pork chops which was awesome! I'm so glad one of us likes to cook and is good at it!!! haha.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I'm getting SO excited for November in which I'm taking a long weekend trip to DC with my best friends! :) Lu lives there so Melissa and I (they were both bridesmaids at my wedding) are flying up to visit, and we are so excited!

Too long!

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated! I've been BUSY!

Lets see, what's been going on...

Well, work is keeping me very busy, we have lots of events coming up. Finding time for my online classes has been a struggle what with trying to have a life on top of everything. haha.

I'm in my 6th week of training for the half-marathon and so far, so good! Although my 5.5 miler yesterday didn't go so hot. I had to walk a LOT and me and my friend who ran it with me got so desperate for water that we stupidly didn't bring we drank water out of sprinklers on the side of the road. LOL.

We got a new couch set so that was big news for us, we're very excited and it's super comfortable!

Other than that, just chugging along... Princess is being her usual mischeiveous (spelling?) self. The other day she got into a jello chocolate instant pudding mix (in the box) and busted it open and licked it all... thankfully she was okay but her paws are now spotted and stained with chocolate which brought upon her the nickname "Chocpaw" that we like to think comes from her Native American heritage being that she's part Husky... hahaha.

This week will be a busy week for me as I leave Thursday morning to Tampa to head to the NASPA (National Association of Student Personnel Administration) Drive-in Conference. I'm excited to go, but also really nervous since I'm co-presenting. Wish me luck!!

I'll try to have a good update soon with pictures!