exploring anaheim

with our hotel check-in time still hours away, we decided to head out of the disney property in search of something to eat.  with this group, finding something that everyone likes is fairly easy - and not more than ten minutes away we ended up here:

because who doesn't love a little poke for lunch?  apparently, everyone and their mother, because the place was jam-packed.  as usual, lilcee worked her magic and snagged a table that was just big enough to seat all seven of us.  no easy feat, let me tell you.  but it was worth the effort as we all got settled with our bowls and dug in.

we'd spied something interesting across the street on our way into the restaurant, and so with nothing but time on our hands we decided to check it out.  apparently, we were in hipster territory:

i guess this is where goodwill ships off all the stuff that's just too cool for their regular old stores.  as dailygluttony remarked, it was very urban outfitters-esque in there:

the kids made themselves comfortable in what looked like my living room in the 70s.

and there were lots of super old school pieces of equipment that had us all walking down memory lane.

there was also a pretty good selection of new items, which looked like they were maybe warehouse rejects or something.

when we'd seen all there was to see, we decided to walk the few blocks over to the anaheim packing house.  after all, we had a race to carb load for, and it'd already been at least an hour or so since we'd eaten.  no better time for a snack, right?

as always, it was super crowded in there.  we stopped here to grab a treat and headed outside to let the kids run amok in the park.

astroturf for the win.

the hub, who was coming through the area after running a couple of errands, came to join us for a bit and say hello.  i went inside with him to find a sandwich or something for his lunch, which we found along with this "gelato flight."

after he took off to put in some time at the lounge, we found that it was finally time to head to the hotel and check into our room.  while we didn't end up getting one with a view of disneyland (which would have given us a birds-eye view of the fireworks show, but that's okay), we were very pleased to find ourselves in a suite the size of a small apartment.

everyone had a chance to unpack and unwind a little, but before we got too comfy we headed back out to grab an early dinner.  with free transportation courtesy of run disney, we decided to forego the separate vehicles and caught the bus back to the packing district.

it'd been a long day, and we had a super duper early wake up call the next morning.  amazingly enough, everyone was in bed with lights out before 10:00.  we were one pooped bunch.

rey will win

it's amazing to me that the bean has been doing run disney races almost as long as i have.  she's got enough medals to fill up a good-sized medal rack by now!

when she saw my rey costume for the star wars half, she decided that she wanted to be rey too.  and with a little disney store magic, i was able to snag her a costume in time for the kids' race.  she kind of groaned and rolled her eyes when she heard that we moms were going to wear our race costumes so that we could get fun pictures during their race, but i know she secretly thought it was cool.  i think.  whatever, we were doing it anyway.

maybe i just didn't pay attention before, but i don't remember having to go through security or bag check before races in the past.  although with the new costume guidelines and all of the new rules at the parks and at the races, i wasn't really surprised.

group pic with mini DG and mini cee!

and i had to have one of the two of us, since we were twinning.

the girls are run disney veterans by now, so they knew the deal.  there's always a good amount of waiting around until it's our turn, because they do the younger kids first and since the races always sell out, there's a lot of kids to get through before the next age group can go.  mini DG got pretty antsy after awhile, but the girls managed to keep him occupied with games on the phone.

now, i know these kids are fast.  they're sprinters, all three of them.  but i was totally caught off-guard as the cast member yelled "GO!!" and they. took. OFF.

i had a little trouble catching up to her, but i finally caught her as she slowed down at the curve.  you guys, this was a 200-meter race and i was panting and wheezing like i'd never run a step in my life.  i jogged along next to her as she grinned at me and kept on going.  and i was so thrilled when i was able to catch this picture of chewbacca waving at her as she scampered towards the finish line:

i can't help but grin like a loon every time i look at that.

and then just like that, it was over.

yay for star wars medals!  we took advantage of every photo op, of course.

as we headed out of there, i was trading text messages with a friend i've known for a full decade but had never actually met in person.  that's wacky, right?  we were both on the local knot boards during wedding planning and keep up with each other over facebook.  it was awesome to finally give her a hug and chat a little bit.

then we headed over to disneyland hotel and visited the expo again, since daily gluttony and lilcee both still needed to pick up their race packets for the next day's half.  we ran into this dude, who had apparently gone all out for his 10K costume but wasn't allowed to wear it per the guidelines.  i guess he figured, might as well wear it where he could.  the kids got a kick out of it.

hey, look - more photo ops!  gotta love disney, right?

and while the others picked up their race shirts, i took the bean over to the run disney instagram booth to get her own light saber portrait.  it looks like this before the CGI magic:

and after.

the kids had some fun decorating signs in the area near the stage.

and then that was that.  another fun kids' race at disneyland!  we're getting close to the maximum age for these things, so we have to enjoy them while we can.  next up - disneyland half marathon races, over labor day weekend.  the old lady wants to run the 5K and i've never done one with disney before, so that's going to be super fun!

it never ends, folks.  never ever.