Day 2 of Disneyworld Princess Half Marathon Girls Weekend

I hopped out of bed to head over to the ESPN world of sports Milk House to Watch The Contest of Champions High School National competition. My cousin, Paige, is dancing. AND you know how much I love watching dancing!

Our "matchy match" shirts today are these black and pink little numbers. So many people came up to us and wanted to buy one. Next year I think we might do a little side business. Custom shirts and tutus.

Eight hours of watching some amazing best of the best high school dance teams. I was in HEAVEN!

Paige and I before she does her hip hop competition

Paige is leading her team out!

Paige's team, Santa Margarita Catholic High School did phenomenal at the competition! Their awards included SIX first places, THREE second places and ONE third place. They are amazing to watch!

Paige and I after her Lyrical competition

I met up with Jennifer and Lindsay, the birthday girl in the afternoon.

Happy Birthday, Lindsay Lou!

You can look but don't you touch!

Care for a rice crispy Mickey or Minnie?

We had to stop at the Bippity Boppity Boutique for some princess dusting and sashes.

It was a gorgeous night at Downtown Disney.

Legoland

Lindsay (what do you know, she's on the phone!) celebrated her birthday dinner at Rainforest Cafe.

A little carbo loading before our big race tomorrow.

...and a NUTLESS sundae for the birthday girl!

We stayed up until past 2AM again. Wake up call for the shuttles to the race???? 3:30. Good times!

Island Girl! Oahu Visit

This summer I have been a travelin' fool! And I'm not complaining one bit!!!! My work schedule has had me traveling most of August with only a few days at home. When I said that I needed to get out of dodge I didn't realize that I'd be logging many hours behind a steering wheel or crammed into an airplane seat like cattle. I have loved the change of scenery!

I scheduled work visits in Hawaii for the last week of August. Conveniently, my brother will be getting married in Maui next week. All of my siblings and several cousins and family friends will make the trip. I'm really looking forward to the reunion. They only seem to happen when there is a marriage!

Today, I visited locals in Waikiki and Honolulu. I headed out to The North Shore in the late afternoon to see the sights and eat dinner.

My first stop was at Matsumoto's for some shaved ice. I passed many shaved ice shops on my way to Haleiwa but pressed on to see if Matsumoto could live up to its reputation. Matsumoto serves up over 1,000 shaved ice a day. Now that's a lot of ice!

In line I surveyed the crowd to ask what everyone was ordering. This was my first *real deal* Hawaiian shaved ice and I wanted to do it right.

Inside is pretty old school. And after waiting in a line that wound around the building it felt good to be inside a (relatively) cool building.

The repeat customers all recommended that I have sweet condensed milk on top. It looked a bit odd and was hard to imagine, but I went for it!

Here I am, the dorky tourist, about to taste my creation of sour apple, cherry, and grape with condensed milk on top. And yes, I even bought a T-shirt as a souvenir from the North Shore.

I must say it hit the spot. AND the crash in blood sugar didn't occur until I was just about half way back to Waikiki. That's a bonus.

I watched folks in the bay paddling about (somehow I don't quite think I have the balance to stay upright) and swimming in the ocean.

A bunch of kids invited me to join them to jump off the bridge with them. I declined saying that I don't jump off bridges but would cheer from my nice shady spot on the sand.

There was much Japanese conversation eaves dropping. I even uttered an "Oishii," (Delicious!) a time or two. They looked at me like I had two heads. And that ended my attempt to practice my selective Japanese vocabulary.

I like to call these Hawaiian Christmas trees.

On my way out of town I stopped at the Dole Pineapple Plantation.

I needed some more sugar, you know.

My drive home was delightful until I hit The Honolulu Gridlock. Oh. My. Goodness. I've sat in traffic with the best of them, but Honolulu IS NOT designed for all of the congestion. My nerves were pretty frazzled by the time I rolled into my hotel in Waikiki.

I'm staying in Waikiki. It's pretty noisy, touristy and packed with people. BUT I've got an air conditioned room and a swimming pool a few steps away. And I'm a happy girl.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Kailua. And to find some more shaved ice. God, that stuff is good.

Chicago ~ Day 3

Nothing says Good Morning like a morning brunch at Portillo's! Yep. Our last breakfast in Chicago included a hot dog. Power food for our day of power walking and preparing our minds to soak up the field trip excursions ahead.

What an amazing beautiful day in the Windy City! There wasn't a cloud to be found and the weather was near perfect! We spent the day at Museum Campus and crammed in as much as we could at The Shedd Aquarium, The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, The Fields Museum.

The snapping turtle was one ugly looking dude who could use a little toe nail clipping!

The otters showed off their stuff...

and the penguins were fun to watch!

Baby Beluga was pretty cool. And yes, he did "swim so fast and swim so freeeeee!"

And the Jelly fish glowed so pretty. The Shedd is awesome and I will definitely be making a return trip!

Next was the Planetarium ~ Tommy's request. I was a bit confused when I couldn't find all of the plants. Yep. I'm a bit slow at times. I thought that the PLANeTarium was full of PLANTS. Learning more about astronomy was cool. I took Astronomy in college but am pretty sure I only attended the class long enough to obtain the syllabus. Pass/Fail science give meaning to taking the easy way out.

Celestial Sphere. I like big words.

Glistening... but no complaints about the sun shining!

On to The Field Museum.

We toured the Soil Lab after walking through a "shrinking lab" and becoming 1/100 of our size!

Then it was off to meet Sue. "Sue" is the largest preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered.

Sue stands 13 feet high and 42 feet long from head to toe!

We passed on the Pirate Exhibit as we weren't too excited to dole out more cash... but still took some time to chill with the mateys!

We walked to The Buckingham Fountain ~ one of Chicago's famous landmarks to do some people watching and rest our feet.

I was ready for my Sunday afternoon snooze right about now. But we still had a bus / subway ride to Oakbrook ahead of us.

One last stop at Millennium Park to gaze at the architecture and then we said Au Revoir to downtown Chicago and I headed to my work retreat in Oakbrook! What a fantabulous weekend!!!