Magic

With all the hustle and bustle of last week, I didn't even realize I skipped a blog post. There were school parties, work happy hours, and we needed to get packed for our first real vacation since Clark was born! Sure, we take occasional weekend road trips, but this was Clark's first time on an airplane and he was almost as excited for the flight as he was for the vacation!

For those of you who also follow me on Facebook or Instagram, let me assure you that these will not ALL be repeat photos. As loyal blog readers you get more details AND more content, so read on. We headed out first thing Monday morning for Florida. No, not to visit the folks but for a Wizarding World of Harry Potter vacation package!

I can't tell you how cool it was to ride the Hogwarts Express from park to park, go inside Hogwarts Castle, and stop in all the shops to find broomsticks, robes, chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. We had breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron, lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and even went to Ollivander's for wands. Aurora was specially selected to have her wand choose her, which was a seriously magical experience. She ended up with a wand of ivy with unicorn hair.

As part of our vacation package, we got to go into the park an hour early to get a head start on the biggest rides which normally have the longest lines; the Forbidden Journey and Escape from Gringotts. Both were too big and scary for Clark, but thanks to this thing called Child Swap, we got to wait in line as a family, then Aurora would go on the ride with Chuck while I stayed with Clark in a separate room with benches and Harry Potter playing on the TV, and when they finished I got to go on the ride with Aurora without getting back in line! Brilliant.

A lot of things were a bit too intense for Clark, including the dragon perched atop Gringotts Bank which roared and breathed fire every 10 minutes. But we all enjoyed watching Aurora do magic around the park with her interactive wand, and the whole family had fun making this video. We spent some time in London talking to the Knight Bus driver and the shrunken head (which was hilarious), and drank a LOT of butterbeer. They serve it hot, cold, frozen, and as ice cream - and of course, we tried them all! Hot was by far the best. On the second morning I mixed hot butterbeer with coffee and it was delicious.

With our vacation package we also got express passes, which meant we could skip the long lines on just about any ride in the park. We ended up going on nearly every attraction in Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (Jurassic Park, ET, Shrek, Minions, Transformers, Spiderman, etc), and just when Clark thought he couldn't handle another scary ride or 3D movie, we found our way to Seuss Landing which was absolutely his favorite part of the whole trip. We went on every Dr. Seuss ride at least 3 times and saw The Grinchmas Who-liday Spectactular (a play).

But alas, it wasn't all fun and games. For those of you who made it to the end of this long post - you get to see the saddest moment of our entire trip, which happened after the very last ride at the end of our very last day. The sun was out and Aurora had loved getting splashed on the Jurassic Park and One Fish Two Fish rides, so Chuck decided to take her on Popeye's river raft ride. She got SOAKED. The poor girl's shoes were sloshing! On the bright side, we were just a short river taxi ride away from our hotel, which had a fantastic pool with an outdoor restaurant and bar, so we just took her swimming afterwards and she felt much better! In fact, within her first few minutes in the pool, she was ACTUALLY SWIMMING!!! Aurora has ALWAYS needed floaties and during this trip she took them off and never looked back.

We got seriously lucky in that all of our shuttles, buses, boats, planes, trains, and rides went as planned and the weather was cool but nice the whole time. At one point Clark was remarking about how a boat we were on was like our very own cruise, and I asked him if we should take a cruise for our next vacation. He said no. Oh well. I do think our kids are big enough for more regular vacations so more adventures are certainly on the horizon. For now, the magic of Harry Potter is about to be replaced with the magic of CHRISTMAS! We have special visitors coming in a few days so look for more updates soon. Happy holidays and love to you all!

Winter Performance

This was a very exciting week. After months of practicing after school 3 days/week, Aurora had her first choir concert! The kids did a great job singing about the snow on what was the coldest night we've had so far this winter. I just shared a short video on my Facebook page. Can you spot our little star on stage? (just right of center).

This was also a week full of holiday parties, including a yearend choir party and our annual LIVESTRONG holiday party.

I helped plan our company party and got to take the lead on a community giving campaign. We held a gift card drive for the Austin Children's Shelter and this weekend Aurora and I got to deliver $700 of gift cards to help local children who are entering the foster care system. Wow!

And today, I had a performance of my own, running the 3rd installment of the Austin Distance Challenge, the Decker Challenge Half Marathon. It was super hilly (as expected), but the weather was cool and perfect and I came in just under a minute faster than my goal time.

We have a few more holiday parties (and half marathons) coming up, and Aurora wants to register for choir again in the spring so there will be more performances to come!

Zilker Tree

It officially feels like winter in Austin! For the past week or so it's been overcast and rainy with temps in the 40's and 50's. While it's not ideal for somebody on a training schedule, I haven't let it stop my long runs or holiday fun. This weekend was the Trail of Lights Fun Run and Aurora was game to bundle up and enjoy the festivities, cold weather and all. We were part of the largest team (Team Cuerny) so we got hot cocoa, glow sticks, and cool t-shirts. We also got to hang out with just about everybody from our neighborhood. I have a few pictures of the Zilker Tree to share. The first is from a Photo Booth with a fake background. The second is a professional photo I grabbed on Facebook that shows the (wet, cold) crowd at the starting line, and the last is a very dark picture of Aurora and Presley just after we finished our 3-mile walk.

I took some other pictures as we went through the Trail of Lights, but they all came out a little blurry so we'll stick with these. Apparently it's the 50th year the Zilker Tree has lit up the Austin skyline so it's kind of a big deal. It was a late night and a long weekend, and unfortunately 'tis the season when the kids, their classmates and teachers are all getting sick. I'm trying so hard to stay healthy as my first (and hardest) half marathon is just under a week away and our vacation is 2-weeks from today (wahoo!), not to mention I'm super busy at work right now. But alas, there is only so much I can do. Wishing you all a holiday season that's warm and bright, with good health and happiness all around as we make our way to the end of another great year.