Goodbye sunshine!

We took our annual trip to Florida last week. Last January was miserably cold but this year was absolutely gorgeous. The week started out mid seventies and ended high sixties. It was so nice to be able to swim, run and simply exist in the wonderful warm sunshine.

We took the boys to Disney World for the 4th year in a row. It's so fun to see the excitement grow each time. They team tackled the characters (Grant sucked on their noses) walked for miles upon miles and rode rides with stomachs of steel.

They love all the rides at Magic Kingdom especially the race cars, love seeing Lightning McQueen and the playhouse disney show, test track, the extreme action stunt show was awesome as was the Indiana Jones stunt show, they always love the safari and of course their favorite thing is hugging all the characters.

Anthony's sister Laura along with Scott & Jackson joined us mid week. It was so much fun to have them with us down there again. The boys adore them and couldn't get enough hugging and cuddling.

The kids did their 100 & 200 meter races and fortunately it wasn't freezing cold or rainy this year so they had a ton of fun. Anthony and I ran the half marathon together and despite my intentions to "train" for this one, I only ran more than 4 miles two or three times, and still finished at 2:56 (which is slow compared to people like my husband) but 20 minutes faster than my last one so I was quite happy. The highlight was definitely running under Cinderella's castle. My slightly insane husband decided to do the Goofy Challenge so he ran the half marathon with me and the next day ran the full marathon alone finishing it at 4:08 which I have to say is pretty amazing especially considering the races were back to back (although it does make me feel pretty slow and weak).

   

   

Our last day we relaxed (or I should say I relaxed, Anthony ran a marathon that morning) and swam in the evening. The boys were all asleep and we decided to check the weather since we'd heard rumors of snow in Atlanta. Last year we narrowly escaped the ice storm that hit Atlanta by driving all night long. When we saw they were supposed to get 5 inches and it was going to be snowing all the way up through Nashville we decided we better not take our chances and head out right then (after I begged and pleaded for him to catch a plane home and pick me up the next week, to no avail).

I drove the first shift hitting 50 miles south of Atlanta by 2:30am and the sleet started to fall. By the time we reached Atlanta it was really coming down. The roads were snowy and icy and I kid you not, there was not ONE single snow plow from Atlanta to 40 miles south of Nashville going Northbound. There was one tiny pass before Nashville that had been plowed and iced but it only lasted about 5-10 miles and the rest of the time it looked like the images below. Can you believe that is an interstate??? I have never driven on roads like this before even with all the snow in New Hampshire and Utah. I have two words for the deep south SNOW PLOWS!!!

                                I-75 downtown Atlanta 3:00am        I-75 50 miles South of Nashville 7:00am

Aneeewaaay... We made it home safely thanks to our mad snow driving skills and many, many silent prayers. Fortunately the storm only dropped about a half an inch here (but of course school closed for 2 days). Now we get to enjoy lovely 20 degree weather. But oh how I miss the sun!