Just another Monday

Today is Monday.  I am not a big fan of Monday's, means the weekend is over, and well...that just sucks.  Even worse, no Phillies game to look forward to, so Monday is just another Monday.  I started my first class tonight for school, well my first "I have to actually go to campus and sit in a classroom class".  It was okay, the professor went over our syllubus and then let us go.  Nice.  :)  Then I went to my Zumba class...and it was canceled!!!!!  I couldn't believe it.  The one thing I look forward to, and it was canceled.  BOO.  So I had to actually work out the non-fun way today.  Boo!
But, I did get to the post office today.  Put a cute little package in the mail for my beautiful niece.  :)  Its a cute little something for Halloween.  I cannot wait for them to get the package.  :)  I miss seeing my niece, it has been way to long.  By the time I see her again, she might be able to talk.  I am not sure, because well I am not sure how this whole baby thing works.  When they can talk, and walk...who knows.  It's such a science.  :)
On the bright side, tomorrow I get to leave work early to watch my Phils.  Let's Go Phillies!!!

Fall Fun

I love October.  First, playoff baseball happens in October.  Which, for me has been exciting as the Phillies have made it to playoff October for the past few years.  They are there again this year!  Second, I love Halloween!  It might be my favorite holiday, next to Thanksgiving and Christmas of course.  :)  And lastly, it cools off enough that I finally can cook.  I love cooking! 
I have been seriously back on weight watchers for a few weeks now.  So last Sunday, it was a whole weight watcher day.  I made two new recipes, mac & cheese and banana pancakes for breakfast.  The pancakes were awesome!  I also made Krusteaz fat free fudge brownies.  They were also very good.  I highly recomment them!  Here are the other two recipes.
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/09/banana-nut-pancakes.html

and for the mac & cheese

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/05/lighter-baked-macaroni-and-cheese.html

Then the next day, keeping with the healthy theme...I made ziti.  Here is that recipe, because it was awesome!
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/09/low-fat-baked-ziti-with-spinach.html

Now tonight, its back up in the 80's here, so we are grilling.  :)  Chicken and rice for dinner. Yum!

LET's GO PHILLIES!  I love October!

I Love A Parade!

Today was officially the end of our softball season.  How do we finish, well we have a parade of course!  It is Kirksville's homecoming tonight.  So as middle school softball team, we must line up with other sports/clubs/classes and go straight down Franklin street.  Little kids line the street looking for candy, and waiting to wave to my co-coach, Coach Dub.  They just love her!  She teaches Physical Education at the Primary in Kirksville.  She must be one heck of a teacher.  The kids eyes light up when they see her.  Almost like they are seeing Santa.  Or the castle at Disney World for the first time.  Most wave, some give fist bumps or high fives, some taking a run leap expecting Coach Dub to catch them (which she does).  They almost always jump up and down and yell "Coach Dub".  Then today, they told her they saw Coach Wagner up there.  The soccer coach is her mentor and co-teacher.  He was ahead of us with his soccer team in the parade.
I always think I will dread the parade.  Today was fun.  Our girls were pretty calm actually.  They were getting cars/trucks to honk at them on the way from the school to the parade route.  They actually made signs that read "honk if you think we are hot".  Surprisingly, not everyone honked.  :) Then they got upset.  But would cheer when the next car driving by would honk.  They are crazy. 
It was fun, but sad.  My 8th grade girls who I have been coaching for the past three years are all moving on.  I will still have most in the summer, but it is still sad.  I cannot believe they are going to be freshman next softball season.  Makes me feel old.  :)  Especially because they remind me they can all start driving next year.  Great! :)

Here is a picture of our team on the float today.

And me & coach Dub.

The two best coaches around! :)

Rained out

This weekend, I was supposed to be in Pittsburgh for a friends wedding.  I was supposed to be with my husband who is in the wedding.  I was excited, because well, I think he looks mighty fine in a tux.  :) 
Unfortunetly I had a softball tournament rained out two weeks ago, and they decided to make it up today.  The day of the wedding.  So off my hubby went to Pittsburgh without me, I stayed to coach my wonderful adoptive children.  :) 
Today started out great, one win for both 8th and 7th grade.  The way the day was going, it was possible for us to be playing eachother for the championship.  Something both teams were very excited about.  Who won?  We will never know.  After our first games, the rain came.  Well it started during our first game.  And didn't stop.  Finally around 1:00 coach and I decided to call the games.  It was cold, and miserable.  And raining.  Hard.  The field was a mess, the bases were slick, and no one could grip the ball anymore.  We were done.  Okay because I didn't want to get wet anymore, sad because I missed a beautiful wedding for something that ended up getting rained out anyway.  But, that is okay. 
Tonight, I got to hang out with some friends and we went to eat at the good italian place here in town.  So all in all my day worked out just fine.  I cannot wait until tomorrow when I get to pick my hubby up at the airport.  I miss him a lot.  Distance makes the heart grow fonder.  Our whole relationship has been build on distance...I just hoped when we were married we would never be distant again.  But sometimes, things just don't work out.  Thank god it wasn't for very long.  I would not survive by myself for long.  :)  Amazing how being married changes that. 

Ten bests...

I am sitting here missing my hubby.  He has left me, to go to a wedding in Pittsburgh.  I was supposed to go too, but my softball schedule kind of got in the way.  We had a rained out tournament and now we are making it up this weekend.  So instead of being with my husband...I will be here with 29 13 and 14 year old girls.  Its okay.  :)  So tonight, I will go through the 10 best places we went in Disney.  It will be hard to pick only 10...but I will try.

10.  ESPN Zone and the Phillies game.  Normally this would be higher...don't get me wrong the game was awesome and we had awesome seats...but there was so much awesomeness in Disney...I think that pushes this down.  Plus it was only spring training, and the Phillies lost.

9.  Animal Kingdom.  This park was really cool.  The Bug Life show was a 3-D show and it was really pretty cool.  The safari was really neat, we saw some really cool animals!

8.  Magic Kingdom.  The Magic Kingdom was so cool.  Especially at night, when it was all lit up!  The castle looks amazing.  I want to live inside the castle.  Now I know why all the little kids are so in awe when they see it.  I was 28 years old, and I was in awe the first time I saw it!

7.  We went so many good places to eat too!  My favorite will appear later on the list.  We went to this cool place called the Brown Derby.  Their food was sooo good!  Yum...I loved it.  Then after we saw this really cool show called Fantasia.  It was on the water, in Hollywood Studios.  They used the water falls like big projection screens.  It was really neat!



6.  We got to meet so  many characters.  And, I got all their autographs of course.  Let's see there was Stitch and Lilo, Chip and Dale, Donald. Pluto, Mickey, Rafiki, Timon, and I got to meet my favorite character of all.  Stay tuned on that one.



Mickey was our first character that we got to meet! :)

5.  Oh, the top five.  Getting exciting now isn't it?  This would go to the parade in the Magic Kindom at night.  Its called Wishes, and Tinker Bell comes down from the top of the castle.  Its pretty cool.  All the characters are there and there are awesome fireworks!  :)

4.  Downtown Disney.  Downtown Disney was really nice.  It wasn't far from our hotel (just had to take a ferry accross the lake).  Nice.  And they had some really cool shops, and lots of lego's.

3.  My second favorite (maybe even a tie for my favorite) park was Hollywood Studios.  They had so much neat stuff there.  We spent the whole day there, and even had to go back twice because we didn't get to finish it all.  This is where I saw my favorite character.  It rained the whole time, but it was okay because they had a lot of stuff to do inside.  We saw Indiana Jones stunt show.  We went to this really cool Animation show.  Oh, and my favorite two rides.  Toy Story...my moms favorite.  She likes to shoot things.  And Aerosmiths Rockin Roller Coaster.  Seriously the best coaster I have ever been on.  My dad and I went on together.  Its in the dark, and they play Aerosmith tuneds really loud...and it goes super fast.  Oh, its inside.  I wanted to ride it over and over, but we ran out of time!  Its really cool.

2.  MEETING MY FAVORITE DISNEY CHARACTER!!!   TIGGER!!!  HOO HOO HOO HOO!  Tiggers love to bounce.  I LOVE TIGGER.  He is the best.  And I got my picture taken with him. I got his autograph.  He was with Eyore.  I told Tigger he was my favorite and he gave me an extra hug!  Awesome!  And the line guy let me be the last one in line.  He was going to close it right when I got there, but he let me be the last.  J thinks its because he was a young college kid and he was trying to hit on me (J wasn't around me yet).  But so what!  I got to meet Tigger!  :)

and finally....

1.  EPCOT!!!  Epcot is the best park in Disney.  Hands down.  There is so much to do there.  There are a ton of rides.  A really cool and yummy restaurant...Coral Reef.  There is a gigantic aquarium inside.  Plus, Turtle Talk with Crush.  Which is cool.  :)  And Nemo of course.  But there is a whole other side to Epcot.  The rest of the world!  You can drink your way through Epcot (which we did one night).  Have a different beer in different countries.  Its awesome.  My favorite place was the Beirgarten....in Germany.  And they have a cool firework show called Illusions.  Its pretty neat.  I would live in Epcot.  Its so cool!





October

October is my favorite month of the year...well almost.  Halloween is my favorite holiday!  I love getting dressed up, and since my favorite color is orange...well I get to decorate everything in orange and black.  Which excites me.  Seriously.

But the second best reason for the month of October?  Well play off baseball of course.  I (incase you forgot) am a HUGE Phillies fan.  I love baseball.  And I just got done watching the Phillies, so I thought a quick post would be awesome. 

I was having a really crappy night.  But then I got home, my husband ordered pizza (yay!) and I watched the Philles.  Who won!!!  Against the Braves.  If you know anything about what is going on.  That means the Phillies move to 5 games ahead of the Braves, and the "magic" number (the number of games they need to clinch the NL East title) is now down to 6.  Oh I love fall baseball...really I just am in love with Chase Utley and the rest of the Phillies.  :)

I also got 100% on my first paper turned in for my class I am taking.  I was super excited, it made my night!  :)  Simple things excite me.  Now...what to be for Halloween???  Any suggestions?

Who is chasing you?

Hello everyone!  The question above is something that my dad asks me every time I tell him I went running.  I told him today that I ran 3 miles yesterday, his response?  The same as all the other days...oh yeah, who was chasing you? 
I always have the same answer, no one.  Three years ago this October, I decided to go on an adventure.  A weight loss adventure.  I started weight watchers, and a little exercise here and there.  I just started out walking, as I couldn't run...well, I guess I could physically run, but it was hard to carry all that weight around.
Last night on my 3 mile run I thought about all my accomplishments.  I remember when I couldn't run one block without getting out of breath.  In high school, we were always supposed to run for softball.  I hardly ever did.  I was a little lazy when it came to conditioning.  I hated running.  Too much work.  If I wanted to run I would have played a sport that involved running, like soccer. 
Now, I love running.  Well its more a love hate relationship...but more love than hate.  I never feel like going, but once I hit the open road, its great.  I always feel so much better afterward.  I love that running takes away my stress.  I love that running clears my mind.  I cannot believe how I have fallen in love with running.  If you asked me 10 years ago if I would ever run, I would have said "HECK NO!".  Amazing how times have changed.  I love just putting in my earphones listening to some good music and going. 
I am not fast by any means.  I just am  happy that I can do it.  I am proud of the fact that I keep doing it.  And it helps me stay in shape so I can eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant and not feel guilty.  Well, maybe a little guilty since I usually add beer to that equation.  :)
I think the running has paid off.  Maybe the answer for my dad should be "the old me" is chasing me.



Me, on the right in the red shirt, about three years ago.





Me, in my friends wedding...almost 1 year ago.



At Disney in March, 2010.