So believe it or not…I’m still here! As we hit the middle of February, it’s time for a quick check in on everything going on in my world.

• Basketball Season One of my favorite and busiest seasons is during January and February with our Youth Basketball league. We run basketball games all day every Saturday (except this coming weekend) for these two months. It’s a great outreach to the community, but takes a lot of work and time. We’ve been fortunate to have over 160 kids participate this season. We wrap up everything the weekend of March 3.

• Disney Trip Since we don’t have basketball games this weekend (President’s Day), Rachel and I are headed down for a quick weekend trip to Disney. We will leave on Thursday morning and come back Sunday. We are staying on property at the Pop Century Resort for the first two nights and with our friends on Saturday night. The weather actually looks to be quite warm. We are looking forward to having a few days in our happy place!

• Running Journey After finishing the Dopey Challenge back in early January, it’s been nice to have a few months just to run with no races or goals in mind. I continue to get my mileage and longer runs at a respectable distance, so I’m able to run a half marathon at any time. But it’s nice to just run for the sake of running. Rachel and I are looking to add a few races to our calendar in the next few months. Stay tuned!
• Taxes Last weekend, I finished our 2017 taxes and we are actually getting back a pretty nice refund this year! After owing money to the federal government last year, it was nice to see a positive number. Vacation fund will see a nice bump!

• New Nephew (Coming Soon) Another super exciting piece of news, Rachel’s brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first kid! We just found out it’s going to be a little boy. We are excited to become an aunt/uncle again and this time on Rachel’s side of the family!
• Fractured Elbow And finally, just a quick update on my fractured left elbow…it’s doing much better. After several weeks of physical therapy, I have seen significant improvement, especially with my range of motion, which has helped my guitar playing.

All in all, it’s been a busy, but good start to 2018. How has your year been going so far?

Hello friends! Welcome to my fifth and final recap of the 2018 WDW Marathon Weekend. Check out parts one, two, three and four here,  here and here and here. As you may know, I participated in my second Dopey Challenge, which includes running a 5K on Thursday, 10K on Friday, half marathon on Saturday and full marathon on Sunday for a total of 48.6 miles. Without further ado…here is my last last recap post…Post Dopey Days.

After running for 4 straight (and very early) mornings, I was very happy to have 2 more days to hang at the parks with Rachel and friends.

On Monday, the plan was to hit up Epcot for the day. We had several things on the agenda for Monday, including lunch at the Biergarten Restaurant in the Germany pavilion of the World Showcase with our friends Ivie and AJ and grabbing dinner with our friends Justin and Devin. Plus, the College Football National Championship was that night and Alabama was back again for the 3rd straight year!

Once we got to Epcot and walked around for a little bit, we caught up with AJ and Ivie and their crew. They had decided to Drink/Eat around the World Showcase, including our lunch stop at the Biergarten Restaurant. We were happy to walk around and explore all the different countries.

By the time we got to our lunch reservation, I was definitely hungry. Lunch was a buffet, with a lot of different meats and sausages. Those of you who know me well, know that I’m quite picky, but I actually tried a lot of different things and it was all pretty good! The best part of the meal was the environment, including the musical show every 45 minutes. We had a great time for sure!

After lunch, we walked around some more before splitting off from the group to head over to the Norway pavilion to see our friend Hollyn. Hollyn was one of my former students who is now living in Orlando and working at Disney. She is actually now playing Elsa in Norway at Epcot! I am so proud of her! It was great to see her again even for just a few minutes.

After meeting Queen Elsa, we met back up with our group for a few more hours before heading out to meet up with Justin and Devin back over at the Wilderness Lodge for dinner. We ended up eating at the new dining location, Geyser Point Bar & Grill, which is outside by the water. It was excellent! We also were able to catch the first half of the National Championship game before heading back to the condo to watch the rest of the game. Needless to say…I was quite pleased with the outcome!

On Tuesday, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom for our last full day in Orlando. One of my goals for the day was to get some good pictures with the castle and all of my Dopey medals. I was able to get some great pictures throughout the day! Disney PhotoPass is the best!

We spent most of the day in the Magic Kingdom before heading back over to Epcot for our dinner reservation at Le Cellier Steakhouse in the Canada pavilion of the World Showcase. Rachel and I were super excited to eat there as we had heard great things about it. The atmosphere was awesome and the food was pretty good too!

After dinner, we walked around for another hour or so, before calling it at day. After 6 straight days, we were ready to get back to the condo to pack up and get a good night’s sleep, before heading back to Atlanta bright and early the next morning.

All in all, it was a great couple of days after the race weekend just being at Disney and hanging with great friends. Dopey Challenge #2 (and more than likely my last Dopey Challenge) was a huge success!