French Day

Holly loves watching Le Tour de France. For three weeks each summer she DVRs each race and tells Dave all about the crashes and epic finishes of the day. Unfortunately, all excitement is lost on him. He just likes the weird people that run out into the road and the fact that the bikers have champagne on the last ride. It's classy!

With "The Tour" ending July 24th Dave made plans to make a French brunch while watching the finale. That idea spun out of control and turned into French Day. All meals were loosely (very loosely.......) tied to French food.  French Duck was host of the morning.

Dave's breakfast was French Toast made with multi grain bread, (French) Canadian Bacon, fruit, and champagne.

Holly had Eggs Benedict (tied in with Hollandaise sauce and French Canadian Bacon), fruit (not pictured), and champagne.

Jambon et fromage sandwiches on baguettes for lunch. Holly took her sandwich straight-up with dijon mustard (from Oregon) and Dave went with a toasted version with dijon mustard and truffle oil on the roll. We used fancy Swiss cheese Rachael Ray suggested.

We admit that dinner was a stretch. BBQ chicken, roasted corn, and haricot verts in sage-browned butter. This was served with a French syrah. In hindsight, this could have been plated better for the photo.

I can't even connect dessert to the theme. We bought it the night-before during the rarest of occasions: the ice cream truck came down our street.

If this site is still up next summer we'll show you how we celebrate the Olympics!

Westward Bound

We were toying around with going away Labor Day Weekend. The issue: Holly had to work in a 20-mile training run that weekend. So destinations like Vegas and Florida were kinda out of the picture. We thought about San Francisco, but that meant finding a park and Dave escorting on bike (no one rents bike that early).

The solution: Find a marathon! It's an extra six miles for Holly, but it gets one more state out of the way of the 50 state marathon goal. So where are marathons Labor Day Weekend?

• Sun River, OR
• Boulder, CO
• Roswell, NM
• Tupelo, MS
• Pocatello, ID

Heat is one concern. For some reason marathons in the south during the summer weren't appealing.

• Sunriver, OR
• Boulder, CO
• Roswell, NM
• Tupelo, MS
• Pocatello, ID

The Northwest was appealing. Never spent much time up there. Sunriver's marathon was at a resort in the mountains a bit south of Bend and looked perfect. We have access to O'Hare and Milwaukee airports. So travel across the country should be easy. Not so. You can't get to Portland easily let-alone Bend, OR. Most flights on AA from ORD go through Dallas and prices were not favorable. Idaho had similar (if not worse) flight issues.

• Sunriver, OR
• Boulder, CO
• Roswell, NM
• Tupelo, MS
• Pocatello, ID

Boulder is the winner! Holly gets another state checked off the marathon list and Dave gets beer!

We'll visit family the first night and probably head into Fort Collins. Unfortunately the New Belgium Brewery Tours were all booked up for that weekend so we'll skip a lot of Fort Collins touring.

As we head to Boulder from the north we'll stop in Longmont at Left Hand Brewery. home of the delicious Left Hand Milk Stout. Lunch will be at the Pumphouse microbrewery in town. The rest of the time we will be touring Boulder's fine establishments.

There are some plans of breakfast in the mountains. The Sundance Lodge in Nederland looks perfect.

Monday is the marathon and we'll come home Tuesday. I'm sure we'll be meeting up with some friends while out there. Should be a fun weekend.

Any suggestions while in Boulder? Let us know.

Breaking the Barrier.

When I restarted my running career in 2005, I had a goal of finishing a marathon. I achieved the goal, but during my training I also ran a 5k and did it in 33:17. I used to run cross country in high school and regularly ran 5ks in 25:00. I felt old and slow but I hoped that someday I would break that 30:00 minute barrier again. I still concentrated on the long distances but would still do a 5k here and there. I would get closer, 32, 31 but never under 30! This year I have been trying to work on my speed for my long runs. I felt that I was "phoning it in". I would end a 10 mile run and not be tired. I increased my efforet and my times started to come down. I thought that the magic "30" might be possible this year.

Dave and I decided to do the Antioch Run for Freedom on July 4th, 2011. It was a warm morning and this is a tough course. The course starts out uphill and then has a nice long downhill. The rest is pretty much uphill again. I use the Galloway method for my training runs, but have decided I really don't need to walk as much for a 5k and could run pretty much the whole thing. I ran the first mile in 9:08. Holy Crap! But it did have that big downhill. I stopped and walked for 1 minute at about the 13:00 minute mark. Mile 2 was done in 9:19. I stopped and walked one more minute. I'm starting to hurt, but I really want this. I thought I might make it, but I still had those big hills. I actually powered up them and passed people walking. I felt great! I hit the top of the hill and looked at my watch and saw that I was going to finally do it. I finished it up strong and finished in 29:15!

I did it. I finally broke that 30:00 minute barrier. I know it still isn't speedy, but it felt nice to finally achieve my goal.

Vinylmation Trading Update: June Update

We owe our friend and AllEars Teammate Rhonda a trading update from June so we decide to share it here with everyone.

We collect Vinylmation figures. Without going into much detail: Vinylmations are figures made out of vinyl shaped like Mickey Mouse. The shape is the same (not counting the new molds) and are painted differently. They are generally sold in sets of 12 based on a theme (Star Wars, Muppets, Toy Story are examples) and when you buy one you don't know which one you are getting. There are some that are sold "displayed" or "open-box" so you can choose one you really like. the most common size are 3" figures, but they also have 9" and 1.5" figures. Vinylnation.net has a good 101 page on Vinylmations.

Since folks were ending up with duplicates or figures they didn't want, Disney setup trading locations in the parks and now The Disney Stores. You can either do a random trade (pick a number 1-24) or pick from a selection of 3 inside a clear box.

We left for FL with 6 figures in-hand that included a Rowlf, Quasimoto, Buttercup, Lotso, Holiday I Soldier, and Big Baby. We've opened about 4-6 Big Babies but got rid of all duplicates through trades.

During the solo portion of his trip Dave stopped at D-Street in Downtown Disney and pulled The Evil Queen from Snow White (Villain series) out of the clear box. After Dave made another loop around the store another cast member (Disney employee) was manning the counter so he broke the "one trade per day/location" rule and went for the blind box. He got the Buzz Lightyear gun (2nd from left) from Park Series 5. Another D-Street trade on Friday led to the Norway Troll from Park Series 6 and we purchased a Muppets 2 box and got Lew Zealand (first on left).

We bought 6 figures while down there (excluding the cupcake one in our report) and traded all but one away.

Miss Piggy, Pinnochio (one Dave was really after) and the lifeboat came from blind boxes around the Studios. Pepe was a keeper purchased in The Emporium. Can't remember the locations we found Rex, that goat-looking guy, and Monstro. The one with the long neck was a Have a Laugh series item Dave has been looking for and found in a Polynesian Store clear box.

Zoot (the guy with the hat) and the other Muppets Pigs in Space figure were FREE! While in the Studios on Sunday Dave checked his Facebook and found one of the vinylmation sites he follows, Vinylmationkingdom.com, posted that they were in the Studios giving away vinylmations to the first three people to find them. We had an approximate location by Star Tours and a t-shirt description. We love pin trading and vinylmation trading because it is the thrill of "the hunt" and adds new dimension to our Disney trips. So we were excited to have to hunt for someone. We made our way from Tower of Terror to Star Tours, grabbed a ride, browsed Tatoonie Traders, and then found Matt. He was happy that we found him (mainly due to his direct exposure to the sun). He pulled out ten for us to choose from. We were trying to collect Muppets 2 so we picked those figures. The opportunity cost was Alice from the animation series. We talked to Matt for 5-10 minutes and posed for a picture. He's a real nice guy with a lot going on so show some support by visiting his site or Facebook page.

Do you have a good trading story to share?

Retro-WDW Inspired Drink Ware

I have a feeling I'm going to own a set of these:

They'll go well with this Polynesian glass I have from one of my trips in the 70's.

To be clear, my parent's bought the glass. I was too young to have bought it then. I know there are more in my Dad's house but no one can seem to locate them for me.

There's more retro-inspired items released from the same artist, SHAG.

Launching in 3....2....1.....Teamtizzel.com Blasts Off!

Launch Time!

Some you may know all this, but it's worth reading again.

Holly started distance running six years ago and has completed many races from 5ks-to-marathons. She signed up to run Disney's Goofy's Challenge in 2010. This consists of a back-to-back half marathon and full marathon. She joined a fund raising team in its inaugural year: Team AllEars. This group of 40+ Disney fans was raising money to fight breast cancer. My mom died from cancer, that originated as breast cancer, in 1989 so this meant a lot to me.

Holly ran her races and did great. But what was even better was we became friends with her teammates. We've since met up with team members  in Chicago, in Disneyland, and of course WDW. We chat together on Facebook and Twitter. Holly rejoined Team AllEars for 2011. The team got a little larger, but it was apparent this was still a tight-knit group. When Deb (founder of AllEars.net and breast cancer survivor) revealed how much money they raised everyone was shocked (Team AllEars has raised over $75,000 in 2 years). I was so glad to be a part of it, but yet I wasn't really part of it. I was the +1.

I wanted to change that going into 2012.

Holly and I will fund raise as a team this year: Team Tizzel is our name. I joined the team this year as a 5k walker. I was hoping to maybe walk the 1/2 marathon, but doctors have not cleared me for that (I had heart surgery in March). To help us raise funds we've developed a stunt where I'm the victim. More on that later.

We created this site to have a place to focus our fundraising efforts and let you know more about our team and some other fun things going on while we prepare for 2012 WDW Marathon Weekend. We'll include race videos and reports, Disney stuff, and other fun content. We've preloaded some great content already: race videos, a Disney trip report, and a review of a fantastic dining experience.

While you are here check out our bio tab, learn about Tizzel, find out more about Team AllEars, browse our links, read our friends' blogs, and donate! We make it easy to do that.

We hope you enjoy and follow along for the next few months. You can follow us through blogger or your RSS Readers. You can email us too.

Team Tizzel is pleased to announce its fundraising challenge

Dave has volunteered to give you the opportunity to make him look ridiculous for the Family Fun Run 5K in Walt Disney World in January 2012. How does this work?

1. Donate money to our fundraising efforts to fight breast cancer
2. As the total funds go up, Dave will put on more clothing to transform him into the Ultimate Human Duffy!

• When we reach $750 Dave will carry a stuffed Duffy!

• When we reach $1,500 Dave will add Duffy Ears

• When we reach $3,000 Dave will add the final touch....

C'mon you know you want to see photos like this.....

Here's how to donate!

Bonus: As the total goes up we will release fun, exclusive content on the site. See Dave in Fantasmic! at Disneyland. Watch Holly get a surprise. There's content we haven't even created yet!!!! Don't wait to donate!