California here we come... Travel Day and Expo (Part 1)

So last June, yes, that long ago, we signed up for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon, actually, the Pixie Dust Challenge, and started planning a trip to California. I was heading out there with Kris, Eddie, her dad, David, and we brought the kids too.

I left on Wednesday, and rode the bus to get to Orlando to hop on a plane. Needless to say it was a super long day of travel. I got up in Miami at 6am and landed in Orange County, CA at 11:30pm (PDT), so it was actually 2:30am my time. Crazy! After a bite to eat after we landed it was straight to bed, cause damn we all needed it.

The next day we took our time getting up, meaning we chilled a bit before leaving the hotel, cause our east coast bodies were up way too early for the west coast time. And since it was race weekend, it was time for the expo.

Now, I've been to my fair share of RunDisney expos, but they've all been at the Wide World of Sports in Disney World. At Disneyland, it's at the Disneyland Hotel. So, we had to cross the street from our hotel, pass the parks and through Downtown Disney. It was so cool to see it all and it was all so close!

Packet Pickup is underneath in the basement/parking of the building. It was way less massive than packet pickup at Disney World, but it made it so much easier. Especially since everyone was running and we had to pickup bibs for the 5k, Pixie Dust, and Kids Races. And the absolute coolest part of the expo was getting the coast to coast wristband! OMG, I couldn't believe we were really doing it.

After we got our bibs, and Kris and I had our pics taken for the challenge, we headed up to the expo. Now this is my first experience ever being at a RunDisney Expo on opening day. We got our bags and shirts, and then saw the 2-3 hour line for official merch! WHAT?? Ok, I'm never going to an expo that early again.

 
We looked around a bit took some pics, and headed out to Downtown Disney for lunch. We got tacos and margaritas, it was Cinco de Mayo after all!

Now, the kids were done and wanted some time in the hotel, so we went back. But later, Kris, Dave, and I went back to the expo to check out the official merch. We only waited about 20 minutes to get in. And the merch was all soooooo cute! I love Tink to begin with, so this made it even harder to choose. I ended up going with the I Did It! shirt, since it had the Disneyland map, and the graphic was still as cute as everything else.

That night we hit up Buca Di Beppo for dinner and turned in early, that darn east coast time. The boys had to be up early for the 5k, and we planned on going out to cheer them on.