The Bostonian Gentrys

My talented friend Terese took wonderful photos of our family last week. I am not sure if it is her photo shop skills, but I think my family is pretty adorable.

There are lots of changes with this family as of late.

Christian begins his 4th year of his PhD program on Monday. He is all done with course work and will be teaching a beginning theory, studying for his oral exams, writing music and preparing to work on his dissertation.

I started my new job last week; I am feeling wonderful about this switch in jobs. The first week has been training and orientation; next week it looks as though I will hit the ground running. I think hospice is such a wonderful organization and feel honored to be invited into the last days of someones life.

Berkeley will begin going to the sitters house 2 days a week next week. His days with daddy all summer long are coming to an end. Lily's mom is super prego and expecting soon, so she wont be able to watch Berke this year. We feel excited about another wonderful friend who has agreed to watch him this year; it looks as he will be making another close friend, Quentin.

Regardless of the change, we are a happy eternal family.

Cape/Vineyard

We did it! We finally took a family vacation this year. I took a week off in between jobs and have been having some quality family time. Monday we drove to Cape Cod. We were pretty adventurous and took our bikes on vacation with us, which turned out to be a good idea. We drove to Dennis and enjoyed a nice 25-26 mile bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail from Dennis to Chattam and back. We were a bit worn out from the ride, but it was beautiful. We made a few pit stops on the bike ride to swim in a pond and play on some slides, that way all parties in the family were happy about being on this bike path so long.

Tuesday we got up early to head from our hotel in Hyannis to Woods Hole to catch a Ferry with our bikes to Martha's Vineyard. I have wanted to go the Vineyard the entire summer and we FINALLY made it for a day trip. We started out in Oaks Bluff were we saw these adorable Gingerbread Houses. There are 110 of these cute houses and people actually live in them. Berkeley got to ride on the oldest carousel in America as well which he loved, even though he took the ride very seriously. He just kept touching the horses hair and holding on to the rail.

We hopped on our bikes after that and rode to Edgartown; this was a bit more up scale but very adorable town. Most the houses followed this model. Such a fancy little town.

We made it to the Edgartown Lighthouse and were able to play on the beach for a bit and stretch our legs. Berke man is always happy when he can play in the sand and water, so he was in heaven.

It was a humid day on the Vineyard and with all the bike riding, we were pretty gross and smelly at this point, however that doesn't mean we cant take a nice family photo on the beach.

We drove back to Oak Bluffs to catch our ferry back to the Cape, get on the bike bus, load up the bikes, drive to the car, load the bikes on the car, and drove 45 minutes back to Hyannis to our hotel. We were up at 6:00 a.m. and got back at 11:00 p.m. and Berke had no problem falling asleep after a fun filled and long day.

The next day we decided to relax a bit by strolling leisurely around Hyannis, playing in the arcade, riding yet another carousel, handing out in the big chair, eating Katie's ice cream, taking a run around the town to see all the boats, and chilling at the beach.

The beach was so calm and clear. We were able to walk in the water and see fish, crabs, snails, etc. We found lots of horseshoe crabs that we not the prettiest thing I've seen, but Christian was fascinated by all his cool creature and shell finds. Again, we managed to wear our kid out.

Thursday on our way home, Christian had a brilliant idea to stop in Plymouth to see the Mayflower and the Plymouth Rock. We were in the area, so why not stop, we had no where else we needed to be. It was really beautiful and we learned a lot about how those traveling on the Mayflower lived and gained a lot more respect for their awful journey to the Americas.

We ended the vacation with a bunch of Asian girls treating Berkeley like he was a tourist attraction; they all took a lot of pictures of him and laughed when he said "hi" to them. It was pretty amazing.

The trip went entirely too fast, but was so much fun. We really fit a lot into our little vacation and had a blast being able to spend quality time together.

A Whale of a Time

Since moving to New England I have wanted to go on a Whale Watch. Living in the dessert it was never even an option, so living so close to the ocean I wanted to experience all cool things ocean related. It has always seemed a bit expensive to go, but earlier this year I bought 1/2 off tickets on BuyWithMe.com and since they expire in a week, we decided we should probably use them. We traveled to Glouster, pronounced gloss-ta, to leave on our boat.

For anyone thinking of doing this, I would say don't do it with a 19 month old child, as it is a 2 hour ride out to the whale and a 2 hour ride back. This leaves plenty of time (4 plus hours) to worry that your small child will fall over board, throw his glasses into the ocean, get eaten by whales, etc. But alas, none of the above mention occurred during our trip. Berke did very well and managed to stay on board the ship the entire time.

On our way out to where the whales were feeding we saw about 20 dolphins was was fun, but I got no pictures. We saw about 20-25 humpback whales and 8 minky whales. We watched the whales for about in hour in complete awe of these beautiful creatures. I took over 500 pictures and tried to find some of the best to put on the blog.

This is a humpback whale with its mouth open going down for a feeding.

I was amazed every time the would go under and flip their flukes to make a big splash; what a glorious sight!

We watched whales swim, jump, and eat. Toward the end there was a calm for about 5 minutes and the captain cut the engines and two humpbacks appeared right beside the boat. The whale below was so close that the water it was spraying out of its blow hole actually got me wet. If you zoom in on this picture you can actually see the whales eyes. These two big guys were enjoying some "human watching" I suppose. They hung out just giving us the show of our lives for about 10 minutes before swimming away.

Here are the two whales; I could not believe how close they were, it was unreal. These creatures are so beautiful.

We had an amazing time; the long boat ride was well worth it for the whales we were able to see.
This is really an activity worth doing at least once in your lifetime.

Last Day

Friday was my last day working at Ethos as an Elderly Protective Services Worker; and so in true Laci fashion, I partied like a Rock Star! I have been at Ethos nearly 3 years and it has been a challenging and difficult job for me; but I always felt it was important work. I started feeling burned out with the work and felt it was time to move on; it was a difficult decision because I LOVE the people I work with, but in the end I felt it would be best for me to move forward on a different journey.

Friday was such a bitter sweet day. I got to spend the day chatting with everyone. Christian sent me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers and my friend Kelly gave me these awesome balloons.

I love my Ethos co-workers, they are such a diverse and amazing group of people. They all took me to lunch on Friday and then there was a agency wide party where people say kind things about you and I tried to hard to keep myself together.

I feel bad leaving my Kelly behind, we were the best lunch buddies in town. Kelly and I have done our weight loss journey together and I honestly could not have achieved any of it without her support and love. She ran a 1/2 marathon and I thought she was crazy, but she inspired me to do one now, so I guess we are both crazy. She decided to do a full marathon now, but I don't think I am gonna follow in her foot steps this time. Luckily we only live a a couple miles from each other, so we can continue to run and see each other often.

After all the fun festivities at work, I decided to keep on partying with a small BBQ in our dirt filled back yard. My sweet friends Nicole and Ryan brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers as well. I honestly have such amazing friends, I just feel completely blessed.

Ryan obviously had a little too much fun with the diet cherry coke, but all in all it was such an amazing day. I really couldn't stop smiling. It was a great celebration of all the hard work I have done the last three years, of wonderful friends I have made, many of which are family to me, and a celebration of starting a new journey.

How could I not be happy to be able to celebrate with my supportive family as well.

I will be taking a week off to spend some serious quality time with the family and then I will begin a new job as a Hospice Social Worker. I am VERY excited about this new opportunity and I feel it will be a rewarding and educational experience for me.

and then he kissed me

On 8-9-10, this adorable little man learned how to give kisses.....finally. I asked for a kiss and he walked right over to me and laid one on my lips....my heart melted. It may have been the best moments in motherhood to date.

Maine or Bust

GIRLS WEEKEND!
The ladies of Ethos (past/present) headed to Ogunquit, ME this weekend to have a little "girly time." It was a weekend of food, laughing, beach, sand, sun, hot tub, and fun. Hanging out with my ladies was just what I needed.

Kelly and I headed down early Friday, which meant we could do a little more shopping at the outlets and sitting by the pool.

Saturday we headed to the beach, just a 1/4 mile walk from our hotel. We got some nice sun for a couple hours and then the black clouds showed up and refused to leave. It was FREEZING, but that didn't stop Granny Gloria from knitting. We were all covered up in towels and shivering and finally decided the hot tub at the hotel seemed like a better option for us.

Julie showed us all up with her "Housewives of Boston" look featured below. If only she had a big black hat, it would complete the outfit.

We had fun going into town to eat, shop, have a VERY long trolley ride, and devour ice cream. Did I mention that we ate a lot on this trip?

Sunday was the PERFECT beach day. We got a good 4 1/2 hours of sun, and enjoyed the cool ocean water. I got another thing marked off the bucket list; I had never been buried in the sand, so I asked my ladies to bury me and make me into a beautiful mermaid; they fulfilled my wish and I looked amazing. I have decided my new club name will be Ariel, fitting don't you think (you know since I hit the clubs on a regular basis and all)?

Thanks to my sweet hubby who held things down at home with the little ones.
Cannot wait to see my ladies again!

no doubt about it

Fenway Park is a magical place

Especially when you are there on a date with your hot hubby, because Dan and Lisa gave up their Saturday night to watch your kid (THANK YOU!!!).

Not to mention you get to spend it with fun friends and spend $4.50 on a diet coke.

And to top it all off, when the Sox are down 2-4 to the Tigers in the bottom of the 9th, the bases are loaded and Big Papi hits a great ball and gets 3 runners to home plate.
RED SOX WIN!

Magical I tell ya!