Head of the Charles

At 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning I pulled myself out of bed and started layering on the clothes for a 8.5 mile run with my running pals.  As they entered my house, they told me to start shedding some layers as it was warm outside!  After a month of very chilly mornings, days and evenings, it was a wonderful treat to have warm sunny temperatures.  This Saturday Fall day was lovely, and a day to spend outdoors!

This beautiful warm day also happened to be the day of the Head of the Charles Regatta, one of the worlds largest rowing events.  We have been to this event in the past and it has been a good time, but this year was even more special because our amazing friend Aubrey was actually coxing her team in the race.  

Here I am waiting for the race to begin, placing myself in a spot where I hoped to get a good shot.  I often run around the Charles River; every Tuesday night and often on Saturday mornings.  I am convinced this is the BEST city to be a runner; these views NEVER get old.  They are breathtakingly beautiful morning, noon and night.

This the is the MIT Rowing Club.  My friend Aubrey is the one at the top of the boat, the one facing the "wrong" direction.  She is telling the rowers what to do so they don't run into other boats, bridges and other objects.  I am super proud of Aubrey who only started rowing 3 years ago and is now in this huge race!  I was thrilled that I could be there to cheer her on.

The whole family came out for the Head of the Charles.

We were able to meet up with a lot of friends who were also there to cheer on Aubrey.  I think our friend Adam wins best dressed for a Regatta award.  He looks so European!

Mr. McDuff was happy to be able to go on an adventure with his family; he doesn't like being left alone at home so much.  He was exhausted the rest of the day and smelled like leafs when we snuggled later that night.

Like I said before, it was a really warm day.  We bought this cool collectors mug that we could keep filling up with old fashioned soda.  This was Berke's encounter with soda of any kind.  As you can see he is a big fan of old fashioned root beer.

We had a wonderful time together as a family.  

Congrats for a job well done for our dear friend Aubrey!

Tumbling!

Berkeley started a tumbling class a few weeks ago.  Christian takes him on Fridays and Berkeley loves it.  It has been so good to see my little man start to overcome fears, gain confidence and be excited for a fun activity.  Berkeley is such a cautious and careful little boy; this class allows him to be a bit more courageous and rough and tumble because of all the soft surfaces around.  It has been wonderful.

Number Four

I had so much fun at the Hartford 1/2 marathon last year that I decided to do it again this year!  I needed a goal to keep me moving this summer, so this was it.  I trained all summer with my pal Coco, also known as Sporty Courty.  We had such a fun time with this run.  

Before the race, it was 30 degrees and we were nervous about the extreme cool temperatures; we both overdressed and ended up shedding layers during the race.

 It was a hard race for me due to a leg cramp most of the race, but I pushed myself as hard as I could and NEVER stopped.  Coco got a surge of energy at mile 10 and ran ahead of me, she finished a wonderful 40 seconds before me.  She was a total Rock Star and was cheering and pushing me the entire race.

 Yeah, my family, so happy to see them to get through the last 1/2 mile!  Let me just say they added a hill with the last mile and I was ready to kick someone in the face, some people started walking, and at that point I was tired and in pain, but I did some serious self talk and kept myself going.  Seeing my family always gives me a little push!

 We both had goals to finish with a 10 min mile pace and I finished exactly with that on the dot!  Not too shabby.  Court finished under 10 min miles, so it was great that we both met those goals!  

 This race is awesomely run; is is extremely organized, the goodies are great and the coarse is awesome. 

 I love my sweet boys for always supporting me!

Even though this was my fourth 1/2 marathon, they don't seem to get any easier.  They are always rewarding to finish and I still had tears in my eyes when I finished today.  Such an amazing accomplishment and I am so proud of us!  

Number five is in 3 weeks, wish me luck!

Providence

Christian and I had a lovely get away weekend for our 10th Anniversary.  We dropped Berke man at his Aunties Friday afternoon and drove to Providence, RI.  We stayed in a beautiful Marriot located in downtown Providence and it was beautiful!  I felt like I was living like the other half for the weekend while staying there.  Upon arrived I took a nap....and oh it was heavenly!  It was a touch two weeks at work and home and I needed a little rest so badly.  After nap time we got gussied up and went to a lovely authentic Italian restaurant, Al Forno, which was deliciousness in every bite!  I had a pumpkin and squash free standing lasagne and my mouth was on cloud 9 during the entire dining experience.  

After dinner we headed to the Roger Williams Zoo for the jack o lantern spectacular.  They had thousands of pumpkins carved and lit and many of them were professionally done.  It was a really fun night.  Luckily because it is early in the season and we got there 30 minutes before closing there were not too many people so we had a great view of all the pumpkins.

Saturday we promised ourselves we would sleep in.  We went to bed at 1 a.m. and woke up at 9 a.m. so I would say it was a success!  I haven't slept that long since Berkeley was born, so it was quite a treat!   We got ready and walked to downtown to explore.  What a beautiful city!  

We explored their beautiful mall and even got to see a movie...TOGETHER!  We saw Pitch Perfect as we wanted to see a comedy and we were laughing out loud the entire time.  I love it and hope to see it again soon; loved it!

That night our friends Travis and Lauren drove down to go to Water Fire with us, neither of us had been and both wanted to, so we did!  We went to a funky restaurant and I loved this sign on the bathroom, made me laugh.  But not as hard as when I went into the bathroom and found a tv....yes in the bathroom, it was awesome!

Water Fire is a big event that happens during the summer in Providence on select weekends where they set little bon fires on the river.  It is so gorgeous and totally worth going to if you are in the area.

We at a lot of crap over the weekend, including these DELICIOUS spooky sugar cookies.  yummmmmm!

We had such a fun time with Travis and Lauren, it was great to hang out with them.  My favorite quote of the night was from Travis when he said, "We'd have a kid right now if we knew our kid was going to be as awesome as yours."   

This picture doesn't do justice to the beauty of this scene, but you can kinda get the picture right?

It was a big breast cancer awareness weekend, so there were a lot of fun things going on in town for that, including but not limit to, them lighting up the state house like this!!  Ridiculously cool, right?

We climbed to the top of the stairs Rocky style.  

Love the air that these boys got!  Best part of the night was staying out late and not having to worry about putting a kid down to bed!  

The next morning we got up and used THE NICEST GYM in hotel I have EVER seen!   Got ready and ate breakfast close to Brown University, at the most adorable cafe.  We browsed the book store (my husband is his father's child).  Then we drove to Newport, RI to see some of the Newport Mansions.  We enjoyed the cliff walk until the rain started coming down.

A huge thanks to Gloria and Stef and Aubrey and Stuart for watching Berkeley while we were away.  As well as to Kate and Logan for being willing to! 

It was such a wonderful weekend get away.  It was lovely to spend time celebrating our love by spending time together alone. 

Happy 10 year Anniversary Love!

You've got mail

This weekend we had a 10 year anniversary get away to Providence, RI.  Gloria and Stef took Berkeley from Friday at 2 p.m. until Sunday at 11 a.m. Berke loves his Aunties more than anyone; it is clear he had a lot of fun with them while we were away!  Gloria sent me this e-mail Sunday night to give me an update on the weekend.  I was crying from laughing so hard, as she seems to have nailed my kid to a T.  I'm posting because I never want to forget how adorable and funny my kid is.  Here it is:

Hey you two love birds! Hope you had a great time exploring RI! We had a great time here at Auntie central :)

We had the handsomest dinner date ever on Friday night at Bertuccis where Berke got to play with pizza dough which he thought was pretty cool be/c it was like play dough but real life dough that pizza is made out of! He made us pizza appetizers before our real meals came out, which of course were deeelicious. Because no dinner date's complete without a movie we FINALLY watched Cars! Of course it was awesome. I am a huge Mater fan myself and I think we enjoyed the running commentary by Berke most of all. Aunt Steffie said she finally found someone who can talk as much as I can during a movie ;)

Yesterday we played lots and lots. We made pillow forts all throughout the house that were mountains, caves and turtles depending on a certain little man's imagination. We read all of his books and the pigeon book about a million times! The pigeon driving with his bum only seemed to get funnier and funnier to a certain someone....of course I'm talking about Aunt Steffie! ;) We gave him a Cars magic marker coloring book where invisible pictures appear when you color over the boxes to which he exclaimed 'Oh my heavens. This is amazing!!! .... What is it?!?!?' We went to a food truck festival in Natick after nap time even though he insisted we never needed to leave the house :). It was a little overwhelming at the festival be/c there were lots of people, lots of music and many of the trucks were running generators so it was loud! When we finally got our food and settled down for a picnic Berke said 'Auntie G? That was not fun for me.' It was priceless. He was a trooper and recovered well with an impromptu tree hug (I was so proud) and sharing a chocolate on chocolate 'Kick ass cupcake' with Auntie G. It was soooo good!

We took full advantage of our sugar high and spent a coupla hours in Toys R Us. Berke walked around the store entering items he wants for his birthday and Christmas onto a list on his imaginary phone complete with sound effects (boop be boop boop boop). Basically he wants anything Avengers and Cars related. I know... shocking. He fell in love with an 'Iron Man dollie' and Aunt Steffie fell in love with a Berkeley-man sized Batman back-pack. I'm sure you can guess what happened :). Earlier in the day he fell in love with my magic wand that he found somewhere in our house and walked around the food festival and Toys R Us waving it and casting magic spells. We sent him home with this as well :)

Iron Man left his hands only during bath time and they've been having some pretty intense conversations with Batman about "emergencies." He won't disclose the details but it sounds pretty serious. After Toys R Us Aunt Steffie ran into Best Buy to get us a Blue Ray player so we could watch Cars 2 (we've wanted one for awhile so thanks for giving us the perfect excuse!) and Berke was in the back seat yelling 'What's going on?!? What's going on?!?' I kept answering him but he kept asking and asking. When I finally turned around to answer him he was completely engrossed in a conversation with Iron Man and Batman and hadn't even heard me. He looked up and just said 'Hi Auntie G.' like he hadn't just been yelling 'What's going on?!?!?!?!?' at the top of his lungs :) Despite being able to watch Cars 2 with our spanking new Blue Ray (yoo-hoo!) he begged to watch the Avengers cartoon that Aunt Steffie found on Netflix instead. So our Cars orientation is not complete but we're at least half way there!

Aunt Steffie made him chocolate chip pancakes this morning and he ate really well all weekend. He napped a little on the couch this morning with Aunt Steffie watching Yo Gabba Gabba. I promise he was in bed by 8 both nights! He was like a kid on Christmas this morning, too excited to sleep a minute longer! I figured he'd pass out in the car on our way to Cambridge but he, Iron Man and Batman had more business to attend to. There really is no rest for super heroes.

Other Berke highlights include him calling the car that beeped an Idiot, asking us occasionally 'How was your day?' telling us not to say Of my Gosh (I had no idea how often I say it!), clucking his tongue (that's definitely new since we had him last. It's super cute), asking us what's going to happen every few seconds during a movie he's seen a gazillion times and we were seeing for the first time, jumping out of his cave of pillows during the Avengers movie and yelling 'Oh my heavens!!! It's Captain America!!! Auntie G, Aunt Steffie it's Captain America!!!', telling us we were silly about a million times a day, always giving Bodhi and hug and kiss goodbye, oh and insisting on being independent while peeing and mostly doing fine except for last night before bed. His usual technique completely failed him and he basically hosed down our toilet, the floor and himself. All while Aunt Steffie was brushing her teeth and dancing to get out of the way and Auntie G was laughing too hard to be of much help. Priceless.

Well, thought I'd share some favorite moments seeing as though we'll probably be passed out by 8 and likely wont get to touch base with you guys tonight. Hope you had a wonderful time and hope to have a play date with all of you very soon!

Oh... and who's John?!? He talked about him all weekend and said he's his best friend. Did he have a falling out with Noah?! ;)

Love ya lots,

Auntie G

TEN YEARS of WEDDED BLISS

We are all a little weird

and life’s a little weird,

and when we find someone

whose weirdness is compatible with ours,

we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness

and call it love.

-Dr. Seuss

Ten years ago today I made a huge leap of faith and married this tall and skinny musician.  We'd only dated 7 months before we were married.  I look back at that now and think I must have been CRAZY; and I'm pretty sure I was to make such a huge decision which at the time, I couldn't possibly comprehend the significance of.  It was a beautiful day filled with family, friends and tons of attention.  It was a great time filled with memories of dancing with both my dads, watching my grandparents dance and just being happy.  Christian and I danced to our wedding song, The Luckiest by Ben Folds and to this day I still feel like I am.

Somehow, even though we were terribly young, immature and still figuring out who we were, we have been married TEN years.  Not just any ten years, but actually 10 happy years.  We have hard years, but those hard years haven't been because our relationship was hard, it was because life circumstances were hard.  For ten years, I have been completely happy and content with the groom I chose; I have never once regretted this naive decision I made.   It was by far one of the, if not THE, best decisions I have EVER made.

Christian truly completes me.  He is a wonderful, kind and generous man who supports me and treats and sees me as his equal.  He has always pushed me to be the best I can be and encouraged me to do things even when they were not status quo.  Where I am weak, he is strong and where he is weak I am strong.  We are pretty different folks you know, but strangely it works delightful well.

I feel so lucky to have a spouse who completely adores me, I truly am the luckiest!

Happy 10th Anniversary to the love of my life.
To many more amazing trips to the moon!
I love you  xoxoxox!

Thirty Four

My honey turns thirty four October second.  Due to the craziness of our lives week, we celebrated this weekend.  We celebrated Mexican Fiesta style!  My hubby loves anything in a tortilla, so it seemed only appropriate.  We had a red hot chili cake!

 We ate at our favorite Mexican Restaurant Jose's in Cambridge with a few friends.  They turned off the lights on the top floor of the restaurant to bring up this birthday treat with a lit candle, it was pretty awesome!

 Once a ham always a ham.

  Here is the master cake maker, Lauren!  She does a great job with these cakes, it absolutely amazes me.  

 What a cute family we have!  Happy 34th Birthday love!

Thirty four things I love about Christian:

1. his laugh

2. how much he loves to teach

3. what a great cook/baker he is

4. how every time we talk on the phone, he always ends with I love you!

5. he supports me in all my goals

6. his ability to always make Berkeley laugh

7. his sense of humor

8. his love for his parents and siblings

9. his imagination when he plays with Berkeley

10. his brain

11. his passion for politics

12. his desire to be honest and good

13. his love for music

14. the ability he has to love me no matter what mood or weight I am

15. how important friendships are to him

16. his gift with words

17. his butt

18. his great sense of style

19. how wonderful he is at teaching the piano to small children

20. how he does the dishes 80% of the time

21. how he cares for our neighbors

22. his sweet tooth

23. he always makes sure he is home so I can run in the evenings

24. how awful he is at accents

25. his piano playing skills

26. his ability to put up with my relentless planning

27. he always fills the cars up with gas

28. his dedication and love for music

29. His awesome dance moves

30. His ability to always think the best of people

31. How he is the worst liar ever!

32. his smile

33. how he always makes me feel beautiful

34. he is the best daddy to our little man