Marathon Monday

"Our year in Beantown" would not be complete without a Boston Marathon post. Today was marathon day. It is such a big deal here that it is a state holiday. As a one-time marathon runner, the event has a special place in my heart.

The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon, and requires participants to qualify by running another marathon first, in under a certain time. You have to be a pretty good runner to qualify: in my Chicago marathon, which I ran in 2001 (wow, that long ago???), I didn't come close to qualifying. 25,000 runners are running today.

The course starts out in the Western Suburbs, and ends in Copley Plaza, near downtown. Luckily, the race course goes down Beacon street, which is about a half a mile from our apartment. So, seeing as though I had the day off, Ethan and I headed out to cheer on the athletes at mile 25.

Ethan seemed to really get into it, clapping with the other spectators, and pointing at the runners:




We made it just in time to see Kenya's Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, who ended up winning the race (and setting a new course record), run by.

What a stride!

Here was the top American finisher, Ryan Hall, as he passed us:


I am glad that we had the chance to see such an incredibly inspiring event! Maybe I'll start running again!

The case of the missing shoes

Last weekend, our first warm weekend, we realized we needed some summer shoes for Ethan. We picked up a pair at Target on Saturday night, and on Sunday, had a chance to try them out. They worked great: check them out at the park.


After the park, we decided to walk along Newbury Street. About 7 blocks into our walk, we looked down, and...

one shoe was missing. We retraced out steps, but no luck...the shoe was just plain gone. So we got about 3 hours of use out of our purchase.

The next day, Lilia called Jason at work, and asked, "where are Ethans shoes?" Jason explained the story of the missing sandal, but she said, "no, I mean his regular shoes". Jason told her that he thought they were somewhere in the apartment. She spent several hours looking, to no avail. Then she had an idea. Recently, Ethan has been tossing things into our trash can, which sits in our kitchen. We had taken out the trash that morning. Lilia got the janitor to open the trash chute, found our garbage bag, and sifted through it. Inside the trash, she found not only Ethan's shoes, but also one of his sippy cups and a toy! He had thrown them all away when we weren't looking over the weekend!!

I never would have thought to look in the trash, but I am sure glad that Lilia was able to rescue his shoes!

Happy Easter

We have had a beautiful Easter weekend here in Boston, with temperatures in the mid-70s. Trees are beginning to bud, and they days are getting longer. Finally, I think, winter is coming to an end.


We had a lot of fund yesterday when we went to an Easter egg hunt in the courtyard of our building. Ethan did't exactly understand how to hunt for the eggs, but he did quickly figure out how to open them and retrieve the chocolate inside. He then proceed to try and eat the candy, foil and all!


This morning, he found his "hidden" Easter basket. He even got to try an Easter Peep, although I am not sure if he liked it!



One holiday food that he definitely loves (just like his dad) Matzo and eggs. He's been eating lots in celebration of Passover and it is always a big hit.
A lot healthier than the peeps too!