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!

Two visits

We have just had two visits.

The first was that Marla visited Hawaii. She went to Honolulu (alone) last week for an anesthesia conference. It was so nice to have some warm weather. I enjoyed Waikiki beach, attending the conference and seeing old friends and mentors at the conference.

Here was the beach at my hotel:



One afternoon, I took a hike to the top of Diamondhead crater, which is the mountain that you can see in the background of Waikiki beach. It was beautiful--amazing views of all the high-rises.

Of course, I missed Jason and Ethan though!



The second visit was that one of Marla's oldest friends, Janet, and her husband and 2 kids (James, 3 and Abbey, 20 months) came to visit us from Chicago. They were here for the weekend, and we had a blast! Ethan had his first roomate, and he was pretty good about sharing all his things. We had fun visiting the Science musuem, and going to the park!


Janet took most of the pictures, so I'll have to post those later.

Overall two great visits!

Hello From Chicago....

Ethan and I are in Chicago this week, visiting Grandma and Grandpa Ferschl.

We had a pretty good flight (my first alone with him)....and arrived here on Saturday.

731 East Ave is a totally different place for Ethan now that he can walk.....so many places to discover.

He quickly found the stairs, and kept heading up them (I didn't even know that he knew how to climb stairs...), and we quickly learned that we had to get a safety gate to keep him in.

For a not child-proofed house though, we have done pretty well. He did somehow get a hold of a large meat fork today, and was sucking on it before anyone noticed...luckily no damage done.

Sunday, we went out to a favorite pizza place with Great-Grandma Ferschl and Great Aunt Judith. Ethan (not surprisingly) LOVES pizza.

We are having a great time here. Wish we could come more often!

A Taste of Spring!

This weekend, it was above normal temperatures--got in the low 50s on both Saturday and Sunday. Finally a chance to get out and enjoy some sunshine! We took Ethan to the park for the first time since October. Now he can walk around the playground and explore it on his own. What a difference a few months makes!

On Sunday, we headed to the Arnold Arboretum. This is a large city park that is acutally owned by Harvard and leased to the city of Boston. It contains thousands of trees and plants and serves as a horticultural research area for the university.

Ethan enjoyed getting out of his stroller and walking around a bit too!


We even managed to find a flowering tree (one of the only alive looking things in the park...no buds on trees here yet) and take a few pics. We can't wait for warmer weather!!!

Ethan does Ethnic

For the past two nights, Ethan has had Indian food for dinner. And he loves it. He definitely did not acquire his mom's palate--the kid eats everything! We have introduced him to Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and now Indian.
The only type of food he has had a problem with is Japanese: we live around the corner from a hibachi grill Japanese restaurant. A few weeks ago, some friends came over for dinner, and we decided to go there. Well, Ethan was absolutely TERRIFIED of the Japanese chefs, who were doing tricks with their knives and lighting fires on the grills. Then, as if this wanst bad enough, some waiters came out banging a gong (for someone's birthday) and he completely lost it. I mean total freak out. I actually had to leave the restaurant and eat at home with him. So no more Japanese, for a while at least!