The Racine Family

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Month of Travels

May has been a lot of traveling for us. Which is so fun and adventurous, but also exhausting. May 2-4 : Boston Our month started with us heading North to Boston to see Ted & Lauren (the Ted & Lauren from last year’s beach trip and soon to be this year’s beach trip). This trip […]

May has been a lot of traveling for us. Which is so fun and adventurous, but also exhausting.

May 2-4 : Boston

Our month started with us heading North to Boston to see Ted & Lauren (the Ted & Lauren from last year’s beach trip and soon to be this year’s beach trip). This trip was an adventure to say the least. Also, that Friday when we left, just was not my day.

Friday morning we got up at 6:15, finished packing, loaded my car and headed towards the airport. We parked at my work and got on the metro to Reagan. It was then I noticed I did not have my cell phone. Insert panic attack. My phone had their address, the rental car confirmation, and also, my phone is kind of my life – sad, but true. After about 30 minutes and finally accepting I was going to go a full weekend without it, I moved on. I moved on to going through security, lifting up my beautiful red Ralph Lauren suitcase (that has gone everywhere with me since high school) and discovered the handle broke. 🙁

Then we went to get breakfast at Gordon Biersch – the one restaurant near our gate. Food comes out, Jimmy starts eating, I find I have no fork. And there happens to be no waitresses around. How’s a girl supposed to eat her eggs? When the waitress does come around about 10 minutes later, I ask for a fork and a beer. Now we’re finally boarding the plane. I get on, walk to the back to my seat and have the wonderful conversation of “we’re going to have to check your bag.” Just great. The flight wasn’t bad, other than I couldn’t sleep. We land, I get my bag, go to put in my contacts and discover my left eye has a bright red spot, and wonder, how has no one asked what was wrong with my eye all day? At this point I want to throw in the towel but that’s not an option, so contacts go in, I force a smile, and walk out to Jimmy. We figure out how to get to the rental car and start our journey to see his grandma.

IMG_0318 IMG_0320 Jimmy’s grandma lives in a beautiful area about 45 minutes south of Boston. It’s right on the water. Jimmy loves going here and I love hearing all the stories of his summers here as a kid.

After walking around, we stopped for lunch. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it had amazing food. I had the fluffiest most wonderful sweet potato fries and great chicken Cesar wrap. Jimmy & his grandma had a seafood gumbo. After lunch, we went to grandma’s house to visit for a bit. It was so great to see her. She is so fun and caring. Then it was time to start our next adventure of the day: Boston traffic to get to Ted & Lauren.

Living in the DC area my entire life, I thought I knew about traffic. Then I got to Boston. It was miserable. We ended up being an hour late to return the car (which apparently was no big deal because we actually had the car until 11pm not 7pm). We returned the car, hopped in a cab, and headed to Cambridge, MA. That night we took it easy and just caught up.

IMG_0335IMG_0338IMG_0340On Saturday, we made breakfast, relaxed a bit and then went on a duck tour – so fun! We got to hear a lot of the history of Boston and see some great sites. Jimmy, being the good Geotech that he is, loved hearing every detail of the “Big Dig,” even though he already knew most of it.

Boston is quite beautiful. Although, I often feared for my life walking around. From my experience, the term “yield to pedestrians” doesn’t mean much there.

After the duck tour, the boys played some video games while Lauren and I got ready for dinner. We went to the North Side (the Italian area of Boston) for dinner. It was quite fun. Jimmy pointed out that his grandpa was born and grew up about 10 minutes away. We went to the best Italian restaurant. Jimmy had a veal dish and I had rigatoni. We both ate every bite. We all split a couple bottles of a Ciante and had a relaxing meal. After dinner, Lauren and I headed to PinkBerry while the boys went to get some famous Cannoli. Since we were all pretty tired we headed back for desert and to watch a movie.

All in all, our trip to Boston was great! We got to see family and friends. Explored the city a bit. Learned some. Had some fun.

 

May 9-11 : Blacksburg

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Meridith and Me at the vineyard
Blacksburg vineyard
Beautiful

The following weekend (2nd weekend of May), I headed to Blacksburg to see Meridith. She is in Medical School there and will be leaving for her rotation year so I wanted one last visit. The drive down was pretty bad. First, I ran into major traffic on I-66. When I finally got on I-81, there was more traffic because of an overturned tractor-trailer. Then, the rain started. Pouring. down. rain. It ended up taking me 5.5 hours instead of 4 but it was totally worth it. We headed to one of my favs, Cabo Fish Taco for dinner. Yum! Then went back to her place because I was exhausted.

The next day we wanted a girls day so we headed to Starbucks, got pedicures, found a chocolate festival DT Blacksburg (so perfect), went to a new vineyard that’s 20 minutes from Blacksburg – Beliveau Estate, watched Frozen, and went downtown that night. It was the perfect trip. I feel like I’m coming home every time I head to Tech so that was wonderful. And it was way too long since I had seen Meridith.

May 18 : Loudoun Lyme 5K

This weekend we spent at home, but we were busy. We ran in our 2nd 5K together. I chose the Loudoun Lyme 5K because I had Lyme disease a few years ago and our dog Kai has had Lyme. This year it was in Ashburn so we had to get up at 6:15 to get to the race on time. Jimmy beat me. But, we both had PRs, so it was a good race for a good cause. And we got to go visit my friend Sherry and her family who live in Ashburn so that was lovely.

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May 23-30 : Beach Vacation

Separate post to come.

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