Gloucester

The big news around here for the past day and a half has been the "catastrophic" water leak that is preventing my family (and two million unlucky others in the Boston area) from being able to brush our teeth easily. Natalia and I boiled water until we were falling asleep at the stove last night, so today we tried to get away from everything here by taking a trip up to Gloucester. It helped that our friends Liz and Andy would be up there too, at Andy's mother's house, and that they had invited us (as well as another friend, Jeff, and his kids) up for the day. Yay for friends in high places.

The house is beautiful and has spectacular views of the ocean below. Andres took a nap on the way up (as did his sister) and was suitably cranky upon arrival. But he quickly discovered the joy of throwing small rocks into the ocean (by way of hitting many large rocks), and this pastime occupied him for the first 20 minutes or so--at that point he became much more civilized and wanted to hang out with the other adults around. Celia, as usual, was happy the whole time (hunger cries notwithstanding).

The afternoon was filled with fun activities. We walked to a small beach, did some rock climbing, ate lunch, played outside on the gorgeous stone porch, threw more rocks into the ocean, and ran into a screen door (ok--only Andres did that! He was fine though...he shook it off like he's done it before.)

The location was perfect for some portraits...clear backgrounds, mostly flat lighting, and wind-swept hair. I took some shots of Andres when he slowed down enough to let me shoot him, and also some of him with his new friend--Jeff's youngest daughter. What a pair they made!

Towards the end of the afternoon we hopped into the car and drove to get some ice cream in neighboring Rockport. Andres loved sharing a cone with his mama:



And though Celia didn't have any ice cream, it looks like her hat is a suitable replacement.



Sadly, we had to leave Andy, Liz, Jeff, and everyone else at some point...and when we did, it was not a pretty sight. Andres, who had held it together fantastically throughout the afternoon, lost it. Even Celia got into the act!



But I will trade 20 minutes of toddler hell for an afternoon of great behavior and fun...so all told, a successful day. Now its back home for another few days of boiling water and using paper plates.