He is fantastic!

The Maleski family is pretty spread out these days with the parents living (it up) in the Keys, with us surviving in central Florida, and the rest of the crew all posted throughout the ATL.  Generally we don’t get to have all the folks together very often- however we all jumped at the opportunity to gather up for Ma’s X5th birthday party.  Lauren and I flew up to ATL on a separate flight from Mom and Pop and we met at a traditional spot for some Italian.

The evening felt like a scene out of some mob movie where the family has their own little room in the back of the restaurant and I’m sure that the proprietor felt he made a wise decision once all those voices moved in through the front door.  I went to wash up at some point and after walking through the restaurant I realized the volume of the standard Maleski gathering hasn’t gone down one bit over the years.

I think the constant noise from mulitple cross-table conversations is definitely what made the night feel like it hadn’t actually been that long since we had all been together.  Anyway, here’s a few pics from the dinner…

Happy birthday Mom- we all love you so much-

Love for Maine

Back in August Lauren and I went to Maine.  The trip followed my birthday and preceeded our anniversary, however, it was Lauren’s birthday present.  All the planning put it in August, 3 months after she turned… well, another year older.  The best part of the plans turned out to be the fact that we had no real plans at all.

Anyway- you know the expression “the grass is always greener…”, well, that sums up our emotions everywhere we went in that state.  Being (temporarily) from Florida, where it’s currently NOVEMBER and we’re expecting temperatures in the 80′s again this brisk fall week…  the afternoon temperatures of 60′s and low 70′s in August were a welcomed change.  That and terrain (scenes) like this -

From Cadillac Mountain

For all of those living with us in Florida and are suddenly feeling woozy, that’s becuase this picture actually has some elevation change from the camera’s vantage out to the horizon.  Oh, and those big things are rocks.

Bar Harbor

The light houses were spectacular, visually and the history that accompanied them.  The one’s we saw were either huge tourist attractions (but beautiful none-the-less) or they were these little houses placed out in the middle of some really quiet area- those smaller lights still had keepers!

Portland Head Light

Dyce Head

A major thing Maine had that we find ourselves missing most is real wooded areas that you want to hang out in- no mosquitos, no unbearable heat, foliage that was nice to look at.  This little spot we found when we were driving.  There was this little dammed pond on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere…  the creek that trailed off in the woods was all quiet except for the sound of the water-

Woods

In Bar Harbor we did some bouldering- rock hopping- whatever you hippy folks call it.  We found ourselves off the normal trail leading around the cliffs and water.  Most of the rock faces were at a perfect angle for us to climb around on without the need for all the gear, this turned to be one of our favorite days…

Long Way Down

You have to go to gym for this in Florida

Oh, apperantly the ocean slants to the left in Maine.

I saw this thing and appearantly felt I needed to do a Godzilla impression…

God-zee-rah!

The sad part was we travelled back from our relaxing vacation to find the entirety of central Florida underwater.

Thanks to Fay, this is the view from our front yard when we got home...