M o re to M o rales

As the world has seemed to tilt at warp speed for the past two years, Natalie Morales has been embracing a more laid-back approach from her newly built home in Brentwood, CA. And the move to the West Coast to co-host Access, its morning show, Access Live, and report in to Today as West Coast anchor seems to be suiting the journalist just fine.

For years, the Rutgers alumna balanced 4 a.m. call times and reporting on breaking-news headlines with juggling life as a mom to two boys, Josh, now 14, and Luke, now 9, in Hoboken, NJ. Behind the scenes, Natalie and her family had been braving another struggle for years.

At just 55, her mother-in-law, Kay Rhodes, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. For 15 years, her father-in-law, along with her husband, Jay, and Jay’s sister’s family, helped manage his mother’s care, first at their home in Colorado and then in an assisted-living facility. She passed away at age 70, but seeing Kay live with the disease at such a young age had a tremendous impact on the whole family. “So many of us moms are used to the caregiving part, but now