Weekend in Annapolis

We're (thankfully) back from our weekend in Annapolis. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time with Memy and our friends the Paces and the Randalls, but WOW were the kids in rare form. Get them away from home and off our normal routine and all bets are off. Lucy puked on the three hour+ road trip, Bella cried an unusual amount, even for her, and Ben peed on the floor more times than I can count! (We were doing FABULOUSLY with potty training too! ARGH! New place, different potty I guess.)

Anyhow, we went out to dinner for Memy's belated birthday celebration on Friday night. Good meal, ice cream afterward. Saturday we had the grand tour of the "new" Annapolis mall, which was HUGE and had a Hanna Andersson. I was in heaven. Then after a great solo shopping trip for me, we hit the road with Chris and Micah for the DC United game. The game itself was pretty lame (final score: 0-0) but we had a great time tailgating. The Paces are not novice tailgaters so they packed the truck with everything you could ever want, including this cool gas gril that's on wheels and folds up to fit in the car. I want one. Long story short, we had good beer, great seats, but not much going on on the field.

Then we headed downtown to show them Andy's lovely home town of Annapolis. We showed them where we had our wedding reception and the many places we drank our faces off during our dating years. :) Yes, we learned very quickly that we were up there with the oldest patrons at most of the bars. By far we had the best time at McGarveys, - some things never change! We were so excited that one of Andy's oldest and dearest friends Norman and his wife Danielle could join us. Norman and Danielle are technically newlyweds for a few more weeks -their first anniversary is coming up September 15th. They filled us in on how Annapolis has changed in the years we've been gone. (We're still in denial that Riordan's is no longer open.) I can't believe we made it until last call...even worse, we hit 7-11 on the way home for some nasty cheese dogs. Ah the old days.

Sunday morning we took our guests down to the City Dock for more sightseeing and a nice brunch on the front porch of Middletons. Nothing like a little "hair of the dog" to get you moving again. We checked out the "GIANT boats" as Ben announced excitedly and took some pics at the end of the dock. (Ignore the boy's attire: he insisted on being "Captain Huggyface" for the day. If you don't get it, watch WordGirl. Besides, Daddy packed his clothes for the trip.) After a refreshing three hour nap (sorry Bella), and some nice drugs for Lucy, we were headed back to Virginia.

...there's no place like home.

PS. The deck is DONE!