Cole's Graduation Weekendback

Hi!

Alex's cousin Cole, who lives in Philadelphia, graduated from Penn this month!  Alex's parents flew to Baltimore and we drove to Philly with them and had a great time!



On Sunday, Alex's aunt and uncle had a nice brunch at their house.  A lot of Cole's friends and their families from out of town came.







It was perfect weather to eat outside in their pretty backyard!





That evening we went to the ceremony for his specific college.





We took some pics with Cole after the ceremony.



The next morning we went to the school-wide ceremony, which was also really nice!  The speaker was Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.  She gave such a great speech!  





After the ceremony we had lunch with Cole, his girlfriend Jackie, Alex's parents, and his aunt and uncle at a cool restaurant called Fork.





I had chicken bites and Alex had pasta.  We split the chocolate bark dessert....so yummy!



We drove back to Baltimore with Alex's parents and they stayed with us that night, so they got to spend a little bit of time here with us before flying back to Tucson!

That night we went to Tavern on the Hill for dinner.  It POURED.  We joked that there were record-breaking storms whenever they come (when they were here to help us move in last August, we had the second-rainiest day in Baltimore ever!).  It turns out we were right!  This time it broke the rain record for that specific day.  Crazy!  We got soaked walking to dinner and home, but it was fun :)  We got frozen yogurt at Tutti Frutti across the street for dessert.

The next morning we went to Jimmy's for breakfast and walked around Fells Point.  We found some stores that Alex and I didn't even know existed down there!  It was really fun.  After that Alex gave us a tour of the School of Public Health!  It's really nice!  It was fun seeing where he spends his days at school.  It has a really big balcony with a great view, so we spent a little while up there!







We had lunch in Hampden at Golden West Cafe, and then Alex's parents drove to the airport to fly home!

We had such a fun few days with them and with Cole and his family, too!

Thanks for reading!

Star-Spangled Spectacular

Hello!

From last Tuesday to next Tuesday is the Star-Spangled Spectacular in Baltimore!  It's a huge celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner and it's a pretty big deal!  For the past few days the Blue Angels have been flying over doing air shows, Obama came to visit (he didn't stop by our apt...darn it!), there are lots of big ships in the Inner Harbor, and tonight there was a huge fireworks show!

Alex and I walked to one of his classmates' apartments and then everyone there walked toward the water to watch the fireworks.  We were in the perfect spot to watch!  There was a seriously amazing band playing jazzy covers of When the Saints Go Marching In, etc.  The fireworks were at least a half hour and they were so good!  Probably the best we've ever seen.  There were tons coming up from the ground near the water and then several tall buildings around us had them going off on the roof!



It was very nice and coolish while we walked there and back home.  On the way back we stopped to got delish frozen yogurt at Tutti Frutti which is right across the street!  Lucky us :)

Last night we met up with someone that used to live in Tucson and moved here a few months ago (we have a mutual friend) and we walked around and looked at the huge ships that are here for the celebration.  Then we walked to their apartment and met his wife.  It was fun to meet people yesterday and today!  

Oh!  I opened up my Etsy shop!!  And got my first order!  Someone that was in improv with me at Tucson Improv Movement bought three things!  So exciting :)  I have twelve listings right now for hair ties and head bands and I'm going to keep adding more!  

I had fun taking lots of pictures so you can really see what the hair ties look like.  Hopefully I'll get some more orders!

We're planning to wake up early to go to free yoga at the park again, so I'd better go to bed!

Thanks for reading!