Abby and Austin Come to Baltimore!

Hello!

Last week Alex's sister Abby and her boyfriend Austin came to visit us during their spring break!  First they spent a few days in Philadelphia with Alex and Abby's aunt and uncle, and on Tuesday we drove there to have dinner with everybody and then bring A & A to Baltimore!  We had such a great time with them.

On Tuesday we went to Washington DC and visited the National Air and Space Museum which was really cool!  Austin and I had never been there and it had been a while since Alex and Abby had gone, so I'm really glad we got to go!





There were so many fun exhibits!





We also walked around and looked at the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  It wasn't super cold but it was very windy!!

   


We rode the train there and back which was really fun and low stress since we didn't have to worry about finding parking, and well, driving!



The next day we went to the National Aquarium here in Baltimore.  That was also very fun!





It wasn't as crowded as the first time we went in October, so that was nice!  There were still tons of crazy kids, but less :)

We ate lunch afterwards at Miss Shirley's and it was very yummy, of course!



It snowed (grr!) and rained on Friday so we stayed inside for most of the day.  Since it's March Madness, there were lots of basketball games on TV!  We did get a chance to walk around our neighborhood a little bit so we could look at the Washington Monument (the first one :) ) down the street and show them some other things along the way.

We watched a lot of good movies while they were here and we got to play a lot of our games (which we normally don't have enough players for!) so that was really fun!



On their last day here, we drove to the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus to go to the bookstore and walk around outside.



Then we had lunch in Fell's Point at Jimmy's, a cute diner that Alex and I discovered a few weeks ago, and we walked around that area and around Hampden a little bit, too!



We had such a fun time with our visitors!

Thanks for reading!

2014 Washington Monument Lighting!

Hi!

Tonight was the 43rd Annual Holiday Monument Lighting at the Washington Monument, which is just a few blocks south of our apartment!  It is put on by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and it started as a small celebration and has grown into a huge event!  Here's a video about it I saw on Facebook yesterday.

When Alex got home from school, we walked down there to see what was happening!  It took place mostly in the West Mt. Vernon Square and there were tons of vendors lining both streets!

This hardly shows it, but there were food trucks and booths, people giving out candy canes, mittens, and glow sticks, lots of places with hot drinks, performances on the stage, and even a booth where you could take pictures with Santa! :)  

The photos were by Pixelated Photo Booth, which I wrote about here the first time I went to CreativeMornings.

When we first got there it wasn't super crowded or cold but the later it got, the more people there were and the colder it was!  There have been protests around the city the past week or two and there were some protestors during the event and also marching up our street once we were home again.  

We got pizza at one of the booths and finished it right before they lit the monument and set off fireworks!  It was a great show!  The monument looks so pretty with all of the lights on it :)

We walked home pretty much right after show ended because we were so chilly!  We're warm now and watching Peter Pan Live :)

Speaking of CreativeMornings, the next one is tomorrow morning!  I'm excited!  It sounds like it's going to be another great one.

Thanks for reading!

Library Cards!

Hello!

This morning Alex and I went on a nice walk around the neighborhood!  It was in the 30s but we bundled up.  We walked down to the Washington Monument and then we walked over to the library!  We've walked past it before but never when it was open.  It was open today so we went in and got library cards!

We didn't stay in there very long (we got hot because we were wearing so many warm things!) but I can't wait to go back!

It's so pretty inside!


I got lots of fun mail today!  A package from my mom and my Birchbox!

So fun!!!  One of the things my mom sent me is a lettering textbook from when she was in high school!  I can't wait to look through it at all the fonts and practice!  I got so many great samples in my Birchbox, too!  I'll write more about them soon.

Last night my improv group Moonbot had a show!  There were four improv groups total and we went last.  It was so much fun!

Here's the poster for our show.

We took a group pic after of all of the performers :)

It was a fun night!

Alex and I just started watching Mildred Pierce.  We're on the second episode (it's a mini-series and there are only five episodes).  It's good so far!  A new SNL is on tonight!

Thanks for reading!

Halloween Spooktacular

Hi!

Alex and I had a fun day today!  We walked to the Washington Monument which is a few blocks south of us and went to the Halloween Spooktacular in the East Mount Vernon Place Square.  There were cute decorations, snacks, and cute little pumpkins that everybody could decorate with all kinds of fun stuff!

It was perfect weather!  The Mount Vernon Place Conservancy organized this (they're the ones who also put on free yoga in the park/at the Belvedere, showed the free movies when we first moved here, etc.).  We had fun decorating our pumpkins!

I got a Conscious Box in the mail today!  It's my last of the three I got with a Living Social deal.  This time I got lots of things I'm excited to try!  Maple almond butter, some fun lotions, tea, root beer with natural sweetener.  I'll write about things after I try them!

Tomorrow Alex and I are doing something very fun!!  I will write about it tomorrow night!  I also have my first improv rehearsal with Moonbot!  I bet that will be fun :)

Thanks for reading!

Showing my Fam around Baltimore!

Hi!

Today I got to show my parents around our neighborhood!  We walked down to the Washington Monument.  We peeked into the Peabody Library (the most beautiful in the world!), took lots of pics, and ate lunch at a place called Kumari.  It's Indian and Nepalese food and it was really good!  We did the lunch buffet.

This is in the backyard area at our apartment, in front of the koi pond!

 Here they are restoring one of the statues near the monument.  They were putting wax on it or something!

We picked Alex up from school and he gave us a little tour of his campus!  We ate dinner at Potbelly, which is always yummy, and now we're watching TV!

Thanks for reading!

House of Cards, Apartment of Subscription Boxes

Hello!

I got a lot of very fun mail today - three subscription boxes!  Woohoo :)  I got my super cute Birchbox (just finished my first year as a BB subscriber!), my first Bulubox (of three -  I had a Living Social deal to try three months of it), and my Stampin' Up box called Paper Pumpkin!  I got great stuff in my Birchbox that I can't wait to try (and write about here!), the project in the Paper Pumpkin is Halloween-y and soo cute (I will def post pics here of them, too), and I got some interesting things to try in my Bulubox.  

  

The pic is a little blurry, but I was just in a hurry to open everything :)

At the Washington Monument, which is a few blocks down the street from our apartment, they were filming scenes for House of Cards today!  Of course I had to walk down there and see what was happening!  I didn't see any actors from the show, but there were big hair and makeup trailers, food trucks for the crew (who were all over the place), tents with snack tables, people in suits with earpieces, dressed-up men taking breaks drinking wine and smoking cigars, etc.  It was fun to just hang around even though I didn't actually see very much happen.  I just can't imagine how much goes into a scene that may only be a couple of minutes long!  

I guess some of the scenes filmed there are supposed to be in NY since they brought that NYPD car!  They towed the black car there while I was watching.  Exciting!  They film Veep in Baltimore, too, so next I'll have to find them :)  

Alex and I went to another great yoga class tonight!  I made the Loaded Cauliflower recipe again and it was yummy, again!

Thanks for reading!