Vacation with Babies, 2010: Day 5

 We left peaceful Amish country for Maryland to explore Baltimore. Yes, really. Baltimore. Just wait, you'll be surprised how nice it was.

To be specific, our destination was the touristy part of Baltimore, the Inner Harbor. On our way into the city, though, we stopped at a little museum I found online. The Fire Museum of Maryland.  As most 2 years olds do, we have specific loves that come and go. Right now we love firetrucks, and we suspected they would love this pitstop, too.

Inside was a history of firetrucks. Old, old, OLD firetrucks.

 We were happy.

Keith got a wee bit artsy here.

 There was a kiddie discovery room with a real-deal firetruck to climb on. The boys were gentlemen and let that little girl play on there first.

 Dada watched. And rested.

 Grady did a good bit of steering on this wheel.

And there was a neat wooden firetruck for the kids to play on too. Would have been a whole lot less creepy to play on if that adult male wasn't sitting in the back of it while he texted up a storm. Put down your damn phone and pay attention to your daughter, please. She's not taking turns on the big firetruck. Grady did give him a stare-down, but the guy was too oblivious to notice.

The girl finally moved and we could get into the real firetruck. Even used the hats properly.

And then it was storytime. We went and sat for storytime at first, but quickly lost interest (both kids and adults) because the volunteer was not the best candidate for reading stories out loud. You can see him and the older (bored) kids in the background. We entertained ourselves with a train table that was not nearly as good as JD's.

And we pushed around small firetrucks.

And dressed up like firemen!

And a short while later ditched the jacket and decided the hat should be worn this way instead.

We played a bit more and went out into the main exhibit area and looked and pointed excitedly at more trucks. And then we remembered the Bore, the story reader, gave us coupons for a free ice cream cone each at the ice cream shop across the street. And we'd be fools to turn down free ice cream during a vacation right? Who cares if we gorged ourselves at a dessert smorgasboard the day before? Here we come, 31 flavors! 

On the way there I asked the boys what flavor they wanted. Grady said "I want ICE CREAM!" which I think translates into "whatever flavor, it does not matter, just give it to me". Cole said "pink!". Alrighty then. 

So pink ice cream we got. I don't know if Cole wasn't sure what ice cream was, or maybe his mouth is just too sensitive, because he took this one bite and then wanted his milk sippy. Strange kid.

Grady, on the other hand, was very happy with his pink ice cream and ate some of it. Not all, but some. Keith and I about licked our bowls clean, if you're wondering.

 Our bellies full with frozen diary products, we decided to try to check into our hotel. It was a little early, but were hoping the hotel gods would be kind. 


We had no such luck. Our room would not be ready that day until 45 minutes after the regular check-in time. So, we left our loaded car in the parking garage and set out on foot to kill some time. We walked along the water, carrying two very heavy, heavy sleepy children. We did get to stop and check out some ducks.

We needed to get into some A/C and stumbled into this museum. It's a long name, the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park. You've heard of Frederick Douglass, I'm sure. He was born a slave, and later became a freed man and went on to write books and fight to end slavery. Isaac Myers was born a free man, and his life had many similarities to Douglass'. This museum showed the role of water, ship-building and the harbor in these two men's lives. Since working in a museum I've become very critical of museums, and this small museum passed my critique with flying colors. Very well done.

We watched a short intro video. Or, we watched a bit and glared at our kids running around.

Explored the exhibits. Whilst carrying a baby.

And headed outside for snack-time. See the eager little faces looking at the backpack o' snacks.  Grady now refers to snacks as "something" because during the trip I kept saying, "oh, I have something in the backpack for us to snack on". Behind us is a cool sculpture of Frederick Douglass's head.

After snack we peeked into the final part of the museum, where there are people actually making boats. the crew had gone to lunch, but they left the shop open so we could peek inside.

This was the view from the museum.

We hoped our room was ready by now and headed back to the hotel. Again, carrying the heavy loads. We thought we were clever when we got them to run along this low wall.

Until a local lady told us the area just past the wall was riddled with rats and there was poison put everywhere to kill said rats. Oh. Not the best place for the kids to play. 

Cole is now on the prowl for rats.

Back at the hotel we waited another hour for our room. The hotel was having all sorts of issues, and we paid the price. I showed them, though. Or Grady did, rather, as he had a major meltdown while we waited in the lobby. I'm used to them, but the front desk staff seemed shocked at the decibel level. But our room was mysteriously ready a few short minutes later...

We got settled, napped and set out to explore for a Inner Harbor for a few hours before bedtime.

Another Anniversary

We interrupt the vacation recap to tell you that Keith and I just realized this: 5 years and two days ago, we bought this house! How time has flown by. We've had the best moments in this house. Tonight we had our new neighbors over for happy hour, and we had the best time with them. This purchase was their first house, and it reminded me of the first few days in our house. Each time I think of that time, I think of us eating on this table, and sleeping on an airmattress while we, with the help of now-grandparents, got the house inhabitable. And here is a picture of those times, us eating popcorn and chatting with our good friends around our camping, er...dining room table in an otherwise empty house. 

Painting trim for days without end. 

Vacation with Babies, 2010: Day 4

Thank you Julie for commenting on my question yesterday. As Julie cleared up, it was indeed the Lancaster County Visitors Center we went to yesterday.

And today, we visit the Mennonite Information Center. Stay tuned.

This day started off as a rainy, gray one. The plans from the night before was to head to "something Amish" the morning, and play at home in the afternoon, but after seeing the weather we all agreed a am/pm flip flop was in order. So the kids played. We played upstairs, we played in the basement, and we play on the ground level. All over the place. And we got cranky early and we napped well. Even Dada got in on the napping action. Momma walked, 'cause vacation=eating too much.

But once naptime and lunch were over, we loaded the kids into the cars and headed our. The plans were to get our learnin' on, and eat. Not necessarily in order of importance.

On the way, we passed this, and it made me chuckle. No subletly in this store's name.

After passing this store, we stopped at the Mennonite Information Center and learned that the Mennonites came before the Amish. Did not know that, actually thought it was the opposite. Learned a nice bit of history from their exhibits, and saw a video that was (how long?) maybe 10-15 minutes. The boys did great for the first few minutes, but then decided to run around while the adults watched. The first 70% of the movie we were the only ones in the theatre, so we let them run to their hearts content. Then some other folks joined us and we tried to get the boys to at least stay out of the videoscreen's view. And we glared and made idle threats. Mostly they behaved ok.

At the Information Center I picked up the only souvenir we got the entire trip.  I like getting regional cookbooks while on vacation, so this beauty came home with us. I'm eager to make a few of the recipes, and from the looks of the recipes, pudding is very popular in Lancaster County. There are at least 30 pudding recipes in this book. Be warned-visit our house in the next few months, and you'll be eating pudding for dessert. Or maybe even several types of pudding.

Satisfied that we had learned enough to now move on to eat, we left the information center and drove towards Shady Maple, a town or two over. Or is it, a township or two over? From time to time Julie could call from the white car ahead to give us a tour over the cell phones-remember we had to have two cars because of car seats.

As we approached this Target she called and said "remember the Amish Farm place we told you about that is now right next to a new Target?". We said yes, and she said "it's just past this turn, where the flag is." We started peering about, and then relaxed because there's little chance of missing the huge Target.  So, for any of you visiting Lancaster County in the next few years, you can go visit the Amish Farm to learn about how they are entirely self-suffient and shun modern day conveniences, then walk out of the farm ten paces and into a megastore ablaze with eletricity and man-made items. American diversity at its best. I personally think it would be a very interesting and artistic picture to photograph the farmhouse at night when its awash in the red Target sign's light.

By now the car has moved on into a new township, New Holland. This next picture is for Greg, our darling nephew who at age 3 or something memorized every type of tractor and other heavy equipment. New Holland's (they make tractors, amongst other things) headquarters!

And then on to more farm scenery.

And then we see the sign. The Shady Maple sign. We were told this was an epic experience, dining here. We weren't sure what to expect, but we knew we liked what we were told so far. A smorgasboard. Say it with me, SMOR-GAS-BOOOOOARD. I like that word a lot.

Now this next picture isn't the best, but it does show the enormity of Shady Maple. In the South buildings this large are either warehouses or some type of Baptist church building. This one was all restaurant, and when we got inside we saw that the buffet line, or smorgasboard, stretched the entire length of the building, minus the cash register portion.

The food was pretty good overall, and as we all do with buffets, we sampled a bit here and there. I'm a sweets person, so I saved most of my room to sample local desserts. I tried shoeflypie, which wasn't bad, but not my favorite. I also tried egg custard and loved it. I've since checked my new cookbook, and it does have an egg custard recipe, so now I just need someone to come visit our house!
The boys also loved the dessert. This was ice cream stop #1 on the vacation. Cole only had one bite of actual ice cream, then ate the chocolate pieces. This is important to know for a later date.

Grady loved it so much he created what we now call "the ice cream dance". You'll see this later, too.

We ate and ate, until we felt like the kid at the table behind us looked. That's Madelyn's little face you see peeking.

Are you tired of me wearing that same sweater? Sorry to tell you I wear it at least 2 more days on the vacation. I did at least wash it once. What can I say, I (heart) a good cardigan.

More than any ice cream or chocolate, Cole wanted his milk. If that kid ever breaks a bone, I'll be shocked.

A few shots here and there. Mike and JD, with his blue slushie mouth.

Madelyn and her pink lemonade mouth.

On the way in we were too hungry to stop and take pictures, but on the way out we took a few. Here is where you pay. It reminds me a little of the starting line at a horse race. Once you're cleared, you run for the smorgasboard!

No, not really, it's all very organized. You pay, then you take your ticket to a hostess and they seat you. And then you flip your card up on the table to let the cleaning staff know that you are still using the table, you just stepped back to the trough for another round.

Below the eating is shopping. A HUGE giftstore was below and we four adults, on a sugar high, felt we could manage getting the four little ones through the store. Without breaking or buying anything. We boys and girl did very well.

This little man caught my eye. Who wouldn't want an Amish doll? It seems to me that he should have more teeth for looking so old and having so much hair. Or was it only our kids who had a full set of teeth before all the hair grew in?

Cannot leave Shady Maple without trying on Amish headgear. I look pretty good in a bonnet, no? And I look a LOT like my mom and her sisters here. Keith, since he's wearing black, looks downright Amish. Except he's looking happy.

The goal here was to get Madelyn and JD in a picture, but Cole and Grady were loving the hats. Another fleck of dust.

There, finally got the pesky Ellerman twins out of the way. These two are so cute.

To round out our Amishness, we saw another buggy on the way home. I'm sure if you live there, you get used to seeing them, but for me, it was worth the bruise I got from diving into the backseat to retrieve the camera.

We bathed, read to, and tucked in the kids and the adults chatted. And played boardgames. And drink wine. I've not yet mentioned it, but Mike makes his own wine, and it was pretty darn good. We had a great adults only time, I laughed harder than I have in a long time. I'll probably smile when I hear "stick" or "hamster" for a while. I'll also remember the raging headache I had the next morning because we stayed up well past 1am, and woke up to two really cranky kids. It was more than worth it.

We had such a good time in Pennsylvania that we decided we'll take the boys back in a few years for a tour of PA. And in the meantime, we're hoping we can bug the h*ll out of these guys to come visit us. Thanks for having us, everyone!

Not sure I can guarantee our boys will be as good at sharing, though. And I should probably stock up on dress up clothes before then too. Mentally adding it to my to-do list.

Tomorrow we head to Maryland.