maryland

Last Thursday, Steve had a paper to present at a conference in Baltimore. I jumped at the chance to join him on his trip out-of-town, so the four of us went on an adventure :)

We got to stay at this fancy Hyatt right in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.


This was the view from our room! Nolan had a blast watching the cars and people down on the street, the cruise boats coming in and out, and even a couple helicopters that flew over us.


But it wasn’t long before Nolan had “tornadoed” through the hotel room and was bored. Thank goodness for hotel cable!
 
I wouldn’t mind a bathroom like this at home.


After Steve’s presentation on Thursday afternoon, we went over to the mall across the street and found a Pizzeria Uno. I MISS my hometown Chicago pizza like nobody’s business, and was thrilled to find some deep dish on the east coast.


Our table had a great view of the harbor—it must be so beautiful in the summer months!
 
We got Nolan a make-your-own-pizza :)
 
After we ate, we split a “Cookie Dough Drizzle” from “Marble Slab Creamery” and went back to the hotel.


Friday was a rainy morning, so we didn’t get to do any walking around like I had originally thought. We did drive past Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite, since Steve is an English student and all. It is right here on a non-creepy, busy corner downtown, next to an old brick church. (It’s the tall white headstone in the center of the photo.) We stopped for lunch at Chick-fil-a, which was delicious as always.
 
We were thinking about going to the national aquarium right by our hotel, but it would have cost us $70. We also thought about the children’s museum ($45), but we weren’t sure how long a two-year-old and two-month-old were going to last around lunchtime/nap time. So I did a little online research on Baltimore, and we ended up at the Swedish Children’s Museum . . .

aka IKEA. :)


Nolan had just as much fun as he would have at a museum, trust me. He ran around IKEA like he owned the place, played with toys in the model bedrooms, climbed in sample closets, organized colored straws on a dining room table display—endless fun.
 
We picked up some frozen yogurt cones on the way out.
 So instead of giving our money to the aquarium or museum, we got to buy a few home goods to take with us as Baltimore souvenirs :)

And this little guy did so well on our trip! As long as we stopped every so often to make sure he was well-fed, he was happy and sleepy :)

Now that we know that Baltimore is a fairly easy drive, I hope to go back again when it’s warmer. I’d also love to visit DC and Annapolis, since it’s been years.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend :)