Baltimore

From Buffalo, the girls and I drove down to Baltimore to visit my parents for a week. We had a great drive, and they were so excited to get there to play with all their toys and read the Berenstein Bears books. Kaitlyn was so happy to have all new books to read, as my mom pulled out a bunch of The Babysitters Club Little Sisters books, so that kept her busy for the week. This week was a lot more relaxing than Buffalo, but it might have been too much so, since the girls started to fight and antagonize each other. The weather was even more unbearable than in Buffalo, so we stayed inside most of the trip. No trips to the playgrounds. We were headed to the pool, but it was the one day that it stormed, so that was nixed.

We did go down to Fells Point to go on a pirate ship, but it was booked. So we made reservations for Monday, and my dad missed out on the fun. Lauren was so excited to dress and act like a pirate, but Kaitlyn was hoping to skip it. There were only about 15 of us on the ship, so it was not crowded. We got to wear sashes or vests, got tattoos (Kaitlyn skipped both of those) and then got our name tags. Amazing Anne, Jellylegs Julie, Awesome Alexa, Lovely Lauren and my favorite, Krack-a-Smile Kaitlyn (since she was a grump at the beginning)! We then went sailing and sang, danced, learned some pirate words and shot guns (water guns). After a little bit, Kaitlyn started to participate a little bit more, while Alexa just wanted to be held by 1 of us the entire time (I am not sure if she was afraid of the pirates or not)! One of the favorite parts was getting the key to the treasure chest from another pirate, so they could all get 2 treasures to bring home. Lauren and Alexa are still calling Kaitlyn by her nickname sometimes, which isn't always going over very well.

It seems like all of our trips to Baltimore are pretty similar, but I guess that is due to the girls' ages. It just isn't always easy taking them too many places, so we are usually eating in and just doing little things here and there. So it was a perfect complement to our trip to Buffalo and just what I needed.

The big change with this trip was that we tried Alexa out on a mattress on the floor and then bought a toddler bed the day after we got there. Alexa seemed to like the freedom as she seemed to get into everything while she was supposed to be napping. All our band-aids disappeared, bags were pulled out of the closet, and one day she slept on the big queen bed. Now that we have been back at our house for 2 weeks, Alexa is sleeping in her toddler bed all the time. I did put her in her crib twice, and those are the only times that she has ever climbed out of the crib. So I guess we will be selling that soon as there is no more use for that in this house!

We then drove back to Atlanta on Wednesday. We were able to see about 5 deer in my parents' front yard and then a few more on the way to the interstate, so the girls loved that. The girls were great once again on the drive. It took us 11 1/2 hours with 2 stops, so I really am lucky to have such wonderful travelers! They know what they need to do when we stop, and they were ready to get back in the car since they wanted to get home!