Baltimore

I've been meaning to get this post up all day, but just haven't gotten that far. It's a shame when work gets in the way of the fun of blogging.

We had a nice trip to Baltimore on Friday and seemed to meet all of Joshua's expectations of seeing all sorts of aquatic life. He was mesmerized by the sharks, located Nemo in a tank, and saw the dolphins. We did find turtles and an octopus and jellyfish, all of which he requested to see.

The funny part, for us, was that Jason and I have a tendency to travel pretty smoothly. Never in our lives have we been on a trip that went like this one. Nothing went terribly wrong, but it wasn't terribly smooth either. Not having a stroller at the aquarium was a challenge, not so much during the aquarium visit, but moreso when Joshua was tired of fish and was ready to move on to doing something else. Eating lunch required that we walk to the restaurants at the Inner Harbor, which meant that Joshua was either walking on his already tired legs or we were carrying him or a 30 pound diaper bag. It was hot and crowded and it wasn't a walk in the park....let's just say that.

We finally managed to get into our hotel room, which was RIGHT beside the aquarium literally, but it wasn't until 3:30. By that time, Joshua was overtired and going into "speed toddler" mode which generally immediately precedes a meltdown. Luckily for everyone, we got in and got him asleep before 4 which allowed for a rest before we tackled dinner. The not-so-helpful hotel staff said that we needed to catch a water taxi at the stop right beside the hotel about 30 minutes before our dinner reservation in order to get to Fells Point on time for our 6:00 reservation. We left at 5 just to be safe. Joshua was thrilled about riding in a boat. It wasn't looking good when we had stood at the taxi stop in the blazing sun for 45 minutes without a single sign of a water taxi who looked interested in picking us up. Plenty went right past us, but none pulled in. Just as we were trying to arrange for plan B, someone took pity on us and picked us up. We were late for our reservation, but that didn't end up being a big deal. Joshua LOVED the boat and would have been content to eat snacks out of the diaper bag all night if we would have let him stay on the boat and ride around the harbor.

By 8:30 we had gotten back to the hotel and it was definitely time to get Joshua settled for the night. I mentioned to Jason that I'd love to walk over and get a piece of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, but that wasn't going to work with Joshua. We'd pushed it far enough...and then some. Well, about 10:00, Jason returned back to the hotel room with two pieces of cheesecake and scored major husband points. I've never sent him on a craving run for anything while pregnant, but he must have seen in my eyes that I really did want a piece of cheesecake. He's a good husband....and he takes good care of me. His only requirement was that I put that on the blog for the world to see.

The three of us shared a king sized bed, which wasn't exactly ideal considering I should count for 2 people right now. Our room was supposed to have 2 double beds based on the fact that Joshua takes up a whole one by himself. Once we finally got into our room, you can be sure we weren't going to raise a stink about that. A bed was a bed at that point. When we got up on Saturday morning, we ate breakfast and headed home with one tired boy in the backseat. He reached meltdown point as we were coming through Winfield, about 10 miles from home. We knew it was coming and were lucky to have made it that far home before he hit the wall.

It was a lot of running around in a hurry for him, but I think Joshua really had a nice time. He's been talking about the aquarium quite a bit since we got home, so I think it was a success. Enjoy the pictures!