Baltimore Trip

We took a fantastic trip to Baltimore to visit Ann and Andrew. They worked really hard the whole time we were there to make it to "favorite" aunt and uncle status. (Others beware: you have a hard act to follow!)

Now that we live in the middle of nowhere, no trip to a big city is complete without a stop at Target. Sammi insisted on getting her picture taken on this big red ball outside the store. So of course little sister, Elli, also insisted she get her picture taken on the other one! They are quite the pair. Sorry, we only had our phones for pictures so most of them aren't that great.
While in Baltimore we visited the zoo on a ridiculously hot and humid day. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones who thought to go and the zoo was overrun with school groups. It was Brent's worst zoo experience and my second worst (the absolute worst for me involved a lot more crying.) We also visited the Science Center and had a fun, fun time there. We loved the dinosaurs and the lie detector test and the science in action room. Oh, and we had tons of fun in the little kids room with a water table, a play zone, a building area and a giant thing where you push the pins through back and forth and make hands, faces, feet and all kinds of shapes.
We spent a fun day in D.C. We made the mistake of asking a police officer the best way to the Smithsonian museums. He sent us up a boring street about 8 blocks. Only to find out when we got there that we had been one block from the museum we wanted to go to when we asked him. Must have been his first day. We walked 5 or 6 miles that day, but we got to see one museum, eat lunch in a quaint little burger joint and see the Washington Monument lit up at night. The girls were troopers with hardly any complaining or fussing from them. They loved the strollers and the times the chose to get out and run around. It was a long day and there was so much more I wish we could have seen. But in the end, we loved what we got to do. (Which also included visiting with a former companion of Brent's from his mission. We chatted for about half an hour in the shade outside the White House.)
Brent and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the D.C. temple, thanks to great babysitting by Aunt Ann and Uncle Andrew. We needed to do some laundry so our church clothes would be clean. We were a little behind schedule with that and the dryer was taking longer than we thought. We were worried we'd miss the distribution center and we desperately needed to make a stop there. We kept checking the clothes and they weren't dry. Then at the last moment when we could still make it, I checked one more time. My skirt was dry, Brent's pants and shirt were dry. I checked the rest of the clothes. NOTHING else was dry. It was all too damp to wear! We felt the like the Lord blessed us with that little miracle so we could get to the temple and the distribution center before they closed. We had a lovely time and were able to do sealings. We were a part of a family file set and witnessed a whole family, mom and dad and their son and 6 daughters, sealed together. The mom of that family was also sealed to her parents. It was so cool to see a whole family at once be sealed together.

Sammi's highlight was playing blocks with Aunt Ann and Uncle Andrew. And she loved attending the baptism with them on Sunday after church. My highlight was all the friends and family we got to see who happened to live out there as well. Brent's was discovering my friends' media center and making plans to build his own (probably not actually his highlight, but the most talked of thing since we've returned.) And Elli loved going to the park across the street and all the chances she had to play, play, play.

p.s. We're looking forward to seeing more family in a few weeks!