Our First Guests! Our Family!

Brian's parents flew in on April 30th to spend the weekend with us...and also to give us motivation to get our house TOGETHER.

Michael woke up at 6:30am both mornings because he was so excited they were there! Every weekend with Grammy and Grandpa begins with pancakes...this time with aprons to remind them of their rank in the family:
Grammy made Michael a cross stitched blanket that was very similar to one that Brian has from when he was little:

Then, we jumped in the car, drove an hour and met up with Thomas the Tank for the day:

Michael also got to see his Aunt AK and Uncle Bill:

And Grandpa took Michael to the only kind of tattoo parlor that he would willingly take his grandson: a temporary oneMeet Thomas the Tank was held at the B&O Railroad. Who knew it existed outside of the Monopoly board?? Don't answer that.

Here we are on the platform to get our ride on Thomas the Tank. It was a bit anticlimactic as it went about 2mph with tons of kids on it.

Michael LOVED it though! Here he is looking out the window:

And father and son with Thomas in the background:

Overall, Michael was a bit overwhelmed at Thomas the Tank. He definitely enjoyed himself there! But I was surprised that after only 2.5 hours, he was done!

That was F-I-N-E by us because we took a quick detour to Ft. McHenry thanks to The Mom's suggestion!

Here is why Ft. McHenry is important according to Wikipedia:

"Ft. McHenry is a star shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812 when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in the Chesapeake Bay. It was during this bombardment of the fort that Francis Scott Key was inspired to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," the poem that would eventually be set to the tune of the The Anacreontic Song, to become the national anthem of the United States."

Much better than what I could have said!

Brian was a good sport while I made him stand against this red brick wall and between the green shutters that makes the green man on his shirt stand out:

And this is straight out of the camera...I just loved the greens/oranges and the way the light hit this and the black scrolly thing.
And we stayed to see the changing of the flag. The flag with the 13 stars come down and was replaced by our current one.
On Sunday, we went to church and hung around the house! Michael put together his blue adirondack chair and went mowing with Dad. It was a relaxing Sunday after our full Saturday, and we loved every minute of our fun weekend!

I leave you with this picture. It was way too dark, so I lightened it up in photoshop and it's still bizarre with the blownout areas, but I just like the way it looks. Kind of futuristic like from Iron Man or something...