Thanksgiving. Baltimore Style

Since my mom is temporarily residing in Baltimore with Steve in the hospital, we packed our bags and all flew there to be with them for Thanksgiving.
Jackson and Charlie were making a rainbow out of their froot loops. 
My anal son, Jackson, made sure they were ROYGBIV :)
Charlie was just ready to ingest them...


The plane ride was good considering I flew with all three kids S-O-L-O.
I ain't skeered.
oh, and it was a direct flight.
That really helps!
So the kids and I flew up on a Monday night.  The airline lost Ga's carseat and we were at the airport til 11 pm filling out "paperwork".
They gave us a loaner...which, just so you know, I prayed the entire car ride to the hotel that we would not have a wreck.
Poor Ga was sitting straight up facing backwards and leaning forwards...it's hard to explain.
but we made it all in one piece and her seat arrived at the hotel the next morning.
James and Lana flew up Wednesday morning and Beau and his girlfriend, Ryan drove over Wednesday afternoon. 
 We all stayed until Sunday.

My Aunt Mary and her kids, Annie, Paul and Molly all drove over from Indiana on Tuesday afternoon and we got to hang out.
We went to dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion.
It was tres yum.
We had quite a fun time :)
I love getting to see my cousins....it doesn't happen enough.

Wednesday morning we got up and battled wind and rain to go sightseeing.
We opted for the Children's Museum first.
This was at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.
Such a cool city!

Some random blue Christmas tree that they boys insisted I take their pictures in front of :)

We made it to the Children's Museum and the boys had a blast.
Jackson was sitting in a lifesized footprint of a dinosaur.

Next he got to lay on a bed of nails.
Really! Real Nails!

After wandering through the Children's Museum for a few hours and catching BEAVERS! in the Imax theatre, we took a water taxi across the Harbour to meet up with James, Lana and my mom for some lunch.

Charlie enjoying his ride across town.

Mom, Mary, Molly, Annie, Me and Lana
all beautiful ladies :)

My cousin, Annie, Aunt Mary and cousin Molly
We had a fun day.
Lunch then straight to the best gelato shop then some shopping....

Yes, we drug these goobers with us.
They know they had fun!

Me, Mom and Lana

After we had had our fill of wandering the streets we called the shuttle and it took us back to the hotel.

The boys LOVED the notion of not having to be in a carseat.
We had to pin them in the corners though cause they thought it was funny to stand up and when the driver braked, go flying forwards...heh heh yeah real good parenting 

After dinner in the hotel restaurant, we got cozy in our jammies and relaxed.

...with a glass of wine

Gilmores!

On Thanksgiving Day we took the shuttle to the hospital and visited Steve for the morning.
Mom brought him down in his wheelchair and we got to hang out with him in the lobby.
We did some interesting people watching.
Beau confiscated a rubber glove from who knows where and showed Jackson how to get in trouble with it...
that's what uncles are for, right?

Ryan and me  :)

Nonna and Ga
she sure does love her Nonna!

Uncle Beau and Charlie

blurry pic of milky face!

a picture of us as a family.
We love Papa and it was great to all be together.

So I was being optimistic one day and thought I could possibly get ONE photo of our family.
We were in the lobby at the hotel.
Georgia obviously didn't want to be in the pic.
Jackson is making a goofy face.
Charlie is uninterested....
it's really too much to ask, apparently.

After we left the hospital, we went to Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant in the Intercontinental Hotel.
I was once again thinking I could get a photo of my kids.
This is the best I could do.....
such a great pic of the back of my daughter's head!

Me, Beau, Ryan and Lana

Jackson and his Aunt Lana

The hotel had some beautiful displays in their lobby of white pumpkins and flower arrangements.

While we were in Baltimore, Ga turned 4 months!
Such a big girl!

Friday we did some more sightseeing!
We walked around and found this huge Coast Guard ship.

The boys sitting on a huge propeller. or is it rudder?
propeller is airplane?
rudder is ship?
help.

the boys got to go aboard the ship.
They were so excited!

We walked to the Baltimore Aquarium next.
It was one of the best aquariums I've ever been to.
We caught the dolphin show.
Ga was in a daze.
She loved the dolphins flying through the air.

It was a very impressive show!
See that dolphin flying through the air up there?

Jackson was bummed because we had to stand in the aisle because we go to the show late...oh well.

Better photo of flying dolphins.

We took advantage of the rainforest and had a great photo op!
This is actually a good photo for once!

When we left the doors of the Aquarium, the boys spotted this submarine in the water.
You can take a tour of the submarine but I would rather eat dirt.
Toooo claustrophobic for this gal!
We'll just take a pic and act like we toured it boys!


It was a busy week.
It was great to spend time with my mom and to see Steve.
We are still praying for his recovery and that they'll get to leave Baltimore very soon!