Thanksgiving!!

Home sweet home! We are back from our one week trip from Maryland. We made good time there and good time back. We made a record number of stops...actually 'stop', since for the first time in our drive to MD, we only stopped once during our ten hour trip.

The week flew by quick, but at the same time it feels likes it was DAYS ago that we arrived at Grandipop and Grandimary's. This was the first time for me to be in Maryland for as long as a week. And because we hardly get to 'see' Maryland/DC we squeezed in as much as we can.

Monday: We went to the National Mall.
Behind us is the Capital.
We went to the National Museum of American History, National Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Arts with Grandipop and Grandimary. Note to self: when you go with Grandipop pack snacks. We toured from 10 to 4 with no breaks.

On Tuesday Grandipop showed us around the Smith Center.
Grandipop started the Smith Center, an Outdoor Ed program for all of Montgomery County's Public School.

The plack reads:
"Joseph T. Howard
Whit Oak Hall
Dedicated to Joseph T. Howard
First Supervisor of Outdoor Education
19968-1988
His vision provides opportunity for all Montogomery County Public School Students to experience, appreciate and share the wonders of nature."


This is Grandimary's tree for being the most consecutive volunteer for a 'clean - up day'. They have a special name for that day, but I forget what it is.
On the way home from the Smith Center, Grandipop showed us this crazy, amazing tree! It was a cool way to end our trip to the Center. I had been wanting to go for awhile because I've heard so much about it. I was impressed and am really proud of Grandipop for starting this project. I'm so glad I got to go.

Wednesday, we were down at the shore (a two hour drive away from the grandparents) visiting the rest of the family and picking up Vincent's dad. Sadly, I can't locate the pictures of me beating Ben and Vincent in Scrabble or of the huge mound of shrimp that 'dad' bought us for dinner. Talking of Scrabble - we played with Grandimary (who is the skills of no other) till 1am in the morning on Monday and Thursday!!! One of my highlights!
And offcourse, Thursday. Turkey day.

Friday: The last day in MD.


That morning, we drove back across the bay (two hours) to join Aunt Kate's side of the family for their Thanksgiving gathering! I got to meet Aunt Kate's sweet mother and sisters (and offcourse the whole other 50 family members.) I had my doubts in crashing another family's Thanksgiving, but I'm glad to have been there. It's always so fun to see Aunt Kate.

From there we went to partake in our Christmas Gift form the Grandiparents: Peter Pan (the musical). There we got to see Emily (my sister-in-law) and Uncle Micheal's crew. We pretty much took up the whole balcony. I enjoyed it thorougly.

So, you think that's the end of our trip? No. Afterwards, grandipop and grandimary decided to grocery shop for us. (The already filled our trunk with Trader Joes by this point.) This sounds very small compared to everything else we had done up to this point...but the thing is, it was the bestest Christmas gift ever! We didn't really have to grocery shop for almost a month! I know, it's not that exciting, but I thought I'll mention it becuase it meant so much.

Ok. so there it is. Our trip to MD. Saturday we drove home. Sunday we crashed. Monday, it was back to work. Like I said, the week flew by.