Road trip to Balty and the National Aquarium

In late June, the Studers took a road trip (woohoo, toddler and baby road trip!) to Baltimore to visit some of our favorite friends Allison & Matt.  It has been on our list to visit the National aquarium and Al&Matt are moving even farther south this summer - so we knew we wanted to get down to visit before they left.  

I started the road trip in the backseat to keep screaming and whining at a minimum.  We started out fairly happy (maybe Gemmi most happy of all? HAH), partially due to the grande iced drinks from Starbucks (us) and partially due to my obnoxious enthusiastic renditions of 5 little monkeys (kids).  

The kids fell asleep after about 40 minutes, so B and I got some quiet grown up time (and I got to move back into the front seat, yippee!) for the rest of the trip.  Friday night was pretty low key as Matt was just coming home from traveling for work and our family generally goes to bed before 10p every night.  Chatting, catching up, and noming on blueberry muffins that Al made just because they are Grey's favorite (she's seriously the best) was just what we needed after our road trip. 

On Saturday, we took our crew took a stroll through inner harbor over to the National aquarium.  

note:  this picture was taken before entering the aquarium - strollers are not allowed, be forewarned

The aquarium was awesome and laid out in a really easy way to meander through the different exhibits without everyone getting bunched up in one place.  There was information and pictures everywhere you looked.  Grey was old enough now to be able to see all of the different creatures, so it was fun watching his little brain growing.  Gemmi slept for a good part of the first couple exhibits, but then was up and wiggling around anytime she saw something move in the tanks.  

We each had our favorites.  Dadda liked the sloth in the rainforest exhibit.  Mumma liked taking self-portraits in inappropriate places (like in people's way, oops!), Greyson liked the stingrays ("ray rays"), and Gemmi liked the anemones. 

After spending the day learning and being amazed, we got some grub at Bubba Gump's Shrimp and headed back to the house for naps.  Besides a late night facetime with Kate and two visits to Federal Hill park- we spent the rest of the weekend lounging and laughing over good drinks and comfort food, which happens to be just the kind of visiting we love best.

When Grey was a tiny baby, we said his first crush was Karp because of the way he stared at her.  Pretty sure she still holds that title after our mini-vacation.

...but that's okay because I'm pretty sure 'Mac' is Grey's new favorite friend.  

Thank you Hubbards for the awesome visit and mini-vacation.  With all the busy summer stuff and work stuff we've had going on, we really needed this family time. 

Thank you guys for giving us such a fun and relaxing weekend - We love you!