pinky tea

Saturday was a blustery, but beautiful fall day.  The plan was to go pick a pumpkin at the local farm, but Emma vetoed the idea a few minutes before arrival.  Not knowing what else to do, we drove through horse country for a while and ended up in Sykesville.  Not big, but a charming little street of antique shops and tea houses.

We stopped for our first ever Victorian tea party.  Complete with ladies in hats, mismatched floral china, vintage wedding dresses hanging on the wall, and a collection of Victorian memorabilia.  The shop owner thought Emma needed to have her very own photo shoot. 

This is Roger's nervous smile.  He's not entirely sure he belongs here :)

 One lump or two?

 Her first cup of REAL tea!

 I had the pumpkin tea - not bad!

 Pinky's up!

 So cute.

walking through town...

graciously allowing me to work on my posing arsenal.  this one was their idea!  :)

Howard County Fair

I have so much to catch up on, but first, a little bit about our trip to the Howard County Fair on Monday.

It was hot. I had Emma and her cousins for the day, so we took a vote and decided to go to the fair. We had to wait a little while until the rides opened, but I'm glad we did. Lots of fans inside the animal barns. :)

First, we visited the animals. So many to see, and we could get up really close. There were brand new baby bunnies, and the cutest little piglets I've ever seen. Look at those tails!!


The fairgrounds are actually open all year long, as many of the 4H kids come here to work. The kids got to relive their beach days, by burying each other in corn kernels. Such a brilliant idea! SO much less messy (?) than sand!


Not the best pictures below, but a funny story. Emma found a baby goat inside the show animal barn. This little guy was making the most noise in the entire barn. But he was so cute and friendly, and she just sat and talked to him for ever. Finally, she told me that she was going to name him. It was loud in the barn from the animals and all the fans, so this is kind of how the conversation went:

Emma: "I'm going to name him Parker!"
Me: "Aw, Parker? Like our dog?"
Emma: "No! Barker!"
Me: "Barker? Because he makes so much noise?"
Emma: "No! Hooker!"
Me: "Hooker??! Hooker??!" (getting terrified)
Emma: "NO! Mom! You're not listening! Honker!"
Me: "Ohhhhhh! Honker! Yes, that's the perfect name!"

Sheesh. I need to get my hearing checked. :)

Finally, the rides opened, and it was time to get our wristbands! There were lots of rides, but some of them had restrictions for height. Wouldn't you know it, she was one inch too short for the "big" kid rides that she wanted to go on with Morgan & Tommy. Probably just as well. This one's quite the daredevil.

Did I mention it was hot?


Hilarious. Pig races. We missed the duck races by 30 minutes.


Morgan & Tommy were a dream, and we spent FIVE hours together and everyone got a long great! They got to go on a few rides by themselves, and Emma was devastated. Luckily, she'll be tall enough next year!

Our last ride of the day - the Tilt A Whirl!

You can't forget the fair food!


It was a long, hot day, but everyone got along great. M & T were so helpful. This was the last picture of the day. Yeah, Emma is DONE.


Happy Thursday!

maryland zoo at baltimore

Emma's had the good luck to compare zoos in three different states. Yesterday, we went on a class field trip to the Maryland Zoo at Baltimore. After the San Diego zoo, I have to be honest, I didn't have super high expectations. In reality, I was very pleasantly surprised. The zoo is easy to get to, easy to park, easy to navigate, and was not crowded in the least. It had all the 'classic' animals, and for the 2-5 age group, the size is just perfect. You can see the whole zoo in a few hours, and get a decent workout in if you bring a stroller. Since Emma had been fighting a fever, I told her that we wouldn't pass on the scheduled-months-ago-class-field trip, but that she should conserve her energy as much as possible by riding in the stroller. She happily obliged and we both had a great time.

The class met up at the entrance, and we met again for lunch, but in between we were able to wander around on our own. We spent a lot more time there than I had planned, because we were just enjoying it so much. The fresh air, the cool breeze, the exercise and the warm sunshine. I think we've been so desperate for great days like this!

I will spare you the graphic details (some people even took pictures!) but let's just say that spring love was in the air. Almost all the animals were out, and spring has definitely brought out the love hormones. A loooooot of the animals were in heat. I'll spare you a bad joke about the size of a giraffe's neck, but it was quite comical. :)

We had fun on the train ride, the awesome giant tree-trunk slide, feeding the giraffe's, an ice cream sandwich and the carousel. We saw lions, penguins, elephants, chimps, polar bears, snakes, vultures, the Baltimore Raven, gazelles, warthogs, ostriches, zebras, rhinoceroses, cheetahs, and our favorite of the day, the Snowy Owl. Only the camels seemed to be on vacation. It was so great, that I think we'll definitely be back. Our next stop: the National Zoo. Can you believe she's never been?!?!









And here's the African elephant munching on some out of bounds snacks :)

blast off

FINALLY getting out to do things. We are enjoying the good weather and our proximity to the wonderful slew of museums in D.C. Gigi and I took Emma on her very first Metro ride. Hard to believe it took so long to get her on the subway, I practically lived on the Metro growing up. I think at her age though, she'll actually remember it. The hard part is doing it in a stroller. I thought about just walking it, but it's a lot of walking, so I knew she'd get tired. Plus, I get really nervous around those platforms! There must have been 458 elevators for us to take in order to get to the right platforms. Small, stinky elevators. And each of those elevator rides add an additonal 2-3 minutes to your trek. She expressed her own wariness: when I told Emma that we would be going underground into a tunnel, her response getting onto the first elevator was, "I don't know about this". I swear she's 3 going on 30.

The Air and Space museum was our choice for the day. It wasn't a long visit, since the ride to get there was effort enough and we were tired upon arrival. She loved the astronaut 'costumes' and asked to see a real alien. She got to fly a plane and look through a telescope at the moon. We stayed about an hour, and celebrated afterwards with an ice cream (if you can even call it that!) Gotta love those bright colored snack vans perched directly outside the museum doors. Brilliant child advertising. :)

I love my Gigi!
The picture below is Emma and I on an infrared/night vision camera. That's her little head in the middle! :)

No idea what Powerpuff Girls are, but this is the one she wanted. Isn't it freaky looking? She enjoyed the musuem, but couldn't wait to get her hands on this!

And yay for tulip magnolias! Spring is here!

a two-fer!

Two blog posts in one day!! I think I'm finally back on the wagon. The snow is melting, the sun is finally coming out, spring is around the corner and just this week, completed project #5 out of the 18,274 we have set out to accomplish. We have new lighting on the main floor now, and every little bit of change inspires me.

I hadn't picked up my camera in a verrrrry long time before this week. A couple snaps here and there, but my November 2009 folder is completely empty of family pictures. So sad. I was taking so many client pictures, that I got burnt out. December has a few, but not my usual plethora. January and February are sporadic. A couple here and there, but they didn't feel exciting to me, so I just kept putting off any real blogging. Throw in a heck of a lot of snow, the stomach bug, more house projects and the daily grind that saps your energy, and the last thing I want to do at 8pm is use my brain.

Well I think I've found my mojo again. :) And just in time! I'm trying out some new editing styles, and using more storyboards that seem to be trendy in photography these days.

On Tuesday, we went to the library (at emma's request) and were there right when it opened. We found a few books to read, had a snack and found out that Dr. Seuss story time was about to start. The older, grumpy librarian looked over her glasses at Emma and informed me that this particular class was for 3 years and up and I just said thank you and we grabbed our ticket. She had no idea! Emma loved it, and sat through the class, participating in every activity.