S O O N  T O  B E  H O M E 

This past weekend Jeff and I flew up to Baltimore to go apartment/house hunting. 

It was...interesting. 

Luckily we have some friends that live there who have been super helpful.

I laughed when I saw this map, but sadly, it's pretty accurate. 

We started our day by driving to Johns Hopkins hospital 

to see how bad Jeff's commute would be in the morning.

We've heard to avoid living in the neighborhoods around the hospital. 

The hospital itself is very nice and safe, but surrounding area is not. 

The area is pretty rundown, but didn't look as ghetto as I thought it would be. 

I imagined seeing knife fights in alleys and people wearing kevlar everywhere, 

but there wasn't any of that...at least not during the day time : )

We then headed up toward Owings Mills, a place that is about 20 minutes outside of the city and is close to the metro. As we were driving I was just looking around a little disappointed, because I had 

imagined things a little differently in my mind.

It didn't help that everything looked like death, 

nothing is blooming yet, the trees are bare and the grass is brown.

I wish I could give a better description of Baltimore.

 It's kind of weird. There's not a dividing line between the good and the bad,

 the bad is scattered among the good. 

One block there are these awesome old brick row homes and buildings with tons of character and then two blocks down and you're in an area with abandoned buildings and pot hole streets.

Jeff noticed that I was a little down and said, "Are you depressed?"

I laughed and told him I was a little, but then we started cracking jokes and laughing about how moving from a lake house was going to be disappointing no matter where we went. 

For those that live in Utah, Owings Mills is equivalent to Midvale or Murray. 

We liked that it was close to the metro, affordable and had parks and grass for Garrett. 

We rode the metro into the city and it wasn't too bad.

 It stops in some sketchy places, but as long as you don't get off it seems like it would be ok. 

The Metro stops right by the children's museum and the aquarium downtown which would be great for Garrett and me, and it takes Jeff right under the hospital. 

We drove around to many more places, some were good and some we just got a bad vibe.

We looked at some row homes and some apartments. 

Downtown is made up mainly of row homes with street parking. 

You're lucky if you get a place that has a parking pad in the back and garages are rare.

We haven't made any decisions yet, but it was good to go and get a better idea of where we want to live.

I would love to live downtown in Canton, Fells Point or Brewers Hill, aka the bros area on the map above. 

The only problem is that they are VERY expensive,

but we have found some decent places in other parts of the city. 

We're only living there for four years, if I hate it, I can handle the four years. 

I don't think I'll hate it though. 

I think we'll have fun and enjoy our time there. 

M A R C H

G has been eating lots of pb & j's 

We've been making fires and roasting hot dogs and s'mores 

We've also been enjoying the blossoms on all the trees. 

They are EVERYWHERE and I love it! I love this time of the year. 

I learned that Garrett is now tall enough to grab things from places 

he wasn't able to reach not too long ago. 

One day Garrett was roaming around the house.

I could hear him making his little noises and then all of a sudden it was very quiet...too quiet. 

I looked out into the hallway and there Garrett was...with my nikon camera. 

I quickly ran over, examined the camera and realized my lens was broken. 

It was only the stock lens, but my heart sunk. It was the only lens I had that wasn't a telephoto. 

Lesson learned. The hard way. 

But a month later and I got a new lens, which I love....and am taking better care of.

Because of the fixed focal length I have to get closer to Garrett, which, of course, he notices 

the camera and rushes over to sit in my lap to look at the pictures on the screen (I should have never shown him that the camera does that), so most pictures are now going to be mainly of his head. 

Garrett is now very into stacking his blocks. 

He also likes to play with dad's tools

while dad changes the oil. 

T H E  L A U N D R Y  B A S K E T  A D V E N T U R E 

F L O R I D A

Last week Jeff was able to take some time off and we went to visit our friends down in Gainesville, where our friend Rob is doing his anesthesia residency. We met the Stokers Jeff's first year of medical school at a picnic and instantly became best of friends. We've shared some great memories and it was so nice to be able to spend some time with them since we haven't seen them in 6 months. 

The weather wasn't awesome our first day in Florida, but it did make the lines shorter.

 Our first ride was it's a small world. Garrett was in awe looking at all the little dancing figures.

 He also loved this play area. He tried to push that kid aside to get in the car, but the kid elbowed him, haha.

 He doesn't look like he's enjoying the dumbo ride, but he screamed every time we took him off. And that's our friend Rob in the background, not some random creeper.

He also loved the tea cups, we rode it three times. 

 One minute he's awake, and the next he was out. He had gone 11 straight hours without sleep. Poor kid just didn't want to miss anything. We were pleasantly surprised how much he actually enjoyed Disney.

 The next day the Stokers took us to see some gators. 

It was pretty cool. They were so close to us, we could have touched them!

The next day we drove to the gulf and hung out on the beach for a little bit.

 Our last day we went to Universal and it was awesome. 

Harry Potter world was all that I imagined. 

If you ever go, be sure to try some butterbeer! 

Thanks for watching Garrett for us Kate!