A Football Fan

Yesterday I took Quinn to her first college football game - and I'm proud to say it WASN'T her first tailgate! We had a great mother-daughter day together. I think I had just as much fun watching her watch the game as she did taking in live football for the first time!

I'm not ashamed to say that I totally threw caution to the wind and my mothering skills out the window, letting Quinn eat any-and-everything she wanted yesterday. Her dinner consisted of a few juice boxes, one chicken nugget, a football-shaped doughnut, some chips and chili cheese dip, a hot pretzel and some french fries. This all spread out over a 5 hour period!

She was a great tailgater, too. She had Eric Scheleur to play with all day, and she kept herself very entertained digging in the dirt and playing with a tennis ball!

I'm digging this tailgating thing! Go Terps!

Nothing like a football-shaped doughnut to keep my energy up!

Quinn kept asking when we were going to see the football player (sooo cute), and when we got into the stadium, she did a good job of paying attention to the game. She kept asking where the ball was and when the flag girls were going to run around the field again. She made it through the halftime show and almost all of the 3rd quarter before we packed it up and headed home. She learned a cheer and now runs around the house saying "Defense, Defense, Number 1!"

Me and my buddies Donnie and Eric!

Mom, I'm sure having a good time!

So now she has attended a hockey game and a football game - our little cheerleader is being sports educated!!

Petting Testudo!

A Baltimore "Stay"cation

Since we have taken so many trips back to Michigan this summer, we decided to do a little mini-vacation to Baltimore for some quality family time. It was a wonderful way to show Quinn some of the close-to-home attractions with a far-away feel by staying in a hotel for a couple of nights. I'd say the trip was a smashing success.

But I must digress a bit. We actually started the weekend off by heading up to Dad & Dorothy's in Pennsylvania for some quality pool time (oh yeah, and time with Grandpa and Dorothy!). We had fair weather for the weekend, allowing us time to splash around in the pool, and watching Quinn's courage grow enough to jump off the diving board. The girl is a fish and she's not afraid of much when it comes to the water!

Sunday afternoon we left PA for Baltimore and after checking into our hotel, we walked a block up to Pratt Street Alehouse for a yummy dinner on the patio. It was nice to be so close to home, but to still have the feel of being in a new place to explore. After dinner, we took a walk up to the Harbor to get some ice cream and check out the sights. We headed back to the hotel to rest up for Monday's adventures - and by rest up I mean wait until 11:30pm when we could finally get Quinn settled down to go to sleep!

Monday morning after breakfast we took Quinn to the Baltimore Aquarium, where we spent 3 1/2 hours checking out the fish, frogs, birds, sting rays, sharks, and all other aquatic creatures. We tried the 4-D theater and failed miserably. Quinn was NOT a fan of how the special glasses made everything come to life, and on top of that, it was an interactive theater --- that meant that when a fish would come on screen and splash in the water, we'd get sprayed. There were little gusts of wind and sprays and Quinn lasted about 2 minutes (I kid you not) before bursting into tears and begging us to get out of there! After calming her down and checking out the sharks, we headed to the dolphin show, which was much more up her alley. We watched 4 dolphins wave, swim and jump around for about a half hour before we finally headed to the jellyfish exhibit, which was very cool.

After we got out of the aquarium, we jumped onto the water taxi and went to the Rusty Scupper for lunch. We jumped back onto the water taxi and headed to Fells Point (the oldest burrow in Baltimore, by the way, circa 1792-I think) to chase pigeons and eat snow cones. And chasing pigeons was by far the more exciting of the two!!!

We went back over to the Harbor and walked around for a little while longer until about 5:30pm, when Kirch and I had finally run out of steam. Quinn was already asleep in the stroller! Kirch and I enjoyed a drink in the hotel bar and watched some US Open tennis while Quinn caught some ZZZ's and finally I brought her upstairs to crash out on the bed. She woke up about 8pm and we all stayed up until 11pm again, playing Candy Land and watching more tennis.

This morning we took Quinn to Port Discovery Children's Museum, which was a HUGE hit! It had this 4-level monster jungle gym, which we could all play in! We also played in a water room, did puzzles, did pretend grocery shopping, played on a mini soccer field, went through this crazy Alice-in-Wonderland type house where all of the room proportions were off... It was really great. If you have kids and are looking for something fun to do with them, I highly recommend it. But only on a weekday - I can't imagine how crazy it would've been on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon!

After Port Discovery, we had a nice outside lunch at Luckie's and finally called it a day. It was a fantastic long weekend and we look forward to showing Quinn other things around the area as she grows up!