Baltimore!

Ry and I took a fun trip for the long Martin Luther King weekend: We flew to Baltimore to visit one of my best friends from college, Lindsey, and her husband, Joe.

We have recently discovered the joys of Southwest Airlines and are convinced that we will never fly another airline again. (Our horrendous experiences with United should be the subject of their own blog entry...but all I am going to say is NEVER AGAIN!) Anyway, Southwest had a special deal a few months ago--all flights in or out of Buffalo were 50% off. What a steal!! We booked our flights to Baltimore right away.

My favorite part of the trip was just chatting with Lindsey. We hadn't seen in each other in several years, and it was so fun to catch up and talk about life, marriage, memories from the dorms (Oh my!), engagement stories (Linds was particularly amused by an embarassing tale about a "Cowboy Jig"), and other varied topics. Monday, we slept in, made homemade bread, ate all the homemade bread, and talked the entire day. It was perfect!

In the midst of all this talking, we did make a trip to Washington D.C. on Saturday. It was perfect timing; we were there just as the Obama hype was beginning--so we got a fun taste of the patriotic spirit--but we just missed the intense overload of the Obama mayhem--so we escaped the crowds and craziness.

The weather was freezing, so we did a lot of sightseeing from the car. We also spent several hours at the Holocaust Museum, which was sobering and thought-provoking. I hope we make it back to D.C. before we leave Buffalo because there is so much more to see!

It was crazy to watch CNN today and see the streets and monuments swarmed with people...we were there just three days ago!!

Although we didn't see Obama on Saturday, we did see the 7,000 Port-o-Potties they brought in for the big event. We thought they really added to our lovely photo of the United States capital:

Another highlight of the trip was seeing one of my favorite teachers from high school who now lives in Baltimore with her family. She has a four year old son who, of course, immediately took to Ryan. Within two minutes of our arrival, little Will was climbing onto Ryan's lap. His mom said, "Will, what are you doing? Don't be impolite to our guests." He responded, "But I just want to sit on Wyan's wap..." Pretty dang cute, if you ask me. Ryan is dying for one of these little chubsters of his own. He and Will also put on a pretty fun puppet show.

All in all, it was a great trip!!