Spring break - last day

After visiting fort mchenry and reading the book about it, we found out that the flag house where Mary pickersgill had sewn most of the infamous flag was just a few blocks from our hotel. So on Monday as we walked to the children's museum, we stopped by the flag house. Of course they are closed on Mondays, but we still got some pics and got to read the signs. 

Addie had me print out these pictures to take to school on Tuesday. Sweet girl. (:

Actual size of the flag. And three goofy girls with their dad. 

Hey, hey! Another historical marker!

We got to the port discovery children's museum around 10. This was after we'd enjoyed a complimentary marriott breakfast (thank you for honoring our military service!), checked out of our hotel room, driven to the museum, realized we'd have to pay for parking there, while we still had parking left at the Marriott, driven back to our original parking garage, and walked back to the museum. Phew. 

We played on their three story jungle gym for a few minutes until we saw this cute little gas station. 

She does say she's 16 years old half the time, so it's fitting that she'd be driving. 

Next to the gas station was a little grocery store that was so fun!

My girls could have played here all day!

They had all actual sized food and detergents, etc. 

Then they each took turns checking each other out. 

Then the parents would gather up all the groceries and put everything back. I restocked a lot of shelves!

After shopping we played a little soccer. It's poor quality, but this is an awesome picture. Frankie is mid kick, and delaney the goalie is about to get pelted by the ball, with a big old smile on her face! Hahahaha! (It was a super soft ball, fyi)

Addie did not want to play and she wanted to make sure no one mistakenly thought she did.

We can't resist 'em. 

Every.time. 

Frankie is generally a pretty good sport, and I've noticed had gotten stuck with the lame props all trip long. Sweet girl. 

We did some lego art. 

She was slowly coming out of the soccer pout. 

Frankie drew glasses on hers, love the little creativity.

The only one who would pose for me. I didn't realize it then, but hello weekend mvp! Another great benefit of blogging, a different form of retrospection. 

After the art, (we also made glow in the dark lego heads) we played with some live animals. 

Chicks, man!

Frankie pet the snake!

Laney, not so much. (:

Then I volunteered Matt to hold the snake. He's such a good sport. 

Laney was all over the hedgehog! She went right over and was the first one to pet her. 

Then we checked out the construction area. 

Busy little worker bees. 

Workin' it!

We played on the climbey stuff some more. 

We explored fossils. 

And shopped at another fruit and vegetable stand. 

They had some amazing lego displays. 

Then we checked out the diner. We figured since we were in Baltimore, we might as well have some chicken and waffles. 

It was a cute little 50's diner complete with a rotary pay phone. My kids had no clue!

I had to explain to them that there was a time, in the not so distant past, that no one had cell phones and you couldn't just push buttons to make calls. 

Frankie giving addie her order. 

I had like, a 12 course meal. 

More playing on the jungle gym.

I love that she loves pictures!

They had a fun water area, complete with  crocs and raincoats. 

Huge whiteboard to make sentences on. 

Franks and I went cruising. And if you think a stationary car that kids climb in all day smells bad, you'd be right. 

They had a whole huge medieval lego area set up, so Matt and I went jousting.  

He thought I was joking, but just check out my stance. Dead.serious. 

#winning

Addie wanted a turn too. 

(:

The jousting gear was too heavy for some people. 

Good thing she got over that one quickly. 

While we jousted, some people ruled. 

And the rule even shared. 

They also had a weird little mystery solving area that we checked out, but not all the parts worked in, so it was a little frustrating. It scared Frankie, so she and Matt left, but addie wanted to solve all 4 mysteries. And then for the next few days Frankie talked all about the mysteries. She asked me to tell her the stories so many times that I finally deferred her to the only other person home with us during the day, delaney. And then they'd talk to each other about how Constance lost so much weight that she lived in the doll house and how cousin ivy turned invisible after using her pimple cream. Told you they were weird mysteries.

We played all day at the children's museum. When we had told the girls we were going there, addie said "boring." And then after we went she said "that wasn't a museum!" I had to explain to her that's the point of a children's museum, to explore and have fun. It was a good and long day. 

After, we walked around cute little Italy looking for a place to eat an early dinner. 

We found a place with a world renowned chef and pictures of celebrities all over the walls of their bar. All the tables had these cool plates on them. Very authentic. 

We were the only people in the joint. 

Laney was not happy about something. And when our server came she said "I am not happy." She's gotten so sassy!

Ps - world renowned chefs make for expensive restaurants, just fyi. :/

We had lots of traffic as we left the city, and also lots of tired girls. They slept almost the whole way home.

And then went almost right to bed. 

We had a great, great weekend! It was so fun to take a quick jaunt to such a cool city. And now we're only 2 birthday trips behind. (: