Month: September 2009

Sooo…I’m just practicing using Nick’s camera. I’m not the greatest at it, but here are a few from my “diaper shoot” with Jonah. Just wanted to show off his cute rolls!

Saturday was national “Museum Day”. Participating museums offered free entrance across the nation. We decided to check out the Ladew Topiary Gardens. When we first moved here, a woman I worked with in Baltimore told me that I needed to put it on my list of must-sees. Normally it costs $13 per person. So free was a good price!

The garden was beautiful. Not quite what I was imagining, but beautiful nonetheless. There was a rose garden, a berry garden (for the birds), a white garden, a yellow garden, a pink garden, a topiary garden and lot’s of others I can’t think of. Basically some guy named Ladew inherited a lot of money from his parents’ leather business and so he moved to Maryland where he could enjoy his favorite sport, fox hunting. He bought this farm from a family that had been farming it for 200 years and he decided it would be fun to turn the whole thing into a European style garden. He was never married or had any kids so when he died he donated the whole thing as a museum. It makes me wonder what I would do if I had a lot of money and never had to work. I think I would travel a lot…Nick says he would buy a boat and a lake house and spend all his time writing.

I am learning how to use Nick’s camera, so all the pictures you see in this post were taken by me using the Nikon. The picture below is my favorite one that I took at the gardens.

So Jen, Jonah and I went to the Ladew Topiary Gardens on Saturday. Jen will blog all about the experience but I wanted to show a couple of my photos from the day. The first one is Jen in the gardens, and the other two are Jonah looking funny in the car.

Jonah is getting close to 5 months old now and it’s starting to show. He is ALMOST sitting up…by almost I mean that if we sit him up he can balance for a few seconds before slowing tipping over. He is also doing very well with tummy time and has a new found interest in food. He sees us eating and he wants some!

Jonah has something he would like to say….

Also, be sure to look further down the page cuz I added some stuff in between that I had been procrastinating on. (Philadelphia and Labor Day)

Nick and I decided to go check out a protest in DC that my Mom and my Aunt Amy were thinking about coming to (but didn’t). It was a pretty big protest, they called it the 912 project. It was hard to tell what they were really protesting…mostly they were all conservatives and don’t like what Obama is up to. Nick put together a sweet little documentary on the protest using the new CANON (gasp!) that his company now has. He is pretty excited about this Canon because it takes full 1080p video but it looks like a photo camera…which means it’s much easier to schlep than a regular video camera!
We took the metro into DC to avoid all the crazy parking…it was Jonah’s first time on the metro!

A good husband will carry your purse when your arm gets too tired…no matter how silly he looks. Although in his new jacket he looks like a model…even though he can’t lift his arms. Love you hubster!

Jonah had his four month check up and shots on Tuesday. He weighed in at 16 lb 6 oz and 26.5 inches tall! He jumped from the 50th percentile for height to the 90th! That’s one big growth spurt!

Our labor day adventures included…Jonah’s first hike! In the Patapsco State Park…who knew you could feel like you were in the woods right outside of Baltimore?!

We also spent a day in Gettysburg (inspired by my sister!)


Nick always impresses me with his knowledge of history! Between him and the CD car tour I was able to better understand the battle of Gettysburg.

For some reason people like to rub Col. O’Rourke’s nose for luck…luck of the Irish I suppose.

Gettysburg is supposedly the most haunted place in the nation because of how many people died there…so we had to take a ghost tour!

As the Hunters made their way to New York to see Dustin’s brother Charlie, they stopped in Philadelphia. I’ve never been there so I decided to tag along. The first hour in the city we spent attempting to park and getting honked at A LOT…the streets are very narrow and the drivers are insane! So that was an adventure all by itself.

Once we had finally parked, our next goal was to find a good place to get a cheese steak. It was about 4pm. After filling our tummies with the local favorite, we decided to go see some historic stuff…but then we realized it was 4:45 and…

So we rushed to the Liberty Bell and were the last ones to be allowed in. Here I am in the last picture to be taken that day (thank you Nicole!) as the park rangers yelled at us to clear out.

Then we went for a stroll…we saw the outside of the Betsy Ross house.

Ben Franklin’s grave (a VERY accomplished man…there was a sign that said everything he did and I was impressed!) I couldn’t figure out why people would toss pennies on his grave when he is on the $100…but I looked it up and I guess it’s because the phrase “a penny saved is a penny earned” is attributed to him. But in the same article they had a funny new quote…”a penny tossed is a penny lost!”

We also strolled down “Elfreth’s Alley”…the nation’s oldest continuously occupied street.(Since 1702!) It was very cute.

Overall I like Philly…Nick and I will have to go back sometime!(Sometime from 10-5!)

Day 5 Nicole, Dustin and Mersadie headed for Gettysburg while Carson, Jonah and I stayed home and watched movies (due to the cold we’ve all been sharing…isn’t sharing nice?!)