Our Trip to Baltimore

When my son brought home the permission slip for a class trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, we decided to make a weekend trip out of it.  Even though we've been to the aquarium numerous times, it's still a neat place to visit.  

We followed the buses and met up with our "assigned" children for the day.  We were responsible for two of my son's classmates.  One was a such a delightful young man and the other, well, let's say he had issues.  Both children seemed to enjoy themselves even though one more than the other.  It seemed to me that neither of these boys went on trips very often.  My kids have been all over the place.  We are hardly ever home.  It was nice to share the experience with these children who I think are less fortunate.  They were well behaved and polite even though the one with issues complained the entire time.  I tuned him out like I do my own kids when they whine.  I've become quite skilled at tuning them out!

Here are some pictures of the exhibits.  One of my favorite exhibits is the Rain Forest.  It was so hot in there though!  The parrots fly around, the turtles soak up the warmth on logs and tarantulas are to be found somewhere in there but we never saw them.    The little boy with issues did NOT want to see the tarantulas so I'm really glad we didn't see any because who knows what would have happened.  We even saw the monkeys which I haven't seen them there before.  It was difficult to get a good picture of the monkeys because they were so far up in the tree.  

After leaving our "assigned" children with the teacher, we took an elevator ride to the top floor of the Trade Center and what a fabulous view of Baltimore from up there.  We learned about the landmarks in the city and a little history.  

The rest of the evening was spent eating and shopping followed by a dip in the pool at the hotel.  On the way home the next day, we found one of the best restaurants we've been to in a long time - Maggiano's Little Italy.  We found the place by the GPS but the place looked expensive so we almost didn't go in.  We thought how fancy can it be if it's at a mall.  We opened the door and there were white table cloths.  That's usually a pretty good indication of fanciness and we weren't dressed properly for white table cloths.  The pleasant hostess told us to come on in.  We were seated and noticed that the prices were affordable to us. The meal was so good that my husband said to our waitress that this was the best steak he has ever had and that he could just kiss the chef.  She tells him that she will bring the chef out so he can thank him.  Chef Miguel came out and was so tickled that my husband liked the steak so much.  He even took pictures of our empty plates.  It was so delightful to see a place where the employees took so much pride in what they do.  I highly recommend this restaurant if you are in the Annapolis area or look on their website to find a location near you.  Excellent food and service at the Annapolis location and it makes me wonder if there are other locations are just as good.