Funny Stories from Maryland

Of course AFTER we ordered from this restaurant:

 

we realized that it was a cash-only place.  And we certainly didn’t have enough cash!  Sadly this is not the only time this has happened to us.  I guess this is what we get for supporting local businesses instead of the ever-prevalent Subway across the street.  Oy.

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One day my little family decided to head down to Frederick and we had to take my sister’s car.  That’s a stick.  I don’t drive stick.  Not because I won’t but because I CAN’T.  As in I don’t know how.  So we were joking that we had to get back early in case my husband started getting drowsy at the wheel.  (It happens)

Well, we are backing out of their driveway and my husband realizes that he doesn’t know how to put this specific car in reverse.  Luckily their driveway slopes down so it wasn’t an issue.  I wanted to run inside and ask my sister how to shift into reverse but Stephen didn’t want to waste the time.  So instead we both agree to not get into a position where he would have to shift into reverse.  Do you sense a problem yet?

There we are, driving away into unknown territory when it is realized that we missed a street.  Instead of waiting to turn at the light he decides to turn around.  Unfortunately it was only a two-lane road.  Problem!  We couldn’t reverse to make a three-point turn and were stuck! We were blocking traffic with no idea how to reverse!  HAHAHA.    I even tried looking through the glove compartment for the owner’s manual to figure out what to do.  In retrospect it’s hilarious.  At the time?  Not so much. 

(He did figure it out…in case you were wondering)

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My husband has to drive most places we go because otherwise he gets car sick.  So he ended up driving us home from the airport the first day we got there with my sister sitting shot-gun telling him how to get to her house. 

Her directions were PHENOMENAL.  Not being from Maryland her tips were spot on.  If you’ve never driven anywhere before.  Which we have. 

   

“Now you have to watch out, because you won’t be able to see the other cars coming until you reach the top of the hill.”   Surprising, huh?

“Now this is tricky because there’s a road coming up and you’ll have to look both ways to see if any cars are coming.”  Shocking.

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This is my nephew Happy (my sister’s blog name for him).  He is pure trouble and very DANGEROUS.  And such a cutie patootie.

Happy-ism:

He had a friend over playing on their new swingset.  The little boy had to go to the bathroom inside and unfortunately somehow got his pants wet.  He was SUPER embarrassed but luckily his mom was there to take him home. 

As they are trying to discreetly walk away, Happy from on top of the swingset yells, “Did you PEE your pants?”

Niiice. 

……..

This is Happy’s older brother SuperBoy.

I was trying to help him with his math homework and he was having trouble remembering 8x8.  So I let him in on my little math trick that has saved me in this situation;

“8 and 8 walked into the store to buy themselves a nintendo 64”

“What’s a nintendo 64?”

Even my math tricks are aged.  Ugh.

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My husband left 10 days before IV and I did, and I was the lucky one to take him down to the Baltimore airport.  It was quite far away and I'm sure the family was nervous with me driving back up alone...but I made it!  After I dropped my husband off I struggled to get back onto the right freeway...going the right direction!  Finally once I was headed on the right path I got a call from Stephen telling me that I still had his debit card.  I drove back to the airport only to realize it was at Anjeanette's house!  Argh!  Again, funny in retrospect...not so funny in the moment.

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One of the days we were all there we headed on over to the Antietam battlefield.  The road leading up to it has one of those "Adopt-A-Highway" signs and no joke, it's taken care of by the local paranormal activity society.  I just thought that was so perfect!

SuperBoy and Happy were quite disappointed when we got there that there wasn't an actual battle going on.  Where are all the men and cannons?  We explained that it happened a long time ago and SuperBoy commented that if you dug right where he was standing you would probably find a dead solider.  haha.  Again we explained they were all buried in the cemetery.  They definitely helped keep things light.

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I was home alone one day with IV and a repair guy came over to fix the new desk.  IV was chatting away incoherently with me and I would respond with "Oh yeah" or "That's right"  or something similar and the repair guy asked me how I knew what the little guy was saying.  Ummm, I don't I was just responding.  Then he asked how much fun I was having babysitting my nephew.  Nope, this one is mine.  The final kicker was when I said I was from Phoenix and was grateful for the cooler weather in Maryland and he looked at me like I was crazy and said "Is it really warmer in Phoenix?"  Yep, pretty much.  

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We really enjoyed our trip and can't wait to go back!

Trip to Maryland: Part 6…Houses in Middletown and The End

Middletown is larger but still near Keedysville and Boonsboro.  I LOVE Middletown.  It’s where I would want to live.  If ever I had a spare million or so.  Seriously I don’t even want to know how expensive these houses are. Middletown might just be my favorite.  Oh, except for that town we visited on the last day, the one college town in West Virginia.  That was cool but I didn't take any pictures.

 These are right on Main Street in Middletown.  We couldn’t really stop to take pictures and so these were taken from the car as we were driving. 

I LOVE the patriotic swags going on here.  My dream house has these as well.

Some are incredibly ornate.  This one even had decorated roof tiles, I think they are flowers.

I love the well-manicured gardens.

And the wrap-around porches!

 

And yes, that is my son’s head in the bottom corner.

Gosh, maybe one day when we’re rich and famous we’ll live nearby! 

Because my husband had left already, IV and I got to make the flight back by ourselves.  I very much dislike Baltimore airport because it was not very family friendly.  In Phoenix you get a shorter security line which really makes a difference.  We ended up singing ABC's about five times, lost his shoe twice and then still had two tantrums all while waiting in line.  Yuck!  

The flight itself was ok.  I knew that Stephen would need to sleep but he had such a hard time going down.  He was kicking and flailing and just couldn't get comfortable.  Poor guy!  Luckily there were other kids on the flight who were crying the whole time and so no one was upset or rude with us.  The lady sitting next to me was so wonderful!  I am grateful to all those on the flight who helped us out with putting up our luggage, getting it down, trying to help with IV and just being understanding!  

Getting off the flight was rather difficult as I had about a million miles to walk holding IV and pulling all our luggage.  We were both sooo glad to see Stephen!  IV instantly went to him and was giggling! He was so upset when I had to take him back to change his diaper!  Haha.   It was a great trip and I am sooo glad that we were able to go! 

Trip to Maryland: Part 5…Exploring with Anj in the Country

My sister will tell you she lives out in the country, in the sticks.  Don’t believe a word she says.  There are still tons of people around and it felt like every 10 minutes or so you would run into another small town.  It is too cute!

This is the adventure to get to and from Happy’s Preschool.

This is on Main Street Keedysville.  So many of the houses will have a lit candle in EVERY window at night.  I’m sure they are now battery-operated, but it is soo cool.  I just wonder where the tradition started from.  Anyone know?

Next up is one of the many farms you pass by.

I LOVE how old some of these homes are… 1803!

And here is the Rockland.

Another house, this one does have candles in every window too.

Maryland-style log cabin.  U-G-L-Y…you ain’t got no alibi….you ugly…yeah,yeah…you ugly.   Yuck. 

The house my sister wants us to buy.  It’s gorgeous and comes with tons of farmland.

And the reason we won’t be buying it.

I will NOT live that close to a main free-way.  It was so surprising to see homes literally butted-up against the road.  No thank you.

But it sure is cute!  I love the matching swing on the porch.

Haha.  There’s a good story to this one.

Doesn’t look like much does it?  It’s this little western-style town that we have not much more information on it.  I was busy jumping out of the car and running to take pictures and Anj’s job was to drive as close as possible to the site.  On this occasion she barely pulled off the road.  I had to run the whole way up to this area and I was so scared I would get in trouble!  Literally RIGHT after I took this picture some men came into view and I ran as fast as I could back to the van.  Laughing the whole way of course.

Our favorite farm.

A wider angle of it.

There are these old one-lane bridges that you have to cross over.  Soo pretty.

This one was built in 1850 for just over 1 thousand dollars.

A mill that’s now used as a house.

Many of the old homes had signs like this.  Pretty much any building was used as a hospital.

The remnants of the working part of the mill.  So crazy that they put these stones in by hand.  I can’t imagine how much time and effort that would have taken.

Daffodils in bloom!  As an Arizona girl I have never understood bulb flowers, but to see them bloom in the midst of the dreary winter that never seemed to end was quite the sight.

And I love the stone wall behind the flowers.  These were all over and were again placed by hand without any mortar.  Soliders may have crossed over these during the Civil War.

Here’s the remnants of an old bridge.

See where it connects on the other side?

Yeah, clear up there.  This was a Civil War bridge and certainly would have been cool to see.  It spanned quite a distance and went extremely high up.

So many cute churches.  Each small town had several at least.

I love this stone-work!

Keedysville Main Street.  I love seeing the flag and the steeple of the church.

Cute houses.

I love the old red brick poking through.

Sometimes at the top of the brick fences would be these rocks poking straight up.  Ouch!

Just lounging.

These homes had the craziest switch-back driveways. 

It is soo rocky and hilly there.  Most of the farms raise animals instead of growing plants for sell.  At least most of what I saw.

Trip to Maryland: Part 4…D.C.

We trekked down to D.C. one Saturday to visit the Museum of Natural History.  I love that the Smithsonian's are all free!  How awesome!  I had been to D.C. years ago for Anjeanette’s wedding and we went through the Smithsonian Space and Aircraft Museum so this time I wanted to try something different. 

The boys had to walk on the fence.  There were gaps in it and the boys would jump over the gaps (with parental help)

Proof that we were actually inside the museum.  My sister couldn’t come and so her boys were taking pictures of EVERYTHING.  We joked that she would be able to tour the museum through the pictures.

And proof that I was there too.

We also saw the Washington Monument. 

 

We then had to take a driving tour of D.C. because it was too cold and the boys were done.  We were able to see the White House and Ford’s Theatre where Lincoln was shot.  Of course now directly across the street you can buy Lincoln Waffles.  I didn’t realize though that Ford’s Theatre was still in use.  We’ll have to go again and see a production there.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any of the war memorials or the Lincoln Memorial.  I had already seen them and remember vividly how touching they can be.  Most of them will have small flags and flowers that people have left there.  In fact one of my favorite paintings is of the Vietnam memorial. 

War Memorials always make me think of Memory Grove in Utah.  We have some family names recorded on the war memorial there and I am so grateful for what they have done.

Trip to Maryland: Part 3…Touring Boonsboro

My sister and her family live outside of Boonsboro.  Stephen and I were able to go exploring one day while IV slept at home.  We were so appreciative of my sister and her family for watching him so we could run off and explore together!

My sister gets a kick out of this restaurant and we knew we had to eat here. 

 

It was kind of like a general store and there were guns and ammo on the back wall.  The restaurant also had an old-fashioned soda fountain and you could order a chocolate soda.  The owner’s granddaughter, who was about 8, was there sitting at the counter and when she heard another family order a chocolate soda she knew she needed one too.  Her face lit up and she thought it was the coolest thing ever! 

The cutest inn off of main street.

Just a shot of main street.

   

I could only imagine how old this building was.  The textures coming through were so pretty!

Coming from Arizona it is crazy to see how old and historic everything is here.