Visit from Aaron

Lydia is off and moving. She is also quite determined to get her way. She doesn't let minor obstacles like household furniture get in the way of her reaching her goals.  In these pictures, I think she was after the red circle that had rolled underneath the table.  I guess the best route is the most direct one, even if you have to weave yourself through a chair to get there.

Silly girl.

Last weekend, we got to play host to my brother, Aaron, who was in West Virginia taking a two week class for his job. Unfortunately, Karina's cold that we mentioned last post had spread to the rest of the family, in varying degrees, so the timing of his visit wasn't the greatest. We did manage to feel well enough on Saturday to make a trip to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to wander around and tour some of the historic ships they have there.  We also got in touch with my cousin, Bryson, his wife Bethany, and their kids, Brynn, Abigail, and Gage.  They had moved out here to Maryland's Eastern Shore a year ago or so, and we hadn't gotten in touch with them.  With Aaron in town, we figured it was as good a time as any and were glad to have them over for lunch before we went to Baltimore to show them around as well.

Karina had some issues sharing her toys with the other kids, but she had a lot of fun getting Gage to chase her.  She loves playing "chase" with Lydia (basically, Tanja or I hold Lydia like she's walking and run around after Karina), but having Gage around, who was old enough to run on his own was even better.

Here are Aaron, Karina, and me in front of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Taney, a ship known as "the last survivor of Pearl Harbor" from the WWII attacks.  The ship saw other action during WWII and Vietnam.

Karina has two small submarine bath toys, so when she heard that she could go see a submarine, she was ecstatic.  The other kids were excited about the submarine as well, so we made sure to go there first.  Here is Karina inside of the USS Torsk, a WWII-era submarine.

Tanja and Lydia had fun playing with all the wheels and levers in one of the control rooms.

Karina, Abigail, Gage, Tanja, and Lydia peeking through one of the submarine's doors.  It was very tight quarters in there, I think I would have become claustrophobic if I were a submariner.

See what I mean about tight quarters?  Sleeping three high in bunks that you barely fit in probably does not make for a good night's rest.  Bryson got the top bunk because he could climb up there, though he had less room width-wise than Aaron or I did.

Finally, we got topside and could breathe the fresh air again!

Here's a group shot of everyone on the deck of the Chesapeake Lightship (a ship that functions as a light house).

We enjoyed playing tourist a little bit, and look forward to seeing more sights when it warms up a little more.  We're glad we got to catch up with Aaron and that Bryson and Bethany could come up with their family to spend some time with us too.