National Aquarium and Camden Yards

Ah HA!!  So begging DOES work!  Anybody who follows Lisa and I on facebook may have seen my desperate plea for donations late this evening.  Yeah I did it.  Lisa had mentioned she was sad that we hadn't received any donations today.  I couldn't let her be sad on her birthday!!!  So I made the plea and more than one came through for me.

Thank you Mom & Dad, Amy, and Shannon for your donations this evening!  It means a lot to me and I know that Lisa really appreciates the birthday donations too.  Thank you!

Back to the vacation.  So far we've explored Mount Vernon, the Mall, and Museum of Natural History.  This day we went to Baltimore for an epic day!  Our good friend Tom (who just happened to be visiting DC at the same time!) met us in the morning and we all drove up to Baltimore to visit the National Aquarium.  Also on the agenda that day was a walk a few blocks to Camden Yards to watch an Orioles game.  Quite the day, right?!

First, before we left, Mom had to take the girls for a drive in her car.

Then off to the Aquarium.  If I'm being honest, it was a little disappointing only because it was so crowded.  It made it very difficult for the girls to get close enough to see a lot of the displays.  They of course didn't complain....just an observation on my part.

 Katy reacting to the bubble tubes.  

 Despite the huge crowd, it really is an amazing aquarium!

 Love this picture of Alyssa

 Another shot from the escalator as we kept going higher and higher into the aquarium. 

 Shark enclosure....absolutely amazing!

 At the cafeteria, they had this amazing art display of jelly fish.

 I captured the girls holding hands for no good reason other than being sisters and loving each other.

 We managed to squeeze in a dolphin show too.  The girls ate it up!

For some reason, I didn't do a great job of using the camera that day.  At some point I just put it in the camera bag and stopped taking pictures (GASP!!).  So I had to look through Lisa's iphone and I found some good pictures worth sharing.  So the rest of these are Lisa's.

 This was a window outside of the dolphin center.  Probably not the best idea but it made for some great pictures!

 Time for the walk over to the ballpark.

 Girls were ready for their first baseball game!

 We got to the right field wall just as the game started so we watched the first inning from here.  The girls were AMAZED!!  The sound of the crowd...the sound of the bat connecting with a ball...how far the ball traveled!  They loved it all and I loved sharing one of my passions with them.  What a great experience!

 Some of you may have heard this story before but it's worth repeating.  I remember telling my mom that I don't expect the girls to last more than a few innings.  After a long day of walking around the aquarium, I didn't think they'd last more than an hour in those seats.  Boy was I wrong!!  The girls LOVED IT!!  They were keeping track of pitch counts, watching them run to first base, cheering, and clapping!  We stayed all nine innings!!  Maybe it was the steady stream of sugar in the form of coke, lemon chill, and ice cream.  Nah...I believe it was for the love of the game!!

 Proof Tom joined us to watch his team, the Royals, beat the O's that day. 

Even more amazing is I recall that the girls did NOT fall asleep on the drive back to Alexandria that night!  Lingering effects of the sugar??  Possibly.  Either way it was an amazing day in Baltimore with more exploring to come over the next few days.  Hopefully we'll have another donation soon so we can share those pictures.