Elijah's big adventure

Elijah's big adventure actually started the night we got home from the Annapolis Haunted Pub Crawl. Since the tour went late and Annapolis isn't next door to us we didn't get home until about 1am (maybe 1:30...can't remember). Anyways we went inside, Kris fed the cats and we went to bed. The next day was a super lazy Sunday for us and it was finally about 2 or so in the afternoon before I realized we hadn't seen Elijah at all that day. We searched the apartment before we determined he must have gotton out. We started out by talking to the neighbors and two of them had actually seen him. He was sitting in the stairwell whining at 3am when they got home. They knocked on our door but Kris and I were apparently sound asleep. They also tried to let Elijah stay with them but he was freaked out by their cat and ran away from them at that point. After talking to them we started mass producing lost pet signs and posting them everywhere. I also went and talked to all the residents in the buildings around ours to let them know the situation. Kris was amazing and handled both the situation and me perfectly. A few hours and approximately 100 posters later Kris was coming back to reload his poster supply when Elijah walked out the front door of our apartment building and laid down. He quickly scooped him up and brought him home!!! We were sooo excited. The best we can figure he was hiding under the stairwell the whole time. He was super dirty and definitely shaken but other than that he was okay. It is funny now because he still tries to run out of the apt but as soon as Kris or I go to close the door he comes running back inside as fast as he can. Needless to say now all our of cats either are wearing collars or are microchipped. On the plus side we met tons of our neighbors most of whom were very concerned and sweet. To this day I still have people coming up to ask me about Elijah. Here are some pictures of Elijah and his siblings.

This was one of the pictures we used on the "lost" posters

His very concerned sister....okay not really, none of them seemed upset when he was gone

The funny part of this picture is that we only had the suitcase open on the bed for 10 seconds before they both jumped in

Brooke at the BSO

In the Spring Brooke and I took a trip down to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore to hear the BSO perform a kids concert. We went to one in the fall and she *loved* it. The tickets are highly affordable ($6/per person) and in the fall the orchestra performed selections from Prokofiev's Cinderella while an oversized Cinderella puppet show was being performed and a narrator read the story. It was so cool and engaging not only for Brooke (she adored the puppets) but also for me since the orchestra was playing "real" music. This spring they did a Babar concert with music by Poulenc. As the story goes apparently Poulenc was sitting at the piano while his niece was reading the story of Babar. She set the book up on the piano and told her Uncle "play this!" So he composed a score to go along with the story. This is what the Orchestra was playing while an artist was complete sketches of the Babar story in time with the music. The artist was incredibly talented and they had a narrator reading the story along with the performance.

We aren't sure whether to be worried or not but at the end when I asked Brooke her favorite part of the story she said "When the big elephant ate the poisoned mushroom and died!"

Brooke's required picture of her feet

Annapolis Haunted Pub Crawl

At the end of April Kris and I spent a night in Annapolis. First we went to Ruth Chris (Thanks Tracy and Craig!) and had the most amazing dinner. Personally I thought my filet was the best I had ever had. After dinner we took a haunted pub crawl around Annapolis (Thanks Living Social!) Our guide was awesome and the whole concept was really cool. We visited  5 places in about 3 hours. If you wanted there was ample time to get a drink at each place, although I think Kris and I only ended drinking at every other/every third place. Annapolis has such a rich history that some of the ghost stories were incredible. Our guide has been around the Annapolis area for a long time and had actually worked in a lot of the bars when she was younger so she was able to tell us first hand accounts of some of her experiences. While we didn't personally experience anything we had an awesome night.

Where we started at....

Our first bar

No good ghost tour is complete with a visit to a cemetery

 Afterwards she told us some stories about this one local house that is apparently incredibly haunted. It has a "sister" house right around the corner.

This is the happy sister house

I wish I could say we caught an orb but it's a reflection from a car's headlights on the street behind us

If you glance at this picture it looks like we caught an apparition however upon closer review you can just see it's a shadow cast by the way the house is designed behind that window.

Spring Break with Jake and Brooke

This year Jake actually had off about 10 days for spring break (try to understand this schedule he was off Tuesday, had school Wednesday, then off Thursday, Friday and then the whole next week....) so we got to fill our schedule with tons of fun stuff. I feel like I'm missing a ton of pictures because we were out and about doing stuff almost every day so maybe one day if I find the missing pictures we'll go backwards (not uncommon for this blog).  One of the highlights was his first visit to the "Indoor Playground". It's actually this company called Play 'N Learn and they have a location very close to where Jake and Brooke live. On Thursdays they have open play where you can go and play on all their playground equipment and best of all it's inside a huge warehouse! They have every climbing apparatus imaginable plus trampolines, basketball nets, and air hockey.

The look of intense concentration just cracks me up!

Brooke also got a hold of my camera and again managed to take some interesting shots

That week we also got a chance to attend a children's theater production of Little Red Riding Hood. While the acting left something to be desired the kids thought it was amazing and were totally enthralled. Afterwards we got to meet the cast, get their autographs and steal a quick picture.

Jake also got to go to a lego building event at the library, see Miss Julie at storytime, and eat his favorite lunch at Pizza Hut!!! It was such a nice break from school and it made me *really* excited for summer when Jake would be with us all the time :)

Easter at the Library with Brooke

*going back a few days*
The Wednesday before Easter the library held it's annual Easter Egg Hunt! Every year they put together an impressive time for the kids complete with the egg hunt, tons of games and prizes plus free cupcakes and pretzels (Auntie Anne pretzels...yummy!!!). Brooke had fun although she was having a tired day so we didn't stick around long enough to get her face painted. Some bigger kids did find a "special" egg and generously gave it to Brooke so she was able to get a special prize, a blue stuffed bunny. She was sooo excited.

Easter weekend 2012

As always we headed to Pittsburgh for Easter. This year Meg actually met Kris and I out at the barn on Saturday and she had fun taking tons of pictures of Rocket while I was riding. The weather was absolutely beautiful and that was the first time I had been able to jump in the outdoor arena in probably at least a year!!!

Yep...once again overjumped it by a good 18 inches

After that I decided to push it and raise one of the jumps to approx. 3 ft, maybe 3'3". The first two times over were less than smooth but he eventually got the hang of it.

Looks okay there....

?!?! (big part of that is my fault because my riding muscles are highly out of shape!)

LOL...nothing else to say

Much better by the 3rd time

After I finished riding I got changed and we did a photoshoot with Kris, Meg, Rocket and I.

Rocket being his usual self

What is that face Rocket??

God forbid I try to interrupt snack time

Overall it was a very successful day at the barn. That night we dyed easter eggs. This year we had some glitter kits and paint kits. Some of the kits worked better than others although the dysfunctional kits provided us with some good laughs (there will probably be pictures at a later date). This year my Mother also made a cool centerpiece for the dining room table with a distinct Peter Rabbit theme.

The bunny as always managed to come up with some creative games for the bunny games. Meg and Greg came down and joined us as usual. Besides all the traditional ones (including the new tradition of Egg Bocce) we also played a jenga-type bunny tower game and a very difficult Easter Jeopardy. The bunny didn't realize how hard the Jeopardy questions were until the teams ended up $-5000...opps! Next year the goal is to somehow do a Wheel of Fortune Easter game but we will see...