Into the Woods in Maryland

Here we are! Where is that, you ask? Why, we're in Maryland! Well, how did we get here? (Long way from home, I know.) It all started with Danny getting a summer internship at a law firm in Calvert County, Maryland. Then lots of online rental hunting, and finally finding this place: a beach cabin on the Chesapeake Bay. We needed something furnished since it was a temporary move, and this also was right near the beach and had activities for the kids and a pool. Then after a crazy month of trying to get ready to leave and a very long two-day drive through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana (where a GPS detour sent us through the middle of the traffic jam for the Indianapolis 500, even though there was an hour wait it was kind of cool to see the speedway,) Ohio, a little West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and finally into Maryland. We pulled in Sunday morning at 4:00 am, and went to bed before unloading. Whew! We are trying to get all settled in. This is the front of the cabin with lots of flowers up to the porch.

And there is a nice wrap around deck where we can grill and eat outside and listen to the tons of birds around here. It looks and sounds like you're in the rain forest! The trees are so tall and everything is so green and scenic.We even had a welcoming committee. Sunday evening our friends Nona and Ryan held a barbeque to welcome us to Maryland. They have a great park for their neighborhood right on the Patuxent River.

Their daughter Jade and Lexie were good friends last year in Omaha, so they have had a happy reunion! It is really great to have friends here to show us around and hang out with.

Nona's dad is awesome. He did all the cooking for our group with authentic Armenian wood fire-grilled kebabs. Yummy!

The kids loved running around in the forest and field, on the playground, and on the dock. Really, could you ask for more things to do as a kid? And we were officially introduced to tick precautions and poison ivy, which Gavin ran through. There are actually quite a few things we need to look out for here in the woods. (I am a bit freaked out yet about keeping my kids safe from all these dangers, ticks have always freaked me out anyway.)

Gavin has a magnet in him that draws him to the water. He just kept going back to the dock to look at the boats on the river and the water. It was gorgeous. So far everything here is incredibly scenic, it's all just spread out a bit. It takes us a 15 minute drive from our cabin to get to the nearest town.

The next day was Memorial Day, and of course we had to explore our new digs. In the morning we met members of our new ward at a breakfast at the Church and then went down to a neat place called Solomon's Island where the Patuxent River runs into the Chesapeake Bay. We walked on the boardwalk, went to the playground, and had a smoothie. After a necessary nap (I think I got about 20 total hours of sleep in the 5 days before that,) we went down to the beach. My kids love the children's song "Down by the Bay," and we decided that is our summer theme song since we live down by the bay. Look how cool it is on our walk down through the forest to get to the beach. We are right on the cliffs, so you go through dense foliage and ta-da! There's the beach.

Lexie and Gavin love to run up and down the beach. There are tons of shells, and even shark's teeth I am told. I want to find one of those before we leave! There are jellyfish in the bay, so we have to watch out for those. But we only wade out a bit anyway.

Here is the little runaway beach ball. Yes, it's a sad story. I blew up the ball and tossed it to Gavin, who didn't quite reach it. Lexie didn't grab it, and it was suddenly moving out, out, out into the middle of the bay, far away. The ledge drops off suddenly in the water, so neither Danny nor I would swim for it in our clothes. And the ball was gone...

... and this little boy was unbelievably sad. He kept pacing and pleading with us to swim out and get it, but it had gone so far so fast, there was nothing we could do. I promised to get him a new beach ball, and we did. (But he won't take it to the beach because he's afraid it will get in the water and never come back.) My bad.

It suddenly poured on us at the beach, so we headed home. Here is Nicholas doing what he like to: crawl around and explore the house. He also like to play on the rug in the living room. I think we are all working on getting adjusted here, hopefully Nicholas will sleep better soon. So hello from the beach to you!