Our first visitor

As soon as we found out we were moving to Baltimore, my brother Jeff bought a ticket for the week he had off in July. I was so excited to know that we would at least see some family shortly after we moved. 

 

The National Aquarium in Baltimore is one of the main places to see here. And it's not just a small aquarium where you see a few fish, it takes about 3 hours to see dolphin shows, the jelly fish exhibit, the amazing shark tank, a 300-pound turtle in the black tip reef tank, spitting fish in the Australia exhibit,  plus all the cool fish (we even saw and octopus moving around one time). Barrett and I went before he started school and immediately bought a year pass because we knew we would want to go anytime we had visitors. So of course we took Jeff :). 

He was here for the 4th of July so he joined in our activities. We went to our ward breakfast in the morning.

Then we headed to Washington, D.C. to show Jeff around. We try to switch up what we see each time, so this time we went to the National Air and Space Museum.

 Lily's 4th of July outfit. It shows of her chub thighs, ha ha. I was really wishing I could wear her outfit that day because it was SO hot and humid walking around D.C.

We came back home for fireworks since we knew traffic would be crazy. And since we live on the 16th floor of a high-rise, we decided to just watch the fireworks around the city from the roof. We invited some friends over, put the kids to bed, and ate food while we watched. 

 Fireworks from the rooftop wasn't nearly as exciting as we thought it would be. They were far away and fireworks really just aren't the same without the big booms. So here are the pictures I attempted to get while kind of watching them. See those little lights way off in the distance? Yeah, that's them.

Jeff went golfing (in the rain) and we saw a few more places around our area before he went home. It was so fun to have him here for a few days!

A few adventures from the beginning of life in Baltimore

 A trip to the Baltimore zoo. When we first moved in a ward member was kind enough to take us to the zoo for free with her pass. Lily was still too young to really care about the animals, but she did well in the stroller and it was great to get out in the sun.

We found the most amazing place with gelati's (Italian ice layered with frozen custard) at a place called Rita's. We thought it was a one-of-a-kind place at Inner Harbor, only to find out they are scattered all over and one even opened up in Sandy, ha ha. But it is still the best summer treat out there. It really is like "ordering happiness".

Although I dread grocery shopping and finding a spot to park on the street, there are a few perks about living in the city. One is that there are always events close by, many close enough to walk to. This picture was from an annual craft/concert day we found.

We found a "flying bike" at an art festival downtown. I had to try it out.

After church one day we decided to check out a beautiful neighborhood across the street from our building. At the end of the neighborhood we found Loch Raven Reservoir. It is gorgeous. They close the road on Saturdays and Sundays so people can walk/bike/run without worrying about cars. So we went back on another weekend to walk around.

We went on our first trip to Washington D.C. before Barrett started classes. Washington, D.C. wasn't on the top of my list of places to visit in my life, so I was surprised by how much I liked it. The main monuments and buildings you always see pictures of, really are amazing to see in person. And with each subsequent visit I am more amazed at how interesting the museums are. Here are the sights we saw.

 We started off at the Capitol. It is huge. Well, all the buildings are huge, but this really is as big as you think it should be.

The Washington Monument.
The last time we went the scaffolding was only at the bottom, but for the first few times it was always covered like in this picture.

If you're walking to all the sites, there really is only time to fully look at one museum. We chose to go to the Holocaust Museum. You can't take pictures in the museum, although it is a must see. Lily fell asleep while we were there so I took this cute picture walking to the next floor.

The Lincoln Memorial. 

I think this was/is my favorite site. Since Lily was in a stroller we had to take the elevator up so I didn't get to gradually come up to the statue of Abraham Lincoln. When I came out of the elevator I was floored at how big it is.

 Plus, the view looking across the National Mall is beautiful. The view of the Potomac on the backside is gorgeous too.

The path walking from the World War II monument to Lincoln Memorial.

Vietnam Memorial. 

This is another one of those sites you see a lot of pictures of so it was fun to see it in person.

The White House

Compared to all the all other buildings we saw all day, the White House seemed small in comparison.  It was very neat to see in person. Now that we have been several times, I am lucky that the first time I saw it was rather peaceful. There is an area with lots of trees and benches facing this side and we sat for awhile taking it all in. Every time we've gone since there have been noisy protestors and it takes away from the beauty.

I was exhausted by the time we got back to our car, and am exhausted each time we go; but it is worth it so others can see our nation's capital. It sounds cheesy, but I really do feel blessed to live in America and going to Washington, D.C. frequently has increased my pride in our country.

Last, but not least, our first trip to the Washington, D.C. temple.
Barrett has a friend from his ward growing up that is in medical school in Pennsylvania. When his mom went to visit them in July she offered to watch the children while we went to a session. It was so nice not to have to find a babysitter, and to enjoy time with friends from back home.

With our friends Mark, Jenna, and Lucas.

Moving to Baltimore

I was nervous to fly with Lily, but luckily Barrett's mom flew with me. It wasn't a bad experience, but not perfect. I had to change Lily's outfit in the bathroom due to a blowout before we left, I forgot wipes, our seat got moved, and we didn't have seats next to Shannon. But luckily someone offered to trade seats with Shannon so we were able to sit next each other. Lily nursed well, slept twice and was happy playing when she was awake so it ended up being a great flight. It's hard to believe she's about to go on her 6th flight soon! Barrett and his dad drove 32 hours across the country with our car. They arrived a couple days before us and moved all of our stuff up when it got here. Here are a few pictures from the flight.

We were excited to be with Barrett again.

We were also so grateful that Barrett's parents were able to come out with us and then stay for a few days to help us get settled.

A couple pictures from our apartment. We chose it for the beautiful view, but there were quite a few downsides to the apartment (I will explain in the future) and we have since moved to a lower floor. But while we were there we saw beautiful sunsets and all the storms roll through.

Yes there is a pool here. And yes that's a building you're looking down on in the background because the pool is on the roof. Kind of silly, but it is pretty up there.

 

The first thing you notice moving to Maryland when you have lived in Utah your whole life is how many trees there are. So many trees. It's beautiful. This path is just across the street from our apartment. I feel like I'm up in the canyon because of all the trees and the stream that runs next to it. Lily and frequently walked there when it was warm.

A post about Barrett

I'm getting closer to catching the blog up. This is the last post I wanted to do before moving on to our life in Baltimore: Barrett's 26th birthday and graduation.

 As I was uploading this picture I realized it has almost been a year since his birthday! Wow! Barrett's birthday always falls on finals week, but luckily this year it was on a Friday so we got to celebrate on his actual birthday. It was also his last semester as an undergrad so we went out to dinner with family and had them over for cake afterwards to celebrate both big events. This is only picture we got of that celebration, ha ha!

Barrett told me he wasn't going to walk, which is why we celebrated his graduation when it actually happened; but a couple days before the ceremony in May he decided he did want to walk, which I was happy about! I was happy we got pictures with him in a cap and gown.

 If you look carefully you can see him smiling on the bottom row, kind of left-center.

 I thought this was funny... and so Barrett.

 It ended up being a pretty crazy day because it was my last day of work and we had a going away party planned for that night. Which we were late to because there were too many engineers graduating.

A few words (maybe not so few) on the big decision...
Barrett immediately moved into applying for graduate school right after he graduated in December. He narrowed down the options and decided on 5 schools to apply to: University of Utah, Northwestern University (Near Chicago), Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh), University of Colorado, and  The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (yes it does start with "the" and yes there is an 's' after "John"). Many of the options seemed ambitious, since they are top universities for Bioengineering/Product Design, but I am so proud of Barrett for even applying to these schools. I think we both went through the nerves of "Is he even going to get accepted to any of the schools?" and then to the other extreme of "he has a lot of experience so his chances are great." He had a video interview with Johns Hopkins soon after and then was invited to visit the campus to continue the interview process. Johns Hopkins wasn't his top choice for several reasons, but when he came back from visiting he was very excited about what the program had to offer and the amazing opportunities of a university who has plenty of funding and so many connections. While we waited for their decision, one by one he got accepted to all the other schools without even having to interview! Each acceptance was a new shock and suddenly made the decision that much harder. He had another trip to visit Pittsburgh and Chicago; and to be honest, we both fell in love with the idea of living in Pittsburgh. Especially when Barrett got the email that he did not get accepted to Johns Hopkins. He was more disappointed than both of us thought he would be, because he had made it down to a small number of many, many applicants who applied. I was not so secretly happy, ha ha. Johns Hopkins was the only program that started in May rather than September and since it was only a year program we knew it would be a very intense year with Barrett being gone constantly. Plus he would have an extended trip out of the country, which although an amazing experience, would be hard. They said he would be placed on a waiting list, but we both moved on and didn't think much more about it. This is when we started the Pro/Con list on our wall of absolutely everything we could think of that would affect our decision. We researched as much as we could. Then one Friday while we were packing for a work retreat I had, Barrett got an email that said he got accepted to The Johns Hopkins University. And... we had to let them know the decision in 1 week! Wait, what? No way! You're joking right? That was not even one of the options we had been spending all this time thinking about! It was completely shocking! And very exciting! But then we felt like we were back at square one. So we added a paper to our Pro/Con wall.

We were stuck between Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins. It really came down to whether Barrett wanted to pursue product design or biomedical design. I still favored Pittsburgh (for the reasons listed above), but knew it would be incredibly hard to pass up the opportunity of going to a high caliber school like Johns Hopkins. We added to our lists, prayed hard, and then my parents stayed with Lily while we attended the temple, planning to stay until we had made a decision. Ultimately it was Barrett's decision and I would go wherever he chose. He decided on Johns Hopkins, which made me nervous. But as we started making plans we felt peace and fully moved forward with our decision. We had 5 weeks to prepare to move across the country! 5 weeks! It was crazy! Friday, May 3, was my last day of work, Barrett's graduation ceremony, and our going away party with family and friends. 2 weeks later we were living in our high-rise apartment on the 16th floor, perfecting the art of parallel parking. And here is where our new life began.

 
We've already been here almost four months and feel adjusted to life in Baltimore. The post has lasted long enough, so I will leave our adventures in Baltimore to future posts.