Baltimore

Wow it has been a year since my last post!  A lot has happened and William has grown soo much!!  I wanted to post some pictures from our AWESOME trip to Baltimore.  We had such a wonderful time and I loved a little bonding time with our little dude when Sean was in lecture.

After a slight delay on the beltway... we arrived!!!  We met our good friend Robin Dyer at a local restaurant.  Unfortunately we had such a great time catching up that we didn't take a picture :(  Luckily she is coming back to visit soon.

Sean, being the foodie that he is, made reservations at The Capital Grill.  It was a delightful dining experience (that's saying a lot when you have a 2.5 yr with you).  The food and service were exquisite.  Below is my crab stuffed lobster... delicious!

Afterwards we went exploring and found Pierce's Park.  William played there for hours.  It had this cool tube that he would run up and slide down. On the other side of the park there were xylophones.  We met several other kids there and had a blast.

The next morning, after our big meal at The Capital Grill, William and I took a run along the Harbor.  We discovered the Children's Museum on our way back to the hotel.  He loved the dinnosaurs.

 We had lots of rain, William wore his rain boots rain or shine.  He loved carrying the umbrella, as mom and dad got wet :)

We also had the opportunity to visit the Baltimore aquarium, which is beautiful.  William was a bit overwhelmed, but he loved the dolphins and these tubes (no there are no sea creatures in the tubes).  

After our delightful dinner, we revisted The Capital Grill for desert another night.  William throughly enjoyed his berries and cream.

This Rippley's Believe It or Not ball of granite floating on water was a favorite.  We went up to examine it everytime we walked by it.  It had many interesting facts about Baltimore and plenty of water to splash around too.

Our last night we saw this amazing magician street preformer.  He was funny and skilled.  He may have also been a little crazy considering the tricks he did.  In this picture he is standing on a cylinder with a skateboard, 4 plastic cups, and another skateboard and is juggling a fire baton, a bowling ball and a knife!

On our last day William and I went for another run around the Harbor and explored a little.  We found this cute little farmer's market.  We bought some tea and colored, and fed the ducks :)

Finally we headed back to our room to pack up.  One of William's favorite "toys" was the phone in the room.  After disconnecting it he made many phone calls.  One time picked up the phone and said "This is Dr. Collins" in his sweet little voice.  It melted my heart, then I thought, opps, I guess I have been on call too much lately.

After a relaxing trip we were happy to head home and see our pups.  And sleep in our own beds.  We will definitely be making more trips to Baltimore.

The Beach

We went to Hilton Head at the end of May for a pediatric conference.  The conference was excellent! I got to catch up with great friends and we enjoyed the sun ;)  William took a little while to warm up to the ocean, but once he did he LOVED it!  We will definitely be planning another trip next year.  

Sofia Hardee, DO, Breann Bailey, MD and Me :)  Great company, great conference, great vacay!!! 

New Orleans

Every year we go to JazzFest in New Orleans.  Last year we stayed home with our sweet baby boy.  This was our first time away from him.  He spent the week with Grandma Pat and Miss Christina, I don't think he missed us a bit.

Here are some of the high lights of our trip :)

Our first night, we (Steve, Jasmine, Sean and I) dined at "Fish", delicious food!

The next day we headed to Jazz Fest, of course....  We were greated by the traditional dancers

"Okay, but first Crawfish..." this was Jasmine's motto all weekend :)

Don't forget to suck the heads, it's the best part!!

We even fit in a little great music :)

After a day enjoying music we headed downtown... first stop Pat O'Briens

The cousins, Tom Leonard, Steve Burrington and me of course...

Sean wandered down the alley to capture this awesome sight, and discovered a bar that served bacon with your drink from 11-12!!!!  He was one happy guy!

 My drink wasn't bad either, she made us drinks with Tequila XO, Rum Chata and cool brew (coffee), absolutely delicious!!  May have been the best drink I have ever had (with the exception of straight tequila of course)

Then we had Saturday brunch at my very favorite stop, Commanders Palace.  The food was exceptional and the company (Sean, Ann, Steve Burrington, Tom & Sommer Leonard, Jasmine Burrington) wonderful!  Can't wait to go back next year!

Sunday at Jazz Fest we picked up where we left off... Sean met an old friend/athlete, Andrew Miller who now plays for the New Orleans Saints.  My favorite quote of the day was "that guy's big he should play football".  hehe

We enjoyed great artists, like Keith Urban, Hoiser, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett and to my surprise Pittbull (I loved Pittbull!)

Then there were the street preformers :)  They were the greatest!!

There were even artist, I was impressed with this one, a marionette was doing the painting!

At the end of the day we gave our chairs to a local, she was so excited she even did a dance for us.

Then it was time to go home... We had a wonderful time with family and exploring one of our favorite cities.  We will definitely be going back.  There was a little glitch in our travel plans, a severe storm hit the New Orleans airport.  Two tornados touched ground, all flights were diverted.  The airport lost power, then the generator died.  We finally gave in and rented a car.  We had a wonderful peaceful drive home.

The only disappointment was that we didn't make it home to tuck our little guy in... however, I Grandma Collins and Miss Christina kept him quite busy...

Easter

Happy Easter.....

William was not very enthusiatic about our first "photo session" as you can see....

But he perked up a little to hunt eggs

We practiced egg hunting in the back yard.  To prepare for the "big egg hunt"

Easter morning William opened his first Easter basket, it had all kinds of goodies, but the only thing he was interested in was the chocolate (of course)

We finally made it to the "big egg hunt".  Daddy practiced his BBQ skills to prepare for this seasons competitions.  William had his own little egg hunt, as he was not quite fast enough to keep up with the other kiddos

Our family picture... you gotta love the hair.....

Practicing walking with the best nanny in the world, Miss Christina

Then to top off a wonderful weekend, we had Amber, Jasper, Jett and Auntie Liz visit.  William loved him some time with Ber.  We can't wait from them to come back!!