A few Memorial Day photos

It was a long road trip to Baltimore. Yes, I'm grateful for the minivan and the newly-repaired DVD player (which we hardly used, actually). But I was less grateful for the pouring rain we experienced along almost the entire drive, turning our trip into a grueling 14.5 hours - we arrived at about 5 am, and the last three hours were by far the hardest.

It's great to be here with Uncle David, Aunt Gina, and cousin Isaac, though. Miles and Eleanor took to baby Isaac (aka "MY cousin" as per Eleanor) right away.



Charlie the cat took a little longer to warm up, and Elmer the mostly-labrador is still the terror of Nora's young life, causing shrieks of panic whenever he enters the room. Seriously, I don't remember ever being scared of dogs; how did fear develop?

Uncle David made Miles' day by finding him a helicopter to visit, at the Fort Mead museum.



We also climbed around on the tanks...





---until we noticed this sign. Oops!



Yesterday morning we went strawberry picking. The kids helped mostly by eating, but the adults managed to collect enough for a strawberry custard, strawberry pie, strawberry syrup, and who knows what else.






We also splashed around in David's tiny backyard pool. Here's my photogenic husband with the dripping kids:



David also took some family photos, which were unusual in that I looked pretty decent (as if I have a chin) in most of them, while the kids were both grouchy and glaring in most.