We heart Baltimore.

Ben had Friday off (have I mentioned that I LOVE his every-other-Friday-off schedule?) so we decided to spend the day in Baltimore. We love Baltimore. And it takes less than an hour to get there, assuming no traffic. Although somehow we always end up there when it's cold. We still have so much exploring to do there, but on Friday we hit some new areas of town. We passed so many interesting neighborhoods with so much character and fantastic architecture...I wanted to explore more and take pictures with the Diana, but we'll save that for a warmer day.

Our first stop was the Baltimore Museum of Art. It's FREE! And we were the only people there. Along with lots of museum security that kept a close eye on us. On Elsa. The girls actually enjoyed the museum and Amelia was really intrigued by the art. They had a good collection there. Elsa had to be restrained in the stroller or held to prevent the loss of important artwork. But she liked looking for paintings or sculptures of animals and making the corresponding sounds. We actually managed to stay there for 2 hours and saw all of the exhibits. Sometimes Amelia was taking longer than I was to look at things. I loved it.






(The only art we were allowed to touch.)







We were headed to a pizza place for dinner but passed by this diner and knew we had to stop. It's called the Paper Moon Diner. Fun decor and fun atmosphere. The menus were made out of old library books. There were strange things hanging everywhere. It kept the girls entertained. And we felt redeemed from our depressing lunch at a darkened, smelly Applebees a few weeks ago when a momentary lapse of judgment lead to our poor decision to eat there, followed by a strong resolve to not eat at chain restaurants when possible.












(Elsa is captivated by the ceiling.)

After dinner, we discovered that we were right next to Charm City Cakes, home of the Food Network's Ace of Cakes show!



Our final stop was the Maryland Science Center at the Inner Harbor. On Friday evenings during the winter, the admission is greatly discounted. Score! And strangely, it wasn't crowded at all. (For the locals: the Baltimore Aquarium is also discounted on Friday evenings in the winter...I can't bring myself to pay full price there.)

Everyone had a blast at the Science Center. Elsa was happy that she was allowed to touch everything. (And too often was found licking things.)














Amelia thought the bed of nails was so cool. And a rare photo of her wearing pants! Only agreed upon because it was so cold and she still wore a dress with them.










Uncovering dinosaur bones. Elsa spent most of her time in the dinosaur exhibit "roaring."