Did I Mention the Food?

(Fair warning: This is a non-baby post, so feel free to skip it!)

Lucky for us, our friends are not only thoughtful and gracious hosts, but excellent cooks as well!

Our DC friends braved the heat to grill delicious "everything burgers" and brats. In Maryland, Bonnie made a traditional Maryland dinner of steamed shrimp and corn -- a wonderful summer treat! (And it turns out their cat likes Old Bay seasoning. Who knew?) And then Feesh treated us to omelets and blueberry pancakes in the morning. (We let the babies try some of the pancakes, without the blueberries, but they didn't seem to appreciate them as much as we did.)

On Sunday night, Jason grilled steaks from his local butcher. We don't have steak often and don't particularly seek it out, but these steaks were amazing!! And then Kate followed it up with an equally amazing blueberry and raspberry (I think) cobbler. I don't usually like cobbler, but I could eat this one every day. It was perfection with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm.

Then on Monday, we decided to be brave and venture out to a local seafood restaurant (Catonsville Gourmet) with all three babies (the twins and Dashiell). For the most part, it worked out really well. The restaurant was noisy enough that no one noticed the occasional baby babbling or fussing, and we were seated in the back near the dessert counter, so there weren't too many people near us anyhow. And the food was outstanding (including a delicious crab & corn chowder).

The only hitch in the plan was that at one point Mattie was starting to get a little fussy and wasn't interested in toys or his bottle, so I was giving him some little crunchies to eat. Well, he coughed when he had one in his mouth, which made him gag, which made him throw up his milk. Luckily we were seated next to the men's room, so Mike hustled him in there and I don't think any of the other patrons even noticed. Mike's shirt was a mess, but fortunately I had a spare shirt in the diaper bag for just such a possibility. So, we were still able to enjoy our meal (trading off holding Matthew). Also fortunately for us, James was happy to entertain himself in his stroller.

So, although visiting with friends was the best part of the trip, the meals helped to make it memorable as well. :)