Woznation

After a long, long winter — Its finally gorgeous around here!  We have been outside as much as possible — We went on multiple trips to the zoo, went to a friend’s birthday party, and trips to the park nearly every evening.  Phil and I also were traveling a bit.  Evie and I took a girls trip to Bloomington to attend Phil and Maggie’s baby shower!!  Maggie is due at the end of May and is doing great.  I was so glad to see her and Phil as they get ready to welcome baby watkins.  It was also a really fun opportunity to get some one-on-one time with Evie outside of our normal grind.  She can be quite pleasant when shes not tormenting Wil!  While I was in Btown, Phil held down the fort with Wil and Barney.  Wil had his last gymnastics class, and they hung out at Dimple’s house and the park a lot.

After I got back, Phil had another trip to Chicago.  After multiple trips and multiple job offers, Phil has accepted a job in the Windy City!  We are beyond excited to get back to the midwest, closer to friends and family.  Even though Phil and I both have wonderful jobs in Baltimore and we have made so many wonderful friends here, it was hard to be so far away from everyone back home.  We have always kept our ears open to possibilities that would bring us closer, and this opportunity for Phil seems like a perfect fit!  We are still hammering out all the details, but it looks like we will be there in early to mid June.

Time to start packing!

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I’m not sure if this is really blog worthy, but we had enough people call or text to check on us, that I wanted to write a quick note —

There were some riots in Baltimore on April 26th-28th over the Death of Freddie Gray. He died on April 19th in police custody.  There were plenty of protests near the courthouse in the week prior to his funeral. Liz purposefully avoided going to any of the museums which would take her downtown, not because of safety concerns, but to avoid blocked streets and traffic jams.  Everything was mostly peaceful until Sunday the 26th, the day of the funeral, and then some crowds started to riot.  Still, there were only a few situations miles and miles away. But then at like 7 or 8pm things got worse downtown and started to drift eastward. There was a huge fire near Hopkins (about 2 miles from our place), with a lot of rioters, masked men with guns, etc. They closed Baltimore City schools (and Wils schools) on Tuesday as a precaution. We heard nonstop police and fire trucks until probably 2am that night. Originally Hopkins was to open late but eventually made the decision to close for the day. I was off anyway,  so it didnt really disrupt my schedule. On Tuesday, they had brought in the nation guard.  So we had people like this walking all over campus for the next few days:

They even closed the Os game to the public.  Unprecedented.

BALTIMORE, MD – APRIL 29: Chris Davis #19 of the Baltimore Orioles hits a three-run home run in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on April 29, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. The game was played without spectators due to the social unrest in Baltimore. (Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

Baltimore is a big place.  Most of the city was unscathed. Everything was very quiet and calm in patterson park where we live. And everything seemed completely back to normal on Tuesday afternoon. We were out at the tot lot at 2pm and it was like nothing ever happened.  We never once felt unsafe. We did not see any violence first hand. The news was focused on a very small pocket of rioters that were nowhere near us. Life was very normal for us.

Thats not to say horrible things didnt happen in Baltimore.  There were plenty of unsafe neighborhoods, and the damage from the riots is having a crippling effect on certain parts of the city.  It was a very sad few days in Baltimore and the city is just starting to take steps to heal.  It will be awhile before things are back to normal for many people.

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Oh man did the kids love Easter this year!  They loved everything that had to do with the holiday — easter baskets, egg hunts, candy, bunnies, coloring eggs, etc.  But we are still working on the ‘holy day’ aspect of Easter.  They started the weekend by doing egg hunts in the house with Liz and continued doing them the rest of the evening with Phil outside on our block. Phil would hide them in the neighbors planters, on car wheels, stair railings, etc.  City living provides slightly different egg hunts than I grew up with!

On Saturday we went to a larger community organized egg-hunt at the tot lot.  There were tons of people there.  And Wil and Evie were ready and knew what to do!  There were eggs EVERYWHERE.  Seriously – they must have had thousands. The toddlers went first and Evie kept picking them up and looking around and finding ‘MORE, ‘MORE’!  She was amazed!  Wil loved it too – especially when he discovered that most of the eggs were stuffed with candy or prizes! Phil and I might have opened a few for ourselves.

On Sunday we colored eggs.  Evie was really into it, but also insisted on doing everything by herself which ended up with lots of stains, and dropped, cracked eggs.

Then we attempted to go down to the promenade, but it ended up being too cold and windy.  By the time we got to the water, Wil was asking to go back to the car.

We planned the walk so that we could catch the tail end of Mass at St. Casimirs.  Last year I tried to go to church early so we could walk around and talk about Easter, but it was closed.  So this year, I figured I’d go when they were open, and just stay until it was empty.  But since the walk was cut short – and it was an exceptionally long mass – we ended up waiting at St. Casimirs for like 30 minutes.  Everyone was in the their sunday best. Except for us.  I was in jeans and a baseball cap, Phil was in a hoodie.  And we were just creeping around the back of church waiting for people to leave. Super classy. Evie finally had a meltdown and we had to get out there.  On our way out – they still handed us a little Easter pail with treats for the kids.  I felt like such a mooch.  We had good intentions, maybe next year we’ll get it right.

When we got home, we opened the Easter presents from the grandparents. Everyone ate way to much candy and finally went to sleep after their sugar highs came crashing down.

It warmed up later in the afternoon and we were able to get outside.  Overall, they kids loved all the activities and we had a great weekend. Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

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