Two Nights Off

This weekend we decided to redeem two of our Christmas presents. The first was a night out to Brasserie Beck and the second was an overnight stay in Baltimore. Yes, the Grandparents will go to great lengths to get babysitting duty, and we love it.

On Friday, we had a great dinner at Brasserie Beck with Stacey & Mike and Erin & Fred. We sat at the Chef's table and had a view of the kitchen. Great Belgian food and beers. Afterwards it was off to the Palace of Wonders to see a burlesque show and meet up with some old friends. Jake and Sadie spent the night at my folks house -- the first time for Sadie. Sounds like everyone had a great time. Here's a picture of Jake in his big-boy bed at my folks house:

On Sunday, we left the kids at our house with Ali's folks and drove up to Baltimore for the night. We had brunch at the Blue Moon Cafe, which was GREAT. It's just a tiny, hole-in-the-wall cafe, but everything was perfect -- great coffee, fresh squeezed & cold OJ, dee-licious banana pancakes and an amazing crab, roasted red pepper and brie omelette with homemade biscuit and homemade jam. OK, full disclosure: we were STARVING after waiting about40 minutes outside to get a table in the tiny place, so we probably would have been happy with a hot cup of coffee and a doughnut, but it turned out the wait was well worth it.

We stayed right in Fells Point in a cool hotel that was a converted factory right on the water. We shopped around all the little stores, saw a movie, caught the end of the Daytona 500 at an Irish pub, and had a nice leisurely dinner. None of which are possible on a typical night at home. In the morning, we checked out Canton and Hampden, and had lunch at Cafe Hon and tried to act like a local.

Here's Jake and Poppy making faces at each other, and a picture of our hotel and the view from our room:Thanks so much to Mike and Pat and Jack and Carol for the great gifts and for the gift of letting Ali and me spend a little time together.