New Year's Weekend in Maryland

Maryland has become Jaxson's home away from home over the last six months. With three trips over that time period, he is becoming all too familiar with plane trips that take him northeast.

Some trips have been smoother than others, as far as plane rides go; but all-in-all this was a great trip to see both Uncle Casey and Uncle Peeb's (Michael) and their lovely wife and now fiancee; more on that later.

After we landed Saturday morning, we headed north from BWI Airport to Frederick, Maryland to unload our baggage and head for lunch. Downtown Frederick is a great little spot. Extremely pedestrian friendly with storefront shops, cafes, and pedestrian walkways that meander around a small creek and in and out of old buildings from days gone by. We found a great little dive restaurant and bar called Bentz Street Sports Bar. Being the only group in the restaurant at the time, it gave us plenty of freedom to have a few cold brewski's and catch up on old times and new times yet to come. A little FYI, if you ever happen to find yourself in Bentz, order the Old Bay Wings - very nice.

Sunday was all about football. We were all looking forward to watching the Cowboys trump the Redskins while we were in enemy territory - but as we all know by now, that didn't happen. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously none-the-less.

One other small event happened on Sunday - Michael asked his lovely girlfriend of 5 years to be his wife. In only the way that fits Michael and Kristin. As the group (including all the Coon's, Jaxson, two of Kristin's brothers, her mom and dad, Casey's wife Sam, Robyn and myself) enjoyed some light afternoon snacks and good conversation, Tex (Michael and Kristin's dog) wondered into the room with a ribbon around his neck and something mysteriously hanging from the ribbon. As Kristin leans over curiously and begins examining the box, Michael takes it from her and gets down on one knee. To our delight, Kristin joined the family with a simple, "Yes."

With such a busy and emotional day on Sunday, Monday was all about just hanging and waiting for Father Time to exit the year and welcome in a new year. After lounging around for most of the day,we headed to dinner at Rio Grande Cafe before heading home for the midnight ball dropping. To be honest, some of us were in bed by 12:05am, so not much to discuss with the ringing in of the new year.

Tuesday we headed home. A little post Christmas shopping in the morning, followed up with some lunch, then off to BWI to head home. The flight home was a little rough, not turbulence wise or the act of flying itself; but actually a puppet show gone horribly wrong....

Jaxson wasn't feeling the nap time session he usually does on a flight; so, to pass some time Robyn thought it would be good to use the air-sickness bad as an impromptu hand puppet, which worked wonders. To much "wonder" is bad sometimes, and Jaxson started laughing so hard he began bringing his snacks of Goldfish and granola bars back to the surface. And being the great dad I am, I sacrificed by body and tried to catch most of the ABC food (Already Been Chewed). So for about the last 90 minutes of so of the flight, I had the joy of smelling that great smell that my boy bestowed upon me.

Kind of ironic if you think about it. I didn't have the airsickness bag to catch the "goods" because Robyn was using it as the puppet which made Jaxson sick. Damn Murphy's Law.

Like I said, most of the trip was excellent and we will be headed back that direction in October for the wedding - looking forward to it.