Baltimore, Birthday, Mother's Day

I spent last week in Baltimore on a business trip. I was not very excited to go and leave my family for the week, but they did fine without me. I was worried that my morning (all day...) sickness would kick in on the plane and I would have to use the tiny airplane bathroom to throw up, but luckily I was able to close my eyes and sleep when I started feeling queasy on the plane rides and never did have to throw up on the plane.

I mostly spent the week in (kind of boring) classes and we were far from downtown Baltimore. We were out in the suburbs, which were pretty generic. I could have spent the week across from Park Meadows Mall and had about the same experience! There were a few high points, though.

I've mentioned before that Aaron and I like to find restaurants from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives when we travel. Turns out that Jay (the co-worker I was traveling with) also likes to do that. So on Tuesday night we visited the Broadway Diner.



That was fun. And really good food, too!

Wednesday night our vendors took us out to dinner. They took us to a hibachi restaurant where the chef cooked at the table with all kinds of fancy knifework and shooting flames and other excitement. That was a lot of fun to watch. The food was probably good, too. Sadly I was too sick to eat any. But I enjoyed the show!

The low point of the trip would be on Thursday when Brekken got hurt back at home. As part of a fight with Preston (not at all uncommon for those two!) he got slammed face-first into the fridge and then fell on the floor. He split his lips open and forced his two front teeth back up into the gums and backwards at quite an angle. Poor baby. Aaron had to take him (and the two others!) to the ER on his own. I felt really bad that I wasn't there to help, but they managed fine without me.

This shot is from a couple of days later (when I got home) so some of the swelling has already gone down on his top lip. It's still pretty noticeable, though. And you can only see one of his two front teeth, because the other is still shoved up and back. He has a visit with the pediatric dentist on Friday to see if the tooth is going to shift back where it should be on its own or if it will have to be pulled.

I was VERY glad to get home on Friday. Aaron and the boys (Haley was on a school field trip) picked me up at the airport and it was so good to see them. And since it was Brekken's birthday, we went almost immediately into birthday celebration mode... at least, we did once Haley was home, because we'd promised not to start without her!

Brekken picked out his own birthday cake (from the store, since I didn't have time to make one). He really enjoyed blowing out the candles. He did not like it when we sang Happy Birthday to him. In fact, he cried rather pathetically and told us to stop. He does NOT like it when people are singing.

He had lots of fun opening presents. He got some legos and a dragon and pajamas from Grandma & Grandpa, all of which were a big hit. He also got a new shirt from Great Grandma Shields, which he insisted on putting on immediately.

He also really liked the big dump truck from Mom & Dad... he and Preston have been fighting over it ever since. I believe Preston will need to get a similar truck for his birthday next week!

Mother's Day came along a couple of days later, and that was nice, too. We were running late and by the time we made it to church, there were no benches left (apparently Mother's Day is a big day for church attendance). Rather than sit on the uncomfortable metal chairs in the overflow, we opted to sit in the foyer and listen. This worked okay until the end when they passed out the Mother's Day gifts. They didn't come out to the foyer to hand any around. Figuring it was the usual plant (which my brown thumb and I would immediately kill) I didn't worry about getting one. I was sad to learn later that it was actually candy bars, which I would have taken! Oh well.

When we went home, Aaron fixed dinner. Mashed potatoes, pot roast, and yellow squash - some of my favorites. And leftover birthday cake for dessert (which we actually ate before dinner, because we were hungry). Pretty nice! They gave me some new books I had wanted and the Glee soundtrack. Very fun!

And I received news that my Grandpa - who had been life-flighted to SLC the night before - was on the mend and doing much better. That was the best gift of all!!