Baltimore

On June 24th, Ben and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Even though we were in the throes of preparing the house for the housewarming, we decided that we should get out of town for the weekend. Roadtrips are sort of our thing, so we figured we could at least do a short one. Drawing a 6-hour circle around Pittsburgh, we set our sights on Baltimore.

Our hotel was right near the harbor, and we spent the afternoon strolling around the piers, watching sailboats and tugboats and rowboats and water taxis. We had dinner at a well-known (and not too touristy) Crab House called Obrycki's, the kind of place where you order crabs by size and they dump a pile of them on your table. It was fun, but as the crab shards were flying through the air and we each reached for another damn crab, we decided that we were probably reaching our 10-year crab quota. We got ice cream and sat on the pier, watching the partyboats go by, thumping out The Electric Slide.

The next morning we high-tailed it to Annapolis after a really bad breakfast experience. (Well, I had a bad breakfast experience - Ben was smart enough to order the steak and eggs for breakfast, which was fantastically greasy and tasty. Not so with my bacon omelet.) Annapolis is so cute! We only strolled around for a few hours, but man! We hit up the hardware store and the marine supply store and I have almost talked Ben into buying a boat someday. I keep telling him what an awesome sailor he'd make: he's attentive to details, great with maps, and likes to go fast. Maybe someday when we're back to living close to an ocean.

All in all, it was a wonderful way to celebrate our first year as Mr. & Mrs. The year has flown faster than we even anticipated, and was so chock-full of new adventures and accomplishments and obstacles overcome. It's amazing. (We pat ourselves on the back almost daily, in fact.) Ben opened the office and is overseeing 10 investigators now. He finished his first year of grad school (with flying colors, of course). I passed my Comprehensive Exam. We both turned 25. We bought our first house. Even more than being proud of us, though, I'm mostly just grateful. I know how lucky I am to have such a great partner to have all this fun with.