Saturday, August 9, 2008

Do I remember this?

We had a chance to visit the area we used to live before moving to Cairo. We chose to commute from Columbia, MD because it is such a nice area to live (another good website). We made this trip in order to take care of some things in the area, but also grabbed the chance to visit with some of our friends that we haven't seen in a long time. Email is nice, but it is much better in person! Unfortunately, we didn't get many pictures the week we were there. I take lots of pictures when I think to take the camera out, but I don't always remember to take the camera out!

In addition to visiting with our friends, we visited some favorite restaurants, shops, the Mall in Columbia, and other places we used to go. That, 'used to go', was a phrase we used a lot with the kids. We moved to Cairo when Brian was 3 and Honor was 18mos. We'd told them of the place we used to live and hang out, showed them pictures, etc., but it was fun to actually take them there. They didn't really remember too much, but enjoyed the stories we told them of the places we visited. Honor asked me a couple of times, "Do I remember this?", like I should be able to look in her mind and see what she knows! Not the first time she's acted like I should be able to read her mind or see into her dreams :-) !

Don Pablos was a much requested restaurant - we went there twice:

We visited some of our favorite stores at the mall - past PF Chang, restaurant of the awesome cement horses (one per kid even)...


we paused by LL Bean to visit the fountain... they were running a promotion where you could sign up for a boating or flycasting class, they'd bus you out to a nearby lake, and give you lessons. The kids were too young though, minimum age was eight.



The indoor merry-go-round at the mall:


Photos of our walk around Lake Elkhorn, where we used to live, and where we walked with the kids when they were little - Brian trotting along as fast as he could go, or riding in his little red wagon, and Honor in a maya wrap or a stroller. We have a bunch of photos from the massive Brood X cicada invasion when we last lived there, so the kids have 'seen' the lake, but we went on 2 nice walks so they could really get to know it a little. The first walk was after a dinner with friends at (highly recommended) Hunan Manor. We lived close and used to order take-out regularly! Their food was still yummy. The kids enjoyed the 2-mile hike around the lake after lunch. My husband said that the par (fitness) course had been renovated, and tree identification tags had been installed. They saw tons of ducks and geese, groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, box turtles, and two giant-sized alligator snapping turtles. The kids and I took another walk a couple days later and I remembered my camera. We went mid-day, so we saw fewer critters out in the heat, but it was still a pretty walk. The kids want to move back - not sure we'd want to retire to this area, but I think we would all like to live there again sometime.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tell Brian that I remember eating at that PF Changs with HIM !!!
Uncle John...

Connie said...

I will remind him :-) I actually told him about going there with you when he was a baby. You joked that he might starve to death because he could only manage to eat one rice at a time when feeding himself. Of course, then he put away a huge helping of pot stickers too. He thought that was funny.