Hermann Getaway

Well, we've been pretty busy since I last posted. We took my sister to a cute little bed and breakfast in Hermann, MO as her last getaway before leaving to live in AFRICA, yes I said AFRICA for 6 months. Here's some pictures from our trip.

On a wine tour.

Jeremy crawling out of the wine barrell after cleaning it. Haha.

Playing cards at the B&B.

Re-enacting how early settlers would've traveled on the Mighty Mo!

Step 6: Install Stone Patio

Well, we are finally done with the stone patio! It's very exciting and makes our backyard look larger! Next step is the deck. The plans are being submitted to the city this week and we think it should take a week to get approved. The goal is to have a deck by the end of September. Here's some pictures along the way.

Here's the patio with the gravel base down.

We were able to reuse the original step!

Isn't it pretty? I love it!

The finished product

Enjoying our new patio with friends!

For more pictures and previous pictures along the way, click here

Update on the backyard

Well we're almost ready to put the stone patio down. Just need to rent a compactor and get to work. Hopefully we'll get that done tomorrow and I'll have pictures to post of my pretty patio on Monday. WOHOO! We're finally seeing progress. After the patio we still have a deck to build, which Jeremy thinks should go pretty fast once the posts are poured. Stay tuned.

Maryland

It was so nice to get away and relax in Maryland. Our flight left at 6:30 in the morning, so here we are at 5:30AM waiting in the airport. We arrived in Solomons around 11:30, ate lunch and Jeremy had to go straight to work. I explored the town while waiting for our room to be ready and then called the hotel shuttle to come pick me up. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool until Jeremy got back. Little did I know that's what I would end up doing for the next 4 days as well.

Here's a cool shot I took out the plane window. Oh yeah, first time being on a plane in 7 years.

Each night we went to some great restaurants with amazing crab cakes. I can't ever have crab cakes anywhere else now. Our favorite was Stoney's. I even found out they ship their crab cakes world wide. Too bad the shipping is $100. We'll see, I might spring for them later in the year. They were that good. They just melted in your mouth, and I wasn't a big fan of crab before, obviously I hadn't had the real thing.

Anyways, enough on my crab obsession. On Saturday we went to Calvert Cliffs State Park where we took a 2 mile hike to beach to search for fossils and shark's teeth. There were several kids there, it was hot, and the pool was sounding really good by the time we got to the beach so we walked around a little, took some pictures and then started the long walk back to the car.

We saw some lily pads along the way, it was pretty cool, I don't think I've ever seen them in nature before.

After cooling off in the pool a couple hours we decided to go to the Marine Museum and tour a lighthouse. It was pretty cool and we got to pet turtles and crabs and search for shark's teeth in kids area. This is a view from the lighthouse looking into the bay inlet.

Here's the lighthouse. It's called a screwpile lighthouse because they were screwed into the ground out in the middle of the ocean.

On our last night we went to Stoney's one last time and I ate as much crab as I could. Saying goodbye :(

-Marissa

Fireworks

I know I'm posting this a month late, but Jeremy got some great pictures of the fireworks so I thought I'd share a couple.
On our way to watch the fireworks. Heather, Jeremy and Derek.