Oh, the adventures we'll have!

(The coolest sundial I've ever seen - times around the world!)

Our family loves big adventures. You know, the 7000 miles road trip variety. Moving to Baltimore promised to be Our Next Big Adventure. Wow, look at all there is to do just downtown in our own city! And Washington DC, just a mere hour away. National parks, the Atlantic Ocean, the big cities, the historic monuments, oh my! I devoured maps and tour books in anticipation.

I literally fear that even if we live out the rest of our days here, I will never finish all the Adventures that I'd love to have within a day of Baltimore.

But oh, how babies seem to scale our plans back to reality. Free time between the twins' naps and eating really amounts to about two, two hour chunks of time a day. This summer in California, we did one whopping hike in five weeks that was outside of our city. It was a good reminder to enjoy the things closest to home.

I should have known that lesson would come in handy here in the land-of-so-much-to-do. Sometimes the big adventurer in me needs to be reminded to first soak in all that there is to do and all the people that there are to love all within 5 minutes of me. So my reading has been scaled down from Frommer's "National Parks" books to Frommer's "Delaware and Maryland" to "60 Hikes within 60 miles of Baltimore". And in that last book, the hike that is now on my to-do list is one mile from house. Living in an area so full of natural beauty, history, culture and new people, it's been a little challenging to scale so far down, but two screaming boys have a way of keeping me in check!

Yes, some day, oh the adventures we'll have on our new coast. So far though, I'm pleasantly surprised nearly every day with the adventures we're finding in our own backyard or a few minutes drive away.

Last but not least, in our very own backyard.