Train Travel

Today we took Amtrak from Penn Station in New York to Penn Station in Baltimore.  In my humble opinion, train travel is best way to go.  Well that is if you're within 5 hours of your destination.  Today's trip took 3 hours.  No worries about how many ounces our liquids were or if we had only 1 carry on or the fact that our suitcase just may be over 50 pounds.  

It was also fantastic because we didn't get the awful delays and cancellations that the rest of the group faced.  

Above is a picture of the beautiful Penn Station in Baltimore.  What a gem.  The outside is just as pretty as the inside.  Tonight we're going to plan out what Baltimore sights we'll try and get to this week.  More photos to come.

Baby Matthew Barry turns 1

We headed to Nebraska last week to enjoy "the good life" during the time off.  We made a short trip (made even shorter by a Minnesota snow storm) to Brooten for Matthew's 1st birthday party.  

Nana and Martin messing around at lunch.

Pa (as he's known by Martin) and Droid (as she's known by me)

Family time!

one of my favorite boys.

And in typical form, I did not take very many pictures.  Lindy has all the good ones on facebook.  The highlight was watching Matthew eat an entire cake with a fork and a spoon.  Steven has a video.  We'll see if we can edit it down and get it up here.  I haven't had much luck doing videos but will work on it.

California

We headed to California at the beginning of February.  Our friend Kristin just moved out there to join her new husband, Ben.  We flew into Sacramento but made our way both north and south in our travels.

These pictures are definitely not in order.  On our 2nd day in Cali we ventured north to Napa Valley.  Here we are jumping for joy at the Robert Mondavi vineyard.  We went on an amazing tour throughout the vineyard.  It ended with a tasting.  The cabernet sauvignon was unbelievable.  It most certainly wasn't my normal 2 buck chuck.

Here's me and the Golden Gate Bridge.  We headed to San Francisco where we took a boat tour around the bay.  We also did a little driving tour making sure we made our way to the Full House area.

The Jelly Belly factory is located just north of Sacramento.  We learned a lot about President Reagan who always had some on his desk.  We also got to try several of the flavors.

This is another San Fran pic.  Steven is standing in front of one of their famous cable cars.  This is right before we indulged in some chocolate at Ghiradelli Square.