After a few days in "The Burg" we headed up to Forest Hill, MD, just north of Baltimore and home of my daughter and her family and about ten thousand kids who play baseball!

Opening Day for Baseball, Forest Hill, MD

The weather in the morning was not very promising. Here Lorri & Deb are finding their way through the fog.

This is a big deal in Forest Hill. The bird is "POE". EDGAR and ALLEN couldn't make it. They are the mascots for the Baltimore Ravens.

The one, the only...Baltimore Oriole!

The crowd makes its way to the opening ceremonies.

The Oriole tried to choke me because I told him I was a San Diego Padres fan. At least I didn't say I was a Yankees fan. He would have tried to kill me.

We made a big batch of Bloody Mary's to perk us up a little bit.

Jake's First Game!

Jake's team won and Jake played shortstop, center field and pitcher. This is Jake at bat.

Jake follows through on a pitch.

Malarie Plays Lacrosse!

On Sunday afternoon the weather turned colder and nastier just in time for Mal's lacrosse game.

Nevertheless we stuck it out.

Malarie played well and her team came from down 5-3 to win it, 6-5. It was very exciting.

Here she is later at home.

Wine Stop!

On Monday while the kids were in school and Mike was working, Lorri, Deb & I took the opportunity to go on a wine quest in the countryside north and west of Forest Hill.

First we found the Fiore Winery, in beautiful Pylesville, MD. Well it was more beautiful than its name, anyway.

Stephanie, the wine pourer informed us about the complexities and challenges of producing a top-notch wine in rural MD.

This was the view from the rear of the tasting room.

Another Wine Stop!

We arrived at Woodhall Wine Cellars after a few wrong turns only to find that it was closed. We hung around for a bit and lo and behold, the winemaker himself showed up!

His name was Chris and even though he and his co-workers had been up most of the night "bottling wine" he fought off his hangover long enough to explain a little about the wines we were tasting.

Back to Virginia

On the way back to the Burg we stopped off at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine - the home where he died in 1863.

I took this picture of him. Well I didn't really take it, I left it there and just photographed it.

This is the house were he died.

We wanted to visit Scotchtown, the home of Patrick Henry, but it was closed. We waited around a bit but Mr. Henry didn't show up. This is as close as we could get.