A Great Weekend

We flew up to our daughters on Friday to spend Easter with her and had a wonderful time, except for the weather when we first arrived.  It's been in the 80's down here and our arrival temperature in Maryland at noon on Friday was 44 degrees.  Rainy too.  But it's always so good to see our daughter that I wouldn't have cared if it had been 40 below.  We met her in Annapolis for dinner, but unfortunately where we wanted to eat (Reynold's Tavern) was booked for an engagement party and couldn't accommodate us until 7:30 and none of us thought we could last that long for food so we went to a seafood buffet down by the water and it was delicious: crab, shrimp (both fried and boiled), baked salmon, orange roughy, fried cod, oysters, chicken (no quite a marine animal but always welcome), a crab mixture with olives and cranberries that Mac and April raved about, plus steamed veggies, salad, rice, dessert.  Needless to say no one left hungry.
On Saturday we went to the National Zoo (the weather was much warmer, in the 70's) to see the lion cubs that had been born last August and April had been wanting to see--they were adorable, all 7 of them.  Fun to watch the play between them and the care given by their Moms, some humans should take note.
We meant to only have a snack at the zoo but they were bar-b-queing ribs and so we had rib sandwiches.  Originally we'd planned to leave the zoo in the early afternoon and head on to some of Washington's museums, but the weather was so nice, the zoo so enjoyable that we spent the day.
As you leave the zoo and head down the street to the Metro station you find that the street is lined with outdoor cafes and restaurants.  Though not exceedingly hungry we decided to have something, found a Mediterranean restaurant serving mezzes and ordered lamb sausage (reminded us of korfte), an eggplant salad, hummus, olives and bruchetta done with roasted tomatoes and goat cheese.  It was all delicious.
Then home to our daughter's place for Easter cookies and "The King's Speech" which we all enjoyed very much, so well acted!

You may have noticed a food theme in this blog and it's true, when we get together with family there is nothing better than long, tasty meals with lots of conversation, and this trip was no different.
Sunday we did Brunch and all too soon it was time for us to fly home.  But a wonderful thing has happened, our daughter has gotten a job that requires her to fly to Jacksonville, Florida every other month and that's only and hour and a half drive from here so we will get to see her much more often starting in May, I'm so happy.  It made saying good by to her yesterday much easier.