You know you're from Maryland if...

- "Going to The Yard" doesn't mean walking out your back door.

- you know it's pronounced "Ball - mer" or "Baw - di - more" not "Bal - ti - more".

- it's perfectly normal to use Old Bay or Wye River in every meal.

- you scream "OH" as loud as you can during the last line of the Star Spangled Banner.

- you can properly pick a crab. I said properly...

- "Cal" only refers to one person.

and you still remember this day...

- you know Washington D.C. is not our capital. And neither is Baltimore.

- you laugh at people from out of state who think bridges are scary.

- "______ County", or, "the shore" are legit explanations for where you live.

- it's pronounced "Shittsburgh"and you refuse to say the other.

- fries are bland without Old Bay and vinegar.

- you cringe every time someone talks about the Colts.

- "Ozzie" is not a member of Black Sabbath.

- you continue to root for the Orioles....even though we don't have the best track record.

- you still have a few Scopes keychains hanging around. 

from here

- you know what Rofo is.

- there's only one "Art".

- you can tell me where "Crabcakes and football - that's what Maryland does." comes from.

- you can pronounce "Haloti Ngata" correctly and know who he is.

- Boh knows best.

                                      

Baseball is Back!! - $75 to Fanatics.com

What an awesome day it is!!! With baseball finally back in season and Opening Days all around I thought it only necessary to have a sports-themed giveaway for us chicks!!! Hey...we like sports too!!

I don't know about you, but I'm certainly happy that the weather seemed to sober up and figure out it was actually SPRING!!! My O's won their home Opener and I'm itching to get to the yard! Baseball games are some of my favorite things about Spring...well, and summer. 

Only thing missing is some fan gear!! So, head on down and enter this giveaway for $75 to Fanatics.com. Imagine the possibilities!! Plus, I'm throwing in 2 can koozies emblazoned with your favorite teams logo! You're welcome!!

GO ENTER!

Kristin : Brandi : Michelle : Lisa : Kelly

Marty : Emily : Chelsee

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ballmer Bucket List...Check 3

Wednesday morning was a doozy. Pretty sure all the beer at Max's and good food at Joe Squared caught up with me. Getting out of bed was really hard.

My friend and I had decided that we were going to get up early and check off number 3 from my Baltimore Bucket List before I had to go back to the conference.

This was another Diners, Drive In's, and Dives location. If anyone lives in the Maryland area and listens to 98 Rock in the morning you also may know of the person who own this wonderful little establishment.

I am, of course, talking about the Blue Moon Cafe in Fell's Point.

The owner's name is Sarah Simington and she takes the place of Amelia every once in a while on the Mickey, Amelia, and Speigel talk radio show. She's really cool and is a great fill-in. I was so excited when I walked in and saw her behind the bar. It was almost like she was a celebrity.

The Blue Moon Cafe is known for their famous Cap'n Crunch French Toast. Even Guy thought that was crazy....


The bartender/waiter from Joe Squared mentioned that he was friends with Sarah. He suggested that we try the GG's Country Scramble. We couldn't decide so...we tried both!! :)
OH.EM.GEE!! Legit best breakfast I have ever had!! Cap'n Crunch french toast was off the hook. By far, the best french toast I have ever had.

Funny thing is, the bartender from Joe Squared was sitting at the table next to us when we walked in. lol. Guess I gave him the idea to go when we were talking about it the day before.
Unfortunately, after breakfast we had to return to reality. I had to go back to the Convention Center for my conferences and my friend had to drive home. 
Any Baltimoreans out there who have suggestions for another Baltimore trip??

Ballmer Bucket List...Check 2

One thing I have always wanted to do while in Baltimore is go to Fell's Point. I have always heard awesome things about Fell's Point, but, we have never been. Like I said in Part 1, if we do come in to town we usually head home afterwards. Going to Fell's Point would definitely require a hotel room because there are so many awesome bars there. 
I think I always thought Fell's Point was so much farther away from the Inner Harbor. It's actually within walking distance. Now that I know that, I will definitely be going back.
I need to start this part of the post with a special shoutout. I recently found out that one of the bloggers I have been following lives in Maryland!! How I didn't pick up on it before, I'm not sure. Catalyn over at Confessions of a Northern Belle is awesome. She gorgeous, a teacher, AND she met her husband on a cruise...how awesome!! Some of you might not know that The Goober and I are cruise freaks. We go on one every year!! Next one is already planned for August 10th!! Wanna join?!!?
On Catalyn's Weekend Shenanigan's link-up last week, she mentioned taking some friends to Fell's Point. They looked like they had a lot of fun so I emailed her about some good places to go. She was so sweet and responded back with a ton of suggestions. Too bad she's moving at the end of the school year. I think she would have been a lot of fun to hang out with.
One of the places Catalyn suggested was Max's Taphouse. All she said was "Max's has every beer under the sun." DING DING DING!! WE HAVE A WINNER FOLKS!! 
My friend and I decided to grab a cab since we really didn't know how far it was. Turns out, it probably would have been faster to walk. And cheaper... Traffic was a bitch, which of course, ran the meter up on our cab. Oh well...
Max's was FABULOUS!! When you walk in you will notice the 6 coolers worth of bottled beer and about a hundred taps!! 

We tried out about 6 of the beers. One of them was another Sweet Baby Jesus, like at Joe Squared. So good! -Fordham Hopdevil -Harpoon UFO Raspberry Wheat -Oscar Blues Oscar the Grouch -Oscar Blues Chub -Burley Oak Just the Tip Sorry, I had to.

Can't wait to go back and get some more. We also ordered some food to soak up the beer. The friend got a reuben and I got some pretzel dogs with mac and cheese. Everything was so good.
From Max's we walked back to the Inner Harbor, stopped at the hotel real quick to grab some sweatshirts and went across the street to Camden Yards. 
Our seats were AWESOME!!! We were right back from first base and only 5 rows from the field. I legit got to stare at Nick Markakis's butt for like 20 minutes while he got stretched right in front of us. Then, of course, when he got up someone blocked my view and I couldn't get a pic. 

We were yards away from J.J. Hardy, Ryan Flaherty, and...my favorite...Mr. Bubble himself, Adam Jones. 

Looking at The Hulk's A.K.A. Chris Davis junk in his trunk for the entire game wasn't that bad either. 
We called it a night after that because we knew we wanted to get up early in order to cross another thing off my Ballmer Bucket List....

Ballmer Bucket List...Check 1

First off let me say, yes I know it's not "tomorrow". Oh well...

So...Tuesday and Wednesday I had the opportunity to go to my favorite teaching conference, MSET (Maryland Society for Education Technology). This conference is 2 days and takes place in Baltimore, MD. It used to be tailored more to technology based teachers, supervisors, etc but it has now kind-of changed identities. Unfortunately, I'm not all for the change because there are less workshops tailored for me as a technology teacher and are now more centered around STEM and regular ed teachers.

The nice thing, however, is that I get set up for the night in downtown Baltimore...A.K.A. Ballmur

Besides this conference, I have never had the opportunity to stay the night in Baltimore. We go to Baltimore all the time for games and events, but we always have to drive home afterwards. This time I decided I was going to make the best out of this trip and knock some things off my Baltimore Bucket List.

Mike and I LOVE Diner's Drive-In's and Dives on the Food Network. Mike might be a little in love with Guy Fieri. I'm not hatin'.  So when my friend suggested we go to Joe Squared for lunch I was all in!!


Joe's is known for their square outside-the-box pizza. They will put anything you want on their pizzas without question. The restaurant we went to was located at Power Plant Live, not the same location they went to on the show. 
I'm sad to say, I did not order pizza. Truthfully, they were a little expensive and I knew we had a long two days ahead of us. (We only get reimbursed $10 for lunch *sigh*) I did, however, order the chicken chesapeake sandwich which was delish! I ended up taking it off the ciabatta roll ugh, my favorite and mixing it in with the salad they give you as a side. *healthy eating fist pump!!!* 
My partner designed his own pizza: meatballs, prosciutto, romano, mozzarella, and corn. *people's eyebrow raise* I was a little nervous about that one, but it looked amazing. He said it was absolutely delicious. 

We also each had a pint of Sweet Baby Jesus. Come again.... Sweet Baby Jesus is a chocolate peanut butter stout from DuClaw Brewery. I'm sure it's named that way because that's the first thing that comes out of your mouth after a sip. This beer is amazeballs!! 

This receipt made us laugh so hard.

Joe Squared is also amazing because it had my favorite beer of all time which I can never find around here Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. You have got to try it!!

After lunch my partner and I headed back to the conference for some more workshops, then headed to our hotel room.  I had a friend come in for the night to go see the O's game and help me check number 2 off my Ballmer Bucket List!!