Fort McHenry

Monday was Brandon's birthday, unfortunately he had work and class all day so we're celebrating on the weekends! Last Saturday, we went on a family outing to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner. It was the anniversary of the event so they were having a big festival complete with reenactments of the battle and demonstrations of life back then. I love that kind of thing! And the weather was perfect, it's so much fun to be outside again!

The military band

Firing muskets, blanks of course ;-)

They also had modern day military gear

Climbing on a real missile launcher, they fired these across the bay that evening (using blanks again, of course). One of the soldiers they use these in Iraq/Afghanistan and they can shoot up to 11 miles away with total accuracy! He pointed to a plane way in the distance and said, "See that plane? We could shoot that down with this." Wow.

We had a picnic lunch on the grass near a fence. We had to literally pull them off of this fence when it was time to go.

Happy Birthday Daddy!