Grew's News 3: Baltimore: Baby, blossoms, and basketball!

A few days after returning home from Mexico I drove to Baltimore to visit my niece and her new baby, Lucy Patricia (named after my mom). It is an easy 8 hour drive. When I left Kingston it was 5 degrees celsius. By the time I got to Watertown it was 9 degrees and I hit double digits soon after. The temperatures continued to climb as the hours ticked by and by the time I got to Baltimore it was 24 degrees. I had to stop at one point to change into shorts and a t-shirt as I was too hot!! Spring comes to Baltimore early and that was evidenced by all of the spring flowers in bloom. During my visit, the temperatures were unseasonably warm and my great niece and I did not complain.

Lucy Patricia is now three months old and I like to say that she made me "great". I am now a great aunt or as I have become known as, "Gr-Aunt Nancy". It is a role that I embrace. Lucy is a happy baby who sleeps well and rarely fusses. My niece and her husband have adjusted well to parenthood and it was fun visiting this happy little household.

Andy, my nieces's husband, is a basketball fan and we were watching an ACC game one day when I noticed that there were a lot of empty seats. Andy mentioned that the ACC was in DC this year and for some reason seats were not selling out. I realized how close Baltimore is to DC and made the spontaneous decision to go to DC the next day to watch Duke. It was my first live Duke game and I was totally hyped. I treated myself to a primo seat and sat right behind centre court in the first row of stand seating. There were two rows of family seating in front of me but I felt like I was right there with the team. My pictures are terrible. I just had my iPod and the players were always in motion but the memories will live on in my mind for an eternity. It was a good game. Unfortunately, Duke lost to Notre Dame in overtime but the boys played their hearts out! #GoDuke!