Sunkissed and Smiling :)

Hey I knows its been awhile and I hope that I remember everything I want to tell you guys about! I guess I will start with date night last weekend! Friday night two weeks ago we went to a Orioles Baseball game with our neighbors and friends the Nicolas'. We had been having nightly thunderstorms for about a week before hand and  the weather didn't disappoint. Right when the game was about to start the lightning and the rain started coming. Now I have never seen lightning and thunder as big as the ones out here. They are insane with their downpour and how close the lightning is. We hid under the overhang till it 


subsided and an hour after schedule the game began. Now the Orioles are not the best team but it was a fun night with good company.

Then we spent a very normal week at home. We did fun little activities on Sunday they held a dinner for all the couples that are here for the summer. The house they had it at was in the country just outside of Baltimore and it was gorgeous! Like something from a movie or a dream, large grassy areas to play in and a huge wheat field across the street. It was incredible. 

Then the last adventure I am going to write about today happened last Saturday.  On Saturday we had the wonderful opportunity to travel to the Delaware shoreline. Thanks to our friend Lori and our wonderful new friend Jessica ( who is Sam's kindred spirit when it comes to music) We left the apartment at 6:30 in the morning. We arrived at Lewes beach Delaware around ten. It was a beautiful beach. It was exactly as the beach should be. Since we were there relatively early we were able to see some dolphins playing just off shore (they left when the beach got more crowded). Then we enjoyed your typical day at the beach with swimming, playing in the sand, and collecting seashells! And of course no beach trip is complete without ice cream after and some very very sunburned people :) Thanks to everyone for the great adventures!!

Aquariums, and Festivals,and Doctors Oh my!

Wyman Park Beer Garden

Seafood is EVERYWHERE!

Festival in the street!

 A week ago on Saturday Sam and I and our friend Lori had the wonderful opportunity to go to the National Aquarium! It was amazing! We saw dolphins and jelly fish, Sharks, and Manta rays! The place is built kinda like and indoor zoo and some parts really look like you are going through a Rain forest! They have rocks, trees, birds, lizards, snakes, and spiders. It was one of the funnest things we have done and completely amazing! I saw things I have never seen before! We even saw a 4D movie about animals around the world! The only bad part is Sam and I forgot to bring the camera! Ooops! Oh well better luck next time! 

This last week hasn't been all that exciting... Sam started work and as soon as he did I got sick. Nothing too bad but enough to be uncomfortable. Sam started work last Wednesday and loves it! In his words he feels like he works for two hours then gets paid to sit and read for the rest of the day. Needless to say he has been going through books like crazy! He has read up to Harry Potter four in about a week and a half. I am very impressed. When Sam is at work I wander around town and look for jobs (until I got sick) then I usually scrub the apartment as much as I can and try to get dinner started before he gets home..basically I am bored...I need to find more to do. Last Saturday was the Charles Village Festival! It was mostly your basic festival with bands and vendors but there was something I had never seen before. They call it a beer garden...the idea is you pay a certain amount of money and you go in and its all you can drink. It was funny seeing all these slap happy people laying around listening to the band and drinking, all while their kids were playing at the park. I thought hmm if this is what its like when their kids are here then I bet it gets really rowdy after dark.  Another cool thing about the festival is instead of doing it in the park on the grass they close the street next to the park and put the booths up in the street. 

The other adventure of the week was getting me to the doctors this morning.  Sam took off work so we could venture down to Concentra Urgent Care and get me some antibiotics. We left at 8:15 in the morning. Since we don't have a car we take a series of buses and shuttles to get places. Lucky the doctors was in an are we had been to many times and knew exactly how to get there. Unfortunate because of construction and full buses  we didn't there till ten (and its only three miles away, three miles in Utah would have taken 5 minutes). Then we sat and waited for another hour then they took me back and did a large amount of unnecessary and painful tests. The doctors and nurses though were so funny they couldn't believe I was married. They kept saying but your just a baby! ( You'd be surprised how many times I have been called a "baby" over here)  Nor could they believe that I didn't smoke or drink. They would say really? Then say thats so great! Never the less they were so happy for me and Sam. Finally they gave me my prescriptions and I left to find Sam waiting for me with my favorite Mac and Cheese from Noodles and Company. He is the best!

Well those are our Adventures for the week. NAP TIME! :)

Memorial Day Weekend!

Sam and I have been extremely blessed with a wonderful ward who we have communicated with over the phone but who we have met for the first time yesterday! They are so nice and so willing to help us in every way possible. So we went to church yesterday and today to celebrate Memorial Day they have a annual picnic! So we spent the day eating watermelon, playing tug a war, and meeting cute babies! I swear my ward has so many babies under the age of one! and each one is so so so so cute! Also this weekend Sam and I had an indoor campout! Thats not hard since most of our furniture is camping stuff but we cooked jiffy pop and ad a wonderful night at home! 

Add caption

Love you all!


Tori T. Hawkins

Starting out

So when I was engaged my friend Laurel asked "are you going to start a blog when you get married?" and I said, "no". Well sorry Lu I lied....I wasn't planning on ever having a blog but then I realized how hard it is to keep everyone up to date from the other side of the country....so as of now this is mine and Sam's Baltimore blog.. :)


So to start out I will say a few things on how it has been so far. Sam and I got married on May 13th, 2011 in the Bountiful Utah Temple! It was a glorious day followed by an amazing reception that I wish I could take credit for but the fact is my mom did most of it! She is phenomenal in everything. I would be lost without her. Sam and I loved, loved, LOVED our reception! Being surrounded by friends and family and sharing all that love was the best celebration Sam and I cold have dreamed of. Needless to say it was hard to leave. Then even harder was the Monday after, Sam and I hopped on a plan to Baltimore MD, where Sam will be doing a summer internship at Johns Hopkins University Medical School ( something in brain disease called the Zombie gene....or something like that....pretty cool huh!). When we first got here it was one small set back after another until I was a mess of emotions.... I won't tell you all of the set backs but the one I think that got to me the most was we didn't have a bed and were going to have to sleep on the floor. I cried for a long time, I have never been so far away from home but Sam seeing my distress thought it would be best if we went to a hotel for the night (it would help me feel better to have a bed). And so began our many adventures on the east coast!


Its been about two weeks here now and things are a lot better. Sammy doesn't start work for awhile (due to some mix ups) so we took the opportunity to explore a little. We have been to Inner Harbor, Towson City Center ( the largest mall I have ever seen), and on Sam's birthday we traveled down to Washington D.C.! We only went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and that was enough to occupy us for a whole day! We are glad we have a whole summer to explore all D.C. has to offer.

My Moochi's brother Mark lives about an hour away and came and "rescued" us from the city for a weekend. The east coast country side is nothing like I have ever seen (cept in movies) it is absolutely stunning!! So much green rolling hills and beautiful green trees and fields. I have found a new definition of green. He took us to some Civil war cites (Antietam, Harper's Ferry) that we just loved! We also got to see this super cool band called The Reagan Years, they play 80's music. We loved the whole weekend and are super grateful to the Labella family for their hospitality, homey feelings, and all the help they gave us to make our little apartment feel 
more like a home!

The Lord has blessed us so much over the last few weeks I can hardly believe it! I am so grateful to have what I have, to have been where I have been, and to be going where I am headed. I know prayer works and the Lord hears and blesses. I love you all! 


Till next time,
Tori T. Hawkins