A visit to Garrett Park, Maryland
Remember my good friend Jillian of weekly coffee date fame? Our coffee dates got a lot more sporadic when she and her husband bought a house in Maryland earlier this year–and then she had a beautiful baby girl in September! I finally had a chance to go down this week to see her gorgeous little home, meet Hazel (and introduce her to Gertie, obvi), and cram months worth of coffee catch-ups into an afternoon on her couch.
The weather was gorgeous, so we took long walks through her neighborhood and swooned over all the cute houses. Garrett Park is this teeny-tiny township: they only have PO boxes instead of mailboxes to encourage local interaction, there’s a public pool, and the city hall/post office/local restaurant is all in one building. She also showed me a few of her favorite spots: pizza at 2Amys, sandwiches at Old Town Market, a walk along the Potomac at Great Falls. In short: it was perfect!
Yay baby Hazel! Jillian and I had many long chats about babies and Bringing Up Bebe when we were weekending in Maine earlier this year, so it was so fun to see her putting all of our hypotheticals into practice. It’s all paying off: Hazel is such a sweet, chill baby! 
And of course: introducing these two was a highlight! Before Jillian got pregnant, we dreamed of buying pug puppies from the same litter and having pug sisters. Although that wasn’t to be, it was still lovely to see our two little loves interacting: Gertie was so patient with the babe, and Hazel didn’t mind a little pug licking her feet at all.
Fall was in full swing in the suburbs! 
Gert’s such a little traveling pug these days! We’ve been loving this carry case from Love Thy Beast for all of her excursions: she can poke her little head out to see the world, but it’s still nice and structured to keep her contained. 
I was excited to finally try 2Amys Pizzeria after hearing all my DC friends rave about it, and it didn’t disappoint! The Margherita Extra pizza was on point, but my favorite part might have been the sparkling chilled red wine. Neither of us are big red wine drinkers, but we both love bubbles: this was the perfect pizza accompaniment.
We took a fun little walk along the Potamac River to see Great Falls: it seemed like all of the leaves were a little bit past peak, but we couldn’t get over how warm and sunny it was. It didn’t feel like November at all! Special thanks to Jillian, Aaron and Hazel for being such great hosts! We had so much fun with you, and can’t wait to come back (or babysit in NYC!).
