Good luck, and that's great they can do everything same day. Also hope pain isn't too bad for the doggy between now and then. Happy thoughts for you both!

Docs I felt super confident in. We ended up not being able to get our cat in with the doc we initially consulted with because my schedule conflicted with hers, but I was happy with who we got instead. He called before/after procedure to consult on a couple of things as well.

Can't really speak to facilities. As of last July, when we went, they were still only doing car pick up/drop off. It's right off of route 100, so a little noisy from the outside, but it's a part of a modern-looking office park and in a nice area.

I've got an old cat, and they did pre-surgical bloodwork on her and went over some risk factors.

Good luck to puppers! I've got a 13 yo dog, too, so totally get the fear.

I don't know if you're open to them at all, but we used Animal Dental in Columbia last summer for our cat and had a positive experience. They weren't quite as expensive as I was expecting, but anything animal dental is pricy. I appreciated how good they were with going over all options, procedures, and following up. Bonus points to them for providing awkward cat-mouth under anesthesia pictures that I really didn't need but gave me a laugh.

So many options to explore at Roots! You sound like a good mom :-)

I'm pretty sure they come from the same bakery, so it's gotta be a frosting/cake ratio thing, and I like more frosting throughout. Both are really good though, so you can't go wrong with either. The cake was my favorite carrot cake before I discovered my gluten issues too.

Also, if you do end up at Roots for GF goodies, make sure to grab one of their oatmeal whoopie pies. They have a bunch of other wheat-free options, but the whoopie pie and carrot (cup)cake are my go-to sweets there.

Thirding the carrot cake at Roots/Great Sage. FYI, they are both at the same location, part of "Conscious Corner." Great Sage always has the carrot cake, and Roots always has the cupcakes in stock, though for whatever reason I like the cake a bit more. But, like someone else said, Roots does catering/custom orders so I'm sure they can get you a full cake.

Great Sage is definitely still around and definitely still has that cake!

That's so messed up but was the impression we got of what was going on. I'm beyond thankful Google Street view came through for us.

About 4 years ago.

Sharing my experience with fencing from when we lived in Long Reach as a warning of how much CA hates fencing.

We bought a house with some 6 foot fencing on one side of the property. At closing we received the standard letter that the seller obtained from the village that blesses the property with no extant covenant violations.

7 years later we go to sell our house and obtain the same letter. We had done some exterior (non-fence) changes to the house while we were there but did all by the book with approvals and didn't expect issues. Long Reach decided they no longer liked the 6 foot fence and opted to withhold the letter from us, threatening the sale.

I can't say how thankful I was that Google Street view had a photo that included the 6 foot fence that was dated before our original purchase AND we had that letter from our purchase closing.

Long Reach still fought us over the fence, but they did eventually release a letter to us that had a special addendum re. the fence because of all the documentation we had. Long Reach also told us that they fought over the fencing because it was the only violation they could find on our property, and that they had to find something because they had received an anonymous type-written complaint about one of our previously-approved exterior changes.

Long story short, CA, Long Reach especially, HATES fencing.

I used to commute from Columbia to College Park. You want to be as close to Rte 29 as possible because I95 and the beltway stink for commuting. When I commuted to College Park, I was near 100 and 29, which was fine, but I wish I had been closer to 29 and 32. The commute up 29 after the 32 merge gets real backed up, so it's nice to be able to get off there. There are lots of great communities along that stretch like Fulton, Kings Contrivance, River Hill, etc.

Also, hi, I'm a librarian too! Howard County has an excellent library system, and we're surrounded by other great library systems (Prince George's, Montgomery, and Baltimore counties), and I've taken advantage of some of their services, though I get most of what I need from Howard. My experience with using Howard's library services is mostly limited to adult resources and little kids classes, so I do not have experience with what you're looking for, but check their classes list. . Also, our Parks and Rec has amazing programming, and I think likely more what you're looking for. Check out a recent seasonal guide for sampling (they have it divided up by age ranges), and they are good about accommodations.

I'll also throw out that the job market for librarians is super competitive in this region, but there's also more job availability given the number of special libraries in/around DC. As a librarian I'm most familiar with special libraries in the region, but I'm an avid user of our public libraries and happy to answer questions.

I have one kid in a Howard County school, but can't speak to IEP treatment, though I've heard from others it can be a mixed bag. The schools here are great, but I grew up in another state and didn't see half the resources available here, so I always feel biased and get a little cranky when people start nit-picking between Howard schools.

Good luck on the upcoming move!

I'm like 95% sure Nest in Clarksville has a good incense selection. I know they have a really great candle selection, but I'm sure I've seen incense there as well.

Others have said La Palapa in EC, but there's also La Palapa Too in Fulton, for Mexican with vegan options.

For vegan in general, seconding Great Sage, but there's also a ton of options next door in the Clarksville Commons, particularly Koshary and the Banh Mi place. Plus Roots is there, and that's always a great stop for vegan essentials.

We used Pirate Girl for face painting recently, and she was phenomenal. I know she does balloon twisting too, but we didn't opt to do that.

Clarksville also has a couple of great townhouse communities, with lots of walkable restaurants, etc., great schools, and very accessible to Columbia (some parts of Clarksville are under Columbia Association). But like everyone else has said, budget and school considerations are relevant.