DC Trip - Day Three

Day Three was the wedding of John's collage friend Tara. The wedding was beautiful - just absolutely beautiful. But it wasn't my favorite wedding I've been to because I felt so out of place! I certainly wasn't dressed as nicely as everyone else, or wearing as much makeup... and the only people I knew there were John and our friend Matt.

But then again, John, Matt and I can always have a good time - and the food (and cake!) was quite yummy.



Above is our friend Matt. He's a bit goofy. :)



The centerpieces on the table were beautiful.



As you can see, it took me a while to find my nametag for my table since, ya know, that's not my name and all.



John made a smiley face out of butter balls and a piece of string. Only John.



The John.



Close up of the centerpieces.



there were rose petals all around the centerpieces.



Well, that's it. Next up will be an entry that I'm sure most of you won't care about, but the last day of our trip was to my friend Kristy and her wife Kate's house - and all the photos are of their cats :)

DC Trip - Day Two

Let's see... where I last left off, we had finished our first - and most touristy - day in DC.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed in order to run on the treadmill in the hotel fitness center while John slept in, then we partook in the breakfast buffet that was included with our room. John was especially excited about All He Could Eat Bacon. I think this was the highlight of the entire trip for him.

Eventually we had to check out of the hotel. We had debated going and doing more things in DC, but we were still pretty tired from all the walking the day before, and there wasn't much that we really wanted to do that wouldn't take up too much time, so we decided to just head off to Annapolis to visit Aunt Kitty, Kelly and Mary Beth.



At one point, John and I took a walk around the neighborhood, starting with some of the flowers in the yard.



Then we made our way down to the larger of the two nearby Marinas.



Which, of course, had a lot of boats.



From there we walked down to the smaller Marina, where the next bunch of pictures are from:















After a nice, long walk, we ended up back at the house and sat on the deck with some wine and enjoyed talking to Aunt Kitty and Kelly.







After a yummy dinner (our only home-cooked one on the trip, so it was definitely appreciated!), John and I went downstairs to play Ping Pong. John thought he'd try to make it a fair game by having both of us play right-handed (he's left-handed), and I'm ashamed to admit that he still beat me!

The next morning, I got a chance to take a few more pictures around the yard before it started to rain.







After a bit of relaxing time, we eventually had to get back on the road (luckily only a short drive this time) in order to beat our friend Matt to the hotel we were staying in that night (the room was in my name, so we wanted to check in before he got there).

Up next will be Day Three - The Wedding!

Washington, DC - Day One

Our first day on our whirl-wind DC trip was into DC itself.

We had left on a Wednesday night, a few hours after I got off of work (there's always last-minute things to do, it seems... although, for us it turns into last-hour things!) and drove a couple hours before using my phone to get a hotel via hotwire.com. Thursday morning we woke up, had room service for breakfast (it was surprisingly well priced at our hotel) and then got on the road.

We picked a hotel that was in Rockville, MD that was so close to the Twinbrook metro step, that it was literally just walking out the back door of the hotel and across the street. Fantastic!

After we managed to navigate the Metro quite successfully (thanks in part to my Washington, DC Moleskine), we ended up at the stop closest to one of the big Tourist Areas: the walk from the Washington Monument to Lincoln Memorial. I knew we weren't going to have enough time to do any of the museums justice, so even though I was dying to go in them, we felt this walk was the best use of our limited time (and provided a good amount of photo ops for me).



Above was our first glimpse of the monument, taken from across the street.



Above is, oddly, one of my favorite photos from the day - the Monument is just to the right of the photo (as I'm sure you can tell by the circle of flags), but I enjoy the large group of people walking to/from the monument on the slight incline.



we had stopped to turn on the GPS on my phone so that we could track exactly where we were going, and John was fiddling with it when I turned around and saw this small family, above, looking up at the monument. I was lucky enough to get the camera out and get a photo just before they turned around to walk away.



Above is pretty much the exact opposite side of the monument as the first photo, and features the tree you see on the left of the photo of the people on the hill.



I hadn't done a lot of research on what exactly was in the area we were going to. I basically just knew I wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial (and one day I hope to go at night, but it wasn't to happen on this trip), and we figured we'd walk along the reflecting pool. Anyway, I had no idea there was a fountain at the end of the reflecting pool (the side closest to the Washington Monument) with columns around it with each State name on it. I didn't want to bore John too much with my photo taking, but wanted a photo of at least one column, so I decided I'd take a photo of whichever one I saw first: Ohio, Michigan or Connecticut (for obvious reasons). I found Ohio first.



This beautiful photo above is completely unedited if that tells you something about how awesome this pathway was. This runs next to the reflecting pool, and is this breathtaking the whole way down. It was incredible walking down this path as people played frisbee and team sports on the fields to the left of us and the reflecting pool sparkled to the right. Ok, well, it didn't actually sparkle. it was pretty greenish-brown that day. I was also surprised how many people went running along this path. I've recently taken up running myself, and enjoy doing it outside, but there were SO MANY tourists walking around, and while I don't mind other runners seeing me run, I'm not sure I could handle sweating and panting my way past hoards of tourists. Meh, to each their own.



I'm pretty sure everyone who has ever visited the Lincoln Memorial has taken this photo. Mine came out ok. It was tough dealing with the really gross water that day.



A similar photo from the Memorial itself - I did take photos of the building and the statue of Lincoln inside, but didn't bother posting them because really, we all know what it looks like at this point.



I wanted to get a photo that showed tourists at the Lincoln Memorial without being a typical crowd shot. I was surprised at the number of people just sitting on the steps (which was also annoying, btw, because some of us actually wanted to walk up and down the steps), but there were a few people sitting on the top ledge, overlooking the reflecting pool. Above is one of those people.

On a side note, after doing all that walking, if you want to sit and relax at the Lincoln Memorial, there was NO ONE sitting on the sides of the structure. John and I settled down there for a few minutes and it was pretty amazing how it went from Tourist Central to Calm Spot...



...and above was our view from our relaxing location!



Above is another view from our relaxing location - looking directly up one of the columns of the Memorial.

After we finished our short Touristy Trip, we called up John's friend who lives in DC. He was meeting some friends at a local bar/restaurant to watch the Penguins game, so we got back on the Metro to go there, eat some food, have a couple drinks and then eventually make our way back to our hotel and crash for the night. We really had planned on living it up a little more in DC, but we were both pretty tired.

And that was Day One - stay tuned for Day Two which consisted of a trip to Aunt Kitty & Uncle John's house where we really got a chance to just relax and enjoy the view. Oh, and play a mean game of Ping Pong, of course.

Pre-DC

I was waiting to write this entry so until I finished editing all the photos from before we left for DC, that way I could devote the entire next entry just to that trip.

In the last entry, most of the photos were from the winter, and so I think you'll enjoy this one full of much prettier, Spring images!



Still a lot of cooking going on, though not too many new recipes have been attempted. I did make a Quinoa taco salad that was quite good and I wanted to repeat when mom and dad were in town, but sadly, just didn't have time. The above photo is of the sourdough bread I made for Easter this year, though, and it came out incredibly good - the prettiest loaf I've made yet, for sure.



When mom and dad were here, we went down into Amish Country, mostly so that I could look at furniture. I recently (I think I mentioned already?) found an amazing deal on an HDTV, and bought one for the living room, and it just doesn't look right on our current entertainment center, and with the odd shape of my living room, and the "window" to the stairs, it's hard to find anything in Big Box stores that meet my needs, so went in search of a store that could build what I want.



Sadly, the store that we always used to go to (and all my bedroom furniture is from) closed a couple years ago, but another store opened in its place, so we decided to check it out. I found pretty much exactly what I was looking for, and you can see it here. Don't judge it too much by that photo, though, because even I hate that entertainment center. First of all, picture in maple instead of oak (so no heavy grain), and in a darker coffee stain. Then, imagine an L-shape - so no hutch over the center piece, and no right piece at all. Other things I would change (but are harder to notice in the photo), is the knobs would be all wooden, and the shelves on the left tower wouldn't be at an angle (I realize you probably can't tell they're at an angle in the photo, but ... they are). I haven't ordered it yet, because I always freak out about spending money like that, but the timing really does work out well if I decide to do it - we got a bonus from work in March, plus I got a lot of money back from my taxes since I put in an energy efficient furnace last year, and then April was a Three Paycheck Month for me. So, I'm still considering it.



Work is getting busier and busier, and I'm glad that I was able to manage to get the time off to go to DC, because it's looking like the rest of my year is going to be so packed with stuff to do that taking a vacation might be more trouble than it's worth because I'd just be that much more stressed when I got back. Luckily, I like all the people I'm working with on this project... so far, at least. We have to hire another person to be on my project team, and he or she will be working directly with me on a daily basis, so I'm hoping they don't turn out to be annoying. Luckily, I play a key role in the interview process, so that should help.



I started doing the Couch to 5K running plan earlier this year (which I abbreviated C25K in the above photo). The idea is take someone from being a couch potato to running in a 5K in just 2 months. I'm halfway through the program and I'm feeling great. Admittedly, I wasn't actually a couch potato when I started, as I already walked on my treadmill at least 3 times a week, an went on photowalks each week, too. But, still - by week 4 I was really starting to feel the work-outs! I still haven't decided if I'll actually run a 5K when I'm done, but if I really feel up for it, I probably will.



They've started the construction on Frank Blvd - the road right near my house that they've forced all the traffic on to since closing off the streets in my neighborhood. Because of that, though, in order to help with traffic flow, they've opened my street back up again. It's been a few years since there's been traffic on that road and I forgot how loud it can sometimes get! I'm getting used to it again, though, and don't mind that much (though, I guess I did get a bit spoiled with not having to ever wait for cars to go by when backing out of my driveway, so now it seems like such a pain!). I haven't heard officially if they're going to close off the street once the construction is done on Frank, but I would assume they are, because I don't think they'd bother pouring all this money into the project if they didn't intend on using it as the main road again. But who knows. Akron does some pretty crazy/stupid stuff sometimes.



We've been back from DC for a week now, and in a few more weeks (for Memorial Day weekend), we're going to Grandpa's house. I'm really excited for John to go. It's hard to believe we've been together for just about 4 years and he's never been out there. I'm also looking forward to doing a photowalk at the falls!







This is one of my two cool new "toys" - my HTC Droid Eris phone. It's an android phone, which is Google's version of the iPhone - lots of apps I can download, and I get all my email on phone, too. It's fantastic! It was great to have in DC, too, we found it really helpful. My other new toy is a Barnes & Noble nook - which is like a Kindle - which is an eReader. So now I can read books electronically instead of having to read physical books. eReaders are pretty cool because they use something called electroic ink (or eInk) instead of your typical electronic device screen. They're more like really fancy etch-a-sketchs - so instead of a backlit screen that you can read in the dark, it's much more similar to real paper - in fact, I can't read my nook in the dark at all, I need to have lights on to read. This means it's really easy on your eyes. The best feature, though, is not having to actually hold a book, which means it's a lot easier to read while lying down, and read while doing other things, like tie your shoes :)

I'll take some photos of the nook eventually, so I'm sure they'll get posted in an entry coming up at some point :)

The next (and last) two photos are of a tree in my side yard - it's the one you can see out the small windows on either side of the fireplace. I love this tree.