dc

We had so much fun on our trip! WARNING: This may be a very long post, so be prepared.

Our flight on Wednesday was so nice. It was a direct flight to the Washington Reagan Airport. This felt like heaven after our last flying experience in December! The flight was 4 hours long but it flew by because we played the in-flight trivia game against the other passengers the whole time! For those who don't know what this is... on the seat in front of you, there is a touch screen that you play the game on and it's interactive with anyone on the plane who wants to play the game. We pretty much dominated the game until some smarty pants decided to play :) It was snowing in DC when we landed, but not enough to delay our landing. We took the shuttle to the hotel in Crystal City, VA and relaxed for a bit and then crossed the street and ate dinner at Chili's. We watched American Idol in our room and then went to bed.

Thursday was Day 1 of the seminar for me, and Day 1 of lounging around and sleeping for Sean. He has been sick and he was finally able to get some good resting in. The seminar went well and it was a really fun group of people that attended. After the seminar, Sean and I walked around Crystal City and made sure we knew how to get to the Metro. Because we couldn't find anything else to eat... we ended up eating at Chili's again {not our favorite, but whatever}. We were exhausted from the long day {being lazy can really wear you out}, so we went back to the room, watched some tv & went to bed.

I got up early on Friday because the seminar started at 8 instead of 9. Day 2 of the seminar was also very good. I always really enjoy it when Chris facilitates. He tells the most amazing stories. We ended early (4pm) so Sean and I headed out into the city. We took the Metro {hooray!} and got off at the Smithsonian. I really wanted to see the monuments at night, so we headed straight for Washington monument and then walked over to Lincoln memorial. It was raining, unfortunately, and we got excited to see everything and left the dang umbrella on the metro. So we got very wet and cold {and a tad big cranky} but the monuments were so beautiful at night and I'm glad that we ventured out in the rain. After I took a sufficent amount of pictures {Sean LOVES it when I take tons of pictures} we got back on the Metro and headed to Union Station. We walked around and looked at the shops for a while and then decided on a restaurant called "America" for dinner. We concluded after this meal that "America" sucks. The food was not so good and over priced. I did like the hush puppies though. Yummmm. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. We rented Enchanted on our TV and went to bed. I had forgotten how much I liked that show! It's so funny!

Saturday we slept in a bit, ate a yummy breakfast at the hotel & headed out to the city again! We stopped at the Museum of Natural History first. We didn't look around there much last time because it was so dang crowded. We got tickets to see "Sea Monsters" at the IMAX for later and then walked over to the Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art. I enjoyed it... Sean didn't. We went through a new exhibit called "Dreams" which was a series of cinematic shorts by a number of different artists. I would have called the exhibit "Nightmares". It was seriously pretty bizarre and creepy. After we had our fill of modern art, we went back to the Natural History museum to watch the movie about sea monsters. It was actually about prehistoric sea reptiles and it was super fun. We were too cold on Friday night to stop by the WWII Memorial, so we went there next. This is a relatively new memorial (finished in 2004) and it is really amazing. We were disappointed that the fountains weren't on though :( After this, we walked back to the Archives building and saw a lot of amazing buildings on our way. I LOVE all of the buildings {and I took way too many pictures of them}. We HAD to go back to the Manhattan Deli for old times sake and eat a slice of pizza. This is the restaurant we ate at every day {sometimes mulitiple times a day} last time we were in DC. We also needed to pose with the statue at the Navy memorial :) By then we were pooped, and decided to get on the Metro and go back to the hotel. After resting up a bit, we got BACK on the Metro and rode to Pentagon City. There is a big shopping mall there. We were hoping to catch a movie, but soon found out that the theater had been turned into a Forever 21. After we had some ice cream, we headed back to the hotel, EXHAUSTED.

Sunday morning we relaxed in the hotel room and then forced ourselves to re-pack. Why is it that our hotel rooms are always a huge disaster by the last day? I mean really... we keep our house clean... it's just sad that we can't do the same with our hotel rooms! And while I'm asking rhetorical questions... Why is it that I can never seem to make everything fit in my suitcase when I pack to go home?? We didn't even buy any suveniers. Ok... we did buy sweatshirts. We checked out and then ate at Charlie Chiang's for lunch. We wanted to go visit the newly opened Lincoln Cottage {it opened on President's Day after a 7 year, 15 million dollar restoration}, but all of the tours were booked. So we ended up hanging around the airport for a few hours waiting for our flight. The flight home was fun {more in-flight trivia} and not crowded so we had room to spread out. And then home again, home again! It's nice to be back. I"m excited to sleep in my own bed tonight :)