Friday, January 3, 2014

Washington DC Girls' Trip!

I married into a family with some pretty sweet cousins.  Luckily for me, the best ones are here in Texas!  One of them lives out of state for college, or whatever...so Janene and I decided to take advantage of Steph's little family's nomad lifestyle while they stayed for their short 3 months in the Washington, D.C. area.  It was a quick trip (as all my girls' trips seem to be), but we definitely got the most of our time there!

Janene and I ready to get this party started!
 
The first day Steph showed us around to all the sweet historic/touristy attractions.  I haven't been to DC since I was in elementary school, so it was really fun for me to see them again.


First things first...Shake Shack!

 After stuffing our faces with some delicious food, we headed off to our first historic stop, the Washington Monument.  This was our view walking through the park, it was absolutely beautiful.  The leaves were just starting to change, and the weather was perfect.

 This is the World War II Memorial.  All along the sides of the memorial, it had all the different states.  Of course we had to find TEXAS!

 This is one of my favorite pictures from the entire trip, pretty much sums us up in a nutshell.  I wasn't born in Texas...but I got here as fast as I could! :) I love it here!
 As we admired the beauty of the Washington Memorial all I could think about was yelling at the top of my lungs, "JENNNNNNAAAAAAYYYYY!" Forest Gump would be proud...

This is us just on the opposite site of the Washington Memorial, looking into the Lincoln Memorial.  I had forgotten how close all the different memorials were, it was perfect for sight seeing.

 Lincoln Memorial, truly touching.

Not the best picture...but I had to get a pic between my two home states at the WWII Memorial, Illinois and Indiana!

Off to the Smithsonian Museums!

 First, we hit up the Museum of Natural History...basically it wasn't exactly what we thought it would be.  I'm not sure what we thought it was going to be, but it wasn't very appealing to us.  We snapped a few quick pics and then headed off to the next Smithsonian.





This was probably our favorite of the museums, The Smithsonian National Museum of American History.  It may have been more interesting to us because there were a lot more things that were relatable to us...or because they had Dorothy's red slippers from The Wizard of Oz?

Did I mention that Janene and Stephanie were 7 and 8 months pregant?!  Basically, they are freaking troopers.  I was worn out from all the walking, and I didn't even have a good excuse!  Janene was so cute, if we were ever just standing around for a few minutes, she would just plop down on the sidewalk or side of the road.  This mama needs her rest, it was awesome!

 The Hope Diamond...something to aspire to...

 We got to see some old school cookin' and a entire section focused on Julia Child.

 As we were walking through the museum I thought...hey that kind of looks like the Nauvoo temple.  Maybe because it WAS the Nauvoo temple!  Hey, Mormons are famous too people!

 Time to see the original Start Spangled Banner...

When someone tells me (or Sean especially) there are no pictures allowed...that's basically giving me a challenge to take the picture regardless, and doing so without getting caught.  Mission accomplished.  Please...I got pictures of The Sistine Chapel with security guards breathing down my neck, do you really think I wasn't going to get some of the original American Flag?

Unfortunately, when we came out of the museum our car wasn't where we had parked it.  It's a terrible feeling when you keep walking up and down the street thinking your car was parked there...then realizing it really WAS parked there.  It's official, Obama hates us...or the parking signs in DC are REALLY confusing and have 1.5 hour windows during the day when you're not allowed to park in certain spots.  Consequently, that 1.5 hour window was the exact time we were parked in these lame spots.  Boo.  We all decided to follow Janene's lead on this one and sit down on the sidewalk with her.  At that point, I would have said I was pregnant too!

 We had the worst time trying to get a picture of The White House.  This is the back view, apparently Obama hates us an individuals too, not just as a working class.

For some reason, the D.C. Police had blocked off the front entrance to The White House (the traditional photo).  There were all types of shenanigans going on that day.  At one point we were just walking down the street innocently, and then the next minute cops were literally screaming at us to turn around because allegedly there was a motorcade coming through.  But instead of politely asking us to turn around and walk the other way, he continued to shout at us-saying that he didn't have time to tell us why, we just needed to, "shut up and turn around".  Rude...

 At this point, we just needed some comfort food.  And what comforts better than cupcakes and 389472839 calories to boot?!  Steph took us out to Georgetown, where they had the coolest little cupcake shop.  It was called, "Baked and Wired"...whatever, it was delicious.

 It actually worked, I did feel a little bit better...

I just had to get a picture of the t shirt with a tribute to my birthday on it!  Yes, my birthday is 4.20, and no...I'm not a stoner.  It's actually a great day besides the obvious holiday of  being 'national high day'...and this was the reason my boyfriend/99% of my friends in high school wouldn't hang out with me ON my birthday.  Awesome, I know.  #mornomproblems 
It's also the anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and let's not forget who I share the birthday with...Hitler.  For the love...

 After a somewhat scary/shady walk home from Georgetown, we made it back to our car...some strange man (who may or may not have been white) carrying a brown bag with a suspicious liquid container in it yelled out to Janene, "Hey! Can I touch your belly?!" Uhhhhhhhhhhhh....
Janene, "Uh, no." Stephanie, "Oh my!" Me, "What the ********?!"  Freaking crazies...

Well, these prego beauties and I made it back to the house alive!  We had a big day ahead of us heading to the Big Apple!  NYC baby!  Steph and I had both been there recently, so we were both excited to take Janene around and show her the city.  We had a great time in Washington D.C, despite some minor setbacks.  I loved seeing all the sites, I could have stayed there for days!  Thanks for being a great host Steph and taking us around.  NYC is next!

No comments: