Planning for this three-day weekend was difficult! We wanted to spend the weekend with Averi and the kids, but the weather called for rain all day every day. We didn't think it would be wise to sit in holiday traffic to be stuck inside due to rain the whole weekend (even though I think every moment with Bear and Kalee is fun!).
We waited for rain all night Friday and it never happened! We woke up to gorgeous day Saturday, so I went for a bike ride. Ryan still doesn't have a bike, sadly, so I went out alone. I rode along Arlington Blvd and the WO&D Trail. I stopped in Shirlington for some lunch, then headed out on the Four Mile Run and then home on the Mt Vernon Trail. I had to stop on the Mt Vernon Trail for a little snack break and enjoy the gorgeous view. The areas that many of our trails go through are so lush and green. Riding through them is pure pleasure. Here's a little video of what I saw:
The water from the Potomac lapped at my feet as I watched the boats cross in front of all of DC's major monuments while military veterans on Harley Davidson motor cyles buzzed all around me. It was a beautiful moment.Today, we enjoyed another day of sunshine (the weather people were so wrong!). Well, I would like to say enjoyed... we were not as prepared for our hike as we should have been! We drove out to Great Falls in Maryland to hike the Billy Goat Trail. On our walk to the BG Trail, we stopped at the Great Falls overlook to see the Potomac River's gorgeous waterfalls. Who knew this was in our backyard the two years we lived in Maryland?!
A lot have people have recommended the Billy Goat Trail, so I didn't think it would be difficult. This picture is not of us, nor did we take it, but we did climb this same rock! It was the steepest of many scrambles! Ryan actually had to push me up over one rock!
I think we were only an hour into the hike when we both began thinking, "are we done yet?" We couldn't deny how gorgeous it was, but climbing those hills and rocks, up and down, up and down, was exhausting! The length of this trail was 1.7 miles. The overlook trail was .4 miles in and back and the towpath from the end of the BG trail back to the tavern was 1.1 miles.
In total, we hiked over 3.6 miles in 3 hours! We are going to be sooooo sore tomorrow!
By the way, this is our "before" picture... there was no way we were taking an "after"!
We didn't have too eventful of a week. Last Sunday, "Lost" ended... holy moly! We were dedicated followers from season one and were pretty satisfied with the series finale. My softball team lost again... I think it's our 5th loss in a row! Nevertheless, we probably have the most spirit of any team in our league and we always have fun! We wore our Tree Slugger shirts and really looked like a team! I got to see "Sex and the City 2" with some of my new friends and it was as fabulous and cheesy as I expected it would be. It was so nice to see it with such fun girls!
The highlight of the week was definitely today. Following a morning walk to the farmer's market and Whole Foods, we headed to the Pentagon City Mall and I bought Ryan's wedding ring! We checked out a few different places and at our last stop, found the perfect ring in the perfect size! I cannot wait to place it on his finger during our wedding ceremony!
Only 13 weeks left until our wedding! Time is just flying by! There is so much to look forward too this summer, we know it will continue to fly on by! In two weeks, we may take a trip up to New York for Ryan's grandma's birthday; in four weeks, Ryan may go camping while our apartment is taken over by all of my east coast girls; in eight weeks, I'll be flying out to California for my bridal shower and bachelorette party; in ten weeks, Ryan will be in Vegas for his bachelor party; and then, in thirteen weeks, we'll be married!!
Yesterday was, all at once, a glorious day and a gluttonous day! My colleagues and I spent our lunch "hour" (more like nearly 2 hours, but who's counting on a Friday), enjoying the Taste of 12 at the Verizon Center. This is an annual event hosted by the DC Lottery to benefit the Capital Area Food Bank which is hoping to provide over a million meals to those in need this year. We were feasting for a good cause which makes it ok to splurge! Over 40 DC restaurants participated and, for only $12 each, we enjoyed hefty samples from 6 restaurants of our choice. My gourmet meal consisted of ahi tuna tartare with avocado and house baked chips; lobster ceviche; crab and tomato bruschetta; a pork belly blt; a toastette with grilled onions, goat cheese, and walnuts; sweet bbq chicken wings; a mini sweet potato pie; chocolate mousse on a chocolate crisp; a sweet tea float with sorbet and pomegranate sauce; a chocolate tartlette with berries; and, blackberries and cream. Every single bite was exquisite!
Despite lunch being enough food for a week we followed through with our pre-set plans for a dinner party Friday night! Yes, more food! And what was the theme for this dinner party? Friday FRYDAY! Our friends, Danielle and Stephen, helped us move two months ago and, during our move, learned we had a deep fryer (thanks again Sue for the gift which only brings joy!) and promptly decided we needed to get together and fry something. This idea floated in my dinner-party-loving brain for a couple of weeks until I realized the perfect time to have a dinner party during which the majority of the meal would be fried. What better time than the week of my birthday and the day before we helped them move? They would be out of food in their apartment and we'd all have the opportunity to burn off at least 2% of the calories. While enjoying good conversation and a lively game of scattergories, we devoured homemade Italian chicken strips (baked!) with marinara and honey mustard; tempura onions, zucchini, sweet potatoes, and broccoli with homemade ranch dip; deep fried homemade biscuits with homemade honey butter; homemade mozzarella sticks (best I ever had!); coconut shrimp with mango chutney; and, for dessert, fried Newman-Os (oreos) with powdered sugar, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate syrup!
WOOOOWW!!
With the wedding only 14 weeks away... I'm going to be hitting the gym twice as hard this week!! But it will be so worth it! Friday was truly a delicious day!
While we don't expect any gifts and certainly aren't asking for anything, if you choose to purchase a gift, please remember our wedding will be on the west coast but we live on the east coast and may not be able to ship gifts easily across the country. The greatest gift you can give is to be present on our special day and hang out with us at our beach house throughout the following week!
If you really want to buy a gift, we have registered at:
Pottery Barn (Be sure to put "VA" for the state or you won't find our list!)
Target
Bed, Bath, and Beyond
This time last year, I argued that 27 still counted as mid-twenties and sadly that year has come to an end. Where does the time go?! Tomorrow I turn 28 and will officially be in my late 20s. Yuck. What a year it has been though! So full of highs and lows! A year ago, I was at the end of the school year at my previous job and in the middle of the most stressful time of my personal life. Fighting to keep my own job in a horrible economy caused me to develop my first permanent wrinkles (two on my forehead! dang!) and caused more anguish than anything else I have ever experienced. Topping it off with actually losing that job and then being unemployed for six months made me really depressed. I didn't know what I was doing on this coast where I spent half of the time we'd been here struggling at finding permanent full-time work and the only friends I had made ended up being the same people who chose to hire someone else over me. Things finally started to turn around in December when we became engaged! Finally, I had something to look forward to and my whole demeanor changed. We started making plans and in January it looked like I just might get a job. In February, I finally got one! This job at Pew is the first full-time job I have ever had where I started as a full-time permanent employee! I even got a pretty good tax return which allowed me to pay off a good amount of the debt I accumulated while being in and out of work. I guess I got off to a pretty late start at this grown-up thing, but it's kind of nice to be here now. My job has also helped me find some very sweet friends who I love to have lunch with and hang out with after work and on the weekends. I play softball once a week in a "green league" with my colleagues as well. We always have something to look forward to! Yesterday, I bought a ticket to see "Sex and the City 2" with my new friend Jocelyn and I told her I was really happy to have someone to go with because when the first one came out, we had only been in DC a few months and I didn't have a job and I didn't have friends so I went to see it alone during the day. It was really sad not to have someone to laugh with. Now I can't wait to see it with new friends after sipping a couple of cosmos, just as SATC should be enjoyed! So, tomorrow I turn 28. I have lovely new friends, a good job, a fantastic apartment, and we're getting married in 14 1/2 weeks! I think my late twenties is definitely off to a good start. 28 will be great!
Only three and half months to go until Ryan and I tie the knot! Time is just flying by!! We started sending invites earlier this week which is a little earlier than etiquette dictates, but we didn't send save-the-dates and we wanted to give far-away family and friends time to travel. I'm also making them all by hand! That takes time as well and, as you can see by reading previous posts, I'm a busy lady! Wow, three and a half months to go and so much to do... but I'm loving every minute!
The last two weekends have been so much fun! Last weekend, our favorite crunchy granola homeschooling family came to visit! We love getting to spend time with the Pinos! They arrived on Friday and did some sightseeing before we were able to meet them after work for dinner on the hill. After dinner, we took a nice loooooong walk from the mall to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, and the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. They all look spectacular at night and it was a gorgeous night to be outside. The next day we enjoyed another gorgeous day on the mall. The kids got to ride the carousel, we admired the beautiful masks and symbols at the African Art museum, and learned all about the history of the US at the American History Museum. As always, we had a fabulous time and I delighted in the ability to help teach the kids at every opportunity. I can't wait until we get to be parents!
This weekend was one of DC's cultural highlights of the year in my opinion: the European Union Embassy Open House! Ryan didn't have the best time standing in all of the lines last year, so this year I went with my friend Ashley. A few weeks ago, Ashley and I went to the Climate Rally together and had an amazing time, so I knew we'd have fun together at the embassies because she's a geek like me and not afraid to show it! Our first stop was Spain which was pretty disappointing. They advertised tapas, traditional beverages, and a photo exhibit, yet the served us store bought Parisian cookies, Tropicana orange juice, and all of their informational tables were immediately in front of the photos and everyone was standing up to block them. Lame! The next stop was Germany and I knew it would not disappoint. Ryan and I loved it last year and Ashley and I surely loved it this year! Germany, efficient as imaginable, took advantage of every available space in and around their embassy and left every person who walked through eager to visit Germany. We got loads of information about the various regions of Germany, listened to folk music, pop music, and some traditional horns, and received tons of giveaways and samples of delectable chocolate, cookies, soups (including my favorite chilled cherry soup), deli meats, wine, etc. I even picked up some coloring books for the Pino kids. By that time, things were pretty crowded at quite a few of the embassies so we skipped Ireland, Portugal, and Greece (all of which we really wanted to see), and walked up to Italy for some awesome fried risotto balls, cannoli, and tiramisu. Our last embassy for the day was the United Kingdom, where they had a band playing outside, some authentic WWII vehicles on display alongside men in period costume, and lots of giveaways from England, Ireland, and Scotland. We tried to get to the Danish embassy because they were giving away a bike and a big container of legos, but we were 5 minutes too late! Our cultural excursion didn't end there! We stopped at a bazaar at a mosque on the way back down to Dupont and ate falafel and hummus- yum! Then, we saw the movie I've been looking forward to for months: "Babies"!!! I highly recommend it! It was hilarious and heartwarming! I could totally see it again!
What a day! I love how much there us to do here in the summer!!
Last weekend I got to experience a fantastic, practically free, day with my new friends from work, Ashley and Aurelie. As you hopefully know, Earth Day was just a week and a half ago and it was actually the 40th anniversary of the celebration. Earth Day is a big deal in DC, obviously, because this is where we make the policies that affect the USA's use (and overuse) of our earth's resources.
Ashley and Aurelie are both super sweet marine nerds who absolutely relish in the opportunity to save our earth and especially our oceans and you all know how much I love to learn about practically anything, so we filled our day with brainy activities. We met at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum to check out the deep ocean exhibit and view the amazing photography from their annual photo contest. The photos and the exhibit were both visually stunning and Ashley and Aurelie filled my head with marine knowledge in the deep oceans exhibit. We also took a stroll through the mammal hall and early American exhibit before heading out onto the National Mall to browse through the environment booths. We saw some wonderful new ideas like watches made from bamboo and got some great giveaways like a frisbee, panda power temporary tattoos, and condoms from a group talking about the explosive population growth's devastating effects on the environment. One of their slogans was "cover your tweedle, save the American beetle" or something to that effect.
After going through half of the booths, we were starving, so we went to lunch at my favorite place to eat on the mall: the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian. As always, it was delicious and full of great options for our veggie-lovin' pallets. Where else can you get fiddle head salad, blue corn cornbread, and three sisters soup?!
Things got really nerdy after lunch... The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had an exhibition tent with dozens of presentations by grad students and green groups from all over the country. They demonstrated their ideas and experiments designed to improve everything from removing contaminates from local streams to monitoring the efficiency of your electrical appliances to erecting schoolhouses in rural areas made completely of recycled and renewable materials. It was really fun because we had some great dialogue with a few of the exhibitors, engaging them in curious conversation as well as presenting our critique.
By 4:30, our brains were exhausted so it was time to let loose with a little fun and the absolute highlight of the day: a free concert! We arrived just in time for the best bands and speakers! We heard little talks from James Cameron, Jesse Jackson, and the founder of Earth Day, and managed to squeeze in mere feet from The Roots, Joss Stone, John Legend, and Sting! It was amazing!
Here are a few pics from the day.
Joss Stone and The Roots
James Cameron
John Legend and The Roots
This could very well be our future... use reusable bags people!
Celebrating our beautiful earth!
Sting!
Ashley and Aurelie's panda power!
Aurelie and me.
Oh yeah! One more thing!! Only 17 more weeks until the 7 year hitch!
