iphone does - birthday, brunch & burgers

*waves* Me again. With pictures from last weekend's fun with friends!

^^ Our Coulomb besties showed up to celebrate Andrew's birthday weekend. Jared had to work a bit on Sunday, so the three of us filled our time with a bottomless Mexican brunch on 14th St. It was somehow my first DC brunch, & mannnn, it did not disappoint. We missed Jared so, but now I have an excellent excuse to return.

^^ Super Bowl Sunday = The only Sunday Jared & I kick back with canned beer & watch football. It's becoming a tradition to spend it with the Coulombs, which works out REALLY well for us, since Amelia always makes her famous Buffalo Chicken Dip. (**side note: If you're wondering if all we do when we're with Amelia & Andrew is eat... Well, you're not wrong.)

^^ Birthday rice krispy! ^^

^^ The next morning, after we successfully started the Coulombs addiction to House of Cards (like all good friends would), we balanced out all the delicious food we consumed with a nice long walk to the National Portrait Gallery. 

^^ Snow, cold, rain... I can handle all of it. But wind? OMG I HATE WIND. It was truly in rare form when we came out of the museum. The kind of wind that leaves you feeling like you just got beat up. The. Worst. ^^

^^ But the promise of Shake Shack burgers & fries kept smiles on everyone's face ^^

^^ See? I'm smiling right now just at the memory. YUM. ^^

Always such good times with these wonderful friends.

a day at the museum

We had our annual family meeting two Mondays ago, just reviewing where we are, where we want to be & what we'd like to get out of 2015. One of our goals was to take advantage of some of what DC has to offer us while we're here. Because truly, it has a lot to offer.

So! In an attempt to keep ourselves active during these winter months AND get to know this fair city of neverending entertainment, we finally got ourselves to a museum on our day off last week. Our day at the National Museum of Natural History was hopefully the first of many educational days spent at my favorite fella's side. We set off in the cold on a very grey day & headed downtown to get our Smithsonian on.

^^ Growing up so close to DC & now in living here, it's easy to forget how much history, architecture & international attraction is right here. But after visiting Paris & London, it was easier to appreciate playing tourist in our own city. ^^

^^ We've pretty much spent our entire relationship being on the go, so we know how to treasure our free moments together. How I love this man. ^^

^^ I still take a short little gasp everytime I see a monument. As much as we want to "fit in," I hope the magic of this place is never lost on me. ^^

^^ Always on the hunt for new, local restaurants, we popped in at The White Apron for lunch. It was ooookay. ^^

^^ Right after I said, "Museums will be more fun when we have kiddos running around," Jared took off towards the giant whale hanging on the ceiling. ^^

^^ The closest I, alongside two teenagers, got to getting a photo of Nemo, Marlin & Dory. Embarrasing. ^^

^^ Will always find a bear, if there is a bear to be found. ^^

^^ The driving force behind Jared's choice of museum. ^^

^^ & then there were the Gems & Minerals, in which I ran from display to display proclaiming my favorites, like I did when I was 8. ^^

^^ ALL THE COLORS. My personal heaven. ^^

^^ Just a giant diamond, that's all. ^^

^^ A solid family photo outside the Bollywood exhibition. ^^

Tomorrow is our second day off together since we resolved to make the most of our free days, but we're once again being met by gross weather... The outskirts of the dreadful storm heading towards NYC. We'll see how much we accomplish when there's slush & cold rain falling outside. Netflix is going to be aaaaawfullyyyyy appealing.

richmond's bacon festival

 

When my huge event at work this past Friday was postponed due to the predicted tropical-storm-that-wasn't, I took that as my opportunity to end a nine day work streak early. Friday started with sleeping in a little, cleaning a lot & Jared's car battery dying. Off we went to the auto part store to retrieve a new battery for him. It was as we got back in the car to leave that MY car's battery decided to die. It's in those moments that you just have to choose to laugh instead of cry. Like, hysterical, ugly cry. So, we laughed-instead-of-cried ourselves away from the auto part store, knowing that we at least had a mini vacation planned for the next day. It had been a little while since we'd had an entire weekend away from work, & there was plenty to look forward to.

We were already 100% in for a quick weekend trip to Richmond as soon as Amelia mentioned the inaugural Bacon Festival taking place on Sunday. But when we got the texts confirming that Amelia & Andrew had found the puppy of their dreams on Saturday AM, we went a little nutso. I think we chanted "PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY" for a solid 2 minutes when we got in the car. Little Miss Maisie (who is a mix of chow + adorable) stole our hearts right away. It was so fun to see their little family of three (because you can't forget Raja, the only cat I'll ever love) grow to a family of four over the weekend.

But back to bacon. We traipsed down to the 17th Street Farmer's Market & were not disappointed by the parade of bacon that greeted us. The local restaurants and food vendors pulled out all the stops with everything from Bacon Pierogi Nachos to Pork Belly Avocado to Maple Bacon Pops. Bacon was being sold on sticks, in cupcakes, blended into drinks, on pies, wrapped around veggies... It was pretty astounding. Things got busy fast so the camera got put away as bacon treats filled our hands. Sorry/Not sorry. 

Maisie was such a trooper, & almost a bigger hit than the bacon. We had to take a puppy nap break & people were going out of their way to bring her everything from ice to puppy pops. Yep, puppy pops. I imagine that she'll have grown so much the next time we see her that we'll already be looking back to these pictures saying, "OMG, her head fit in your hand!"

We went home & finished the day by putting their new fire pit to good use. Amelia dreamed up some Caramel + Bacon S'mores, & I will just never settle for anything less than that for the rest of my life. Gourmet camping trips from here on out. (Grahams, caramel sauce, mallows & bacon. Milk chocolate optional. Dark chocolate tested & not recommended.)

It was back to work today (which started my third-to-last-week in the office - EEK), but we have wonderful memories of bacon & puppies to get us through to the weekend. Seriously. Bacon. And puppies. Best weekend EVERRRRR.

p.s. May have started watching Game of Thrones. So far, we're mostly just freaked out. Will report back.

a windy little picnic

This is one of those things that I imagine I'll look back on a year from now & sort of *facepalm* that I actually deemed it internet-worthy... Between the shakiness & the dirt the lens acquired on the walk to the park from our apartment, it's a little lackluster. But it's still a little memory of a picnic & heel-clicks in the park on a pretty, spring day in May. Plus, I could listen to this song over & over & over again. It would almost certainly be on the soundtrack if my life were a movie.

We've been having to make the most of our "weekends" since it usually ends up that I work at least half of Sundays & Jared half of Mondays. Yesterday, that meant sleeping in, overlooking typical Monday chores & taking a walk to the park. I'm getting the want-a-vacation itch, so every little thing that involves me + Jared + not being in our apartment/at work helps. I may have closed my eyes for a minute & pretended we were on holiday in San Francisco or Barcelona. Heightened levels of the vacation sads, folks.

But it's okay! Because, heel-clicks! Right? 

a day in d.c.

This is perhaps the saddest gathering of photos to ever attempt to represent a day-cation. EVER. It's true - I left our camera in the suitcase while we wandered around our nation's beautiful capitol, & the only thing making me feel better about that? The cherry blossoms hadn't bloomed yet. In fact, they bloomed the day after we left. Sooo...

Lack of cherry blossoms aside, it was a really perfect 24 hours of D.C. & my man, all to myself. I had given him tickets to see Noah Gundersen (one of his very favorites) at Jammin' Java in Vienna, so we made a little trip of it. We drove up on Easter Sunday & spent the night in the city... But not before listening to a seriously impressive amount of Broadway musicals while sitting in traffic on the way there.

Monday morning left us plenty of time for exploring the city, which I hadn't really spent much time in since I left George Mason & moved back home five years ago. But OH, how we love that place! It was so wonderful to be back. Except I never want to leave.

 ^ There's also like, zero pictures of Jared. But it's because I was too busy staring into his eyes. Seriously.  ^

 

 

 ^ We spent the morning wandering a meager 40 something blocks to Georgetown 

& had brunch at Baked & Wired ^

 ^ & of course, had to stop in at Anthropologie, 

right after tracking down the restaurant we ate at the night we got engaged. ^

 

 ^ Obligatory stop at Sprinkles. Le duh. ^

 ^ & then we took these pictures from the car, as we realized on the way to take pictures of the cherry blossoms at the Washington Monument that there was 1. not a cherry blossom in sight & 2. a LOT of spring break traffic. ONWARD, HO! ^

 ^ We got to stop by Manassas & caught up with Amelia, Andrew & Logan. But it's sort of not a trip to Northern VA without a stop to Tony's Pizza, a college favorite. (Favorite is an understatement.) ^

^ I mean, seriously. So. Freaking. Good. IT HAD BEEN TOO LONG, MY PINEAPPLED FRIEND. ^

 ^ & then we all spent the evening listening to the sweet music of Denison Whitmer & Noah Gundersen. ^

It was a seriously exhausting, seriously wonderful day. You can't beat uninterrupted time with the man you love in the city where you fell in love. Add in some sweet friends, bangin' pizza & perfect tunes? Let's go back. Seriously, let's go back. We kinda want to stay there forever. Maaaaybe a little more than kinda.

We love ya, DC.