D.C. Girls Trip

Ah, this time a week ago Jeran and I were waiting in line for our famous D.C. (Georgetown) Cupcakes - and they were sooo worth it. SO, worth it that we went back the next day for more, to eat in the airport as a final hoorah! I can't believe it's been a week already - the trip was packed, but went by so quickly, as trips do, but the almost-week since seems to have gone by even faster and yet made the trip feel like it was ages ago.

It was an amazing trip, one I truly think every American should take. It was a trip full of jaw-dropping sights, emotional experiences, crazy delicious food, and fun people! I gotta thank the best mother-in-law ever for bringing me along to experience such incredibleness (and my sister-in-law for talking her into bringing me, and my sister-in-law's mom for having the idea in the first place!) I have a LOT of pictures... I think in the neighborhood of 500, so this is going to be interesting to see how many I end up with in this blog post. I'll try not to overwhelm you, but man, the sights were spectacular, so can you blame me?! (Update: The correct answer was "too many" so I'm going to break up the post into 3 parts...)

Thursday...
We basically just traveled all day, didn't get to see anything - but it was still quite the day! My students took their big end-of-year state test in the morning, then I swapped with the sub at lunch, ran home and finished my packing. Linda came and got me and we were off to the airport, well about 5 minutes before we got there, a chill ran over my body when I realized I had left every.last.card from my wallet on the copier at home. I thought I was being so smart in making copies of all of them in case something were to happen... HA! Oh dear - and because in Boise you don't have to be there so early, like 50 minutes before your flight is perfectly acceptable, there was no time to turn out and go back for it. I called my mom and the poor lady sped like crazy down the freeway and literally got them to me just in time for me to run to my flight. It was quite the crazy start to our trip. We were pretty relieved to get buckled in!

happy we-actually-made-it faces!

Friday...
Getting around the city is best accomplished by using the Metro, it was my first ever subway experience, thankfully I didn't have to figure it out myself - Jeran and Jacqueline had already done all the work ahead of time! My only fear was that I would fall down the ridiculously long escalators to my death... for real... I was seriously nervous.

The day started out with a scheduled visit to the Capitol, via our Idaho Representative... via his aide (my dentist's son)... via his L.A. (I don't remember what that stands for... but I definitely remember the term). We didn't get to see much inside the Capitol, really I think we were in there for 5-10 minutes and that was it, the Rotunda was closed for repairs - major bummer, but still very cool to be inside our nation's capitol building.

NNU representin' in the Capitol!

The Great Seal of Idaho - the 4th grade
teacher in me can tell you all about it.

the girls on the girl's trip

old senate meeting room

in the crypt (where no one is actually buried)
Iron Man's predecessor?

Afterwards we wandered around the Eastern Market district to find some lunch, where we also found dessert - oh my gosh, this whole district was so cool - I wish we would have had time to go back. Then on to the Smithsonian Natural History museum, where I'm certain we could've spent our entire trip and mayyybe seen it all - it was fascinating!

the Hope diamond

dinosaur pics for Liam

Next up was the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, this was definitely my favorite of the Smithsonian's that we saw. The Apollo 11 aircraft was pretty mind blowing to see. 

Amelia Earhart's plane - took this one for my students, we studied her earlier this year

Our dinner spot was a recommendation, back at Eastern Market, it was a long walk through a sudden drenching downpour - but it was SO seriously delicious, no one had a single complaint, it was perfection. 

I have many food pictures, I'll try to limit them... this meal at Rose's Luxury was probably my favorite of the trip

With the rain still sort of drizzling we decided to see the mall at Pentagon City for something to see/do out of the rain - plus, we're girls, we had to find a shopping mall at some point. Day One was just the tip of the iceberg... more to come!
Highlight of the day: Taking it all in as a first-timer and our fancy, amazingly delicious, well-deserved dinner out.
If you want to see some of Jeran's pictures from our trip - click here!