This past weekend Jason and I traveled to the Washington D.C. for the first time. Not just together, neither one of us had been to DC before. People at work call my a world traveler, being Ive driven across the country a few times and been to handful of countries. Im a stranger to most of the east coast though. Jason, well, he has no excuse really. Our drive up was really quite nice, its always nice to start off with a nice road trip to an action packed weekend. Being that neither of us had been to D.C. before, we wanted to be tourists all weekend. Our wonderful hosts really let us indulged us in that. After a great meal at Chilpote (their current favorite places to eat and quickly becoming mine) we headed for downtown D.C. Best part of being a tourist is being show around by a local. I highly recommend seeing the monuments at night. Not only is it much cooler but the small number of people who are around is what makes it worth it. I cant even think of those places during the day. Actually, I can, we drove by them on the way home and man that is a crazy amount of people! We drove past everything and anything you could think of in downtown D.C. then headed over to Georgetown. Theres a city that never sleeps, well the mail stretch. That street had every store you could think of. H&M especially catch my eye and we put it down on the list for us to visit the next day. Our night tour ended with Graham showing us the Exorcists stairs. Where the pope falls down the stairs? I haven’t seen the movie so I didn’t make the connection, but fun none the less.

Saturday we slept in from our late night of walking around and had pancakes. I cant remember the last time I had pancakes, and it was so over due. We headed for American History Museum, which we sadly learned was closed till 2008 for renovations! I was so sad becasue it was the one places I really wanted to see while in D.C. (besides the monuments). Our second choice was the Air and Space Museum. As we walked across, literally to the otherside of the mall, we kept seeing signs for Dorothy’s shoes from the Wizard of Oz. I dont know if it was just the heat, but I never took the time to read the sign, I just thought they were taunting us that the museum that had Dorothy’s shoes were closed. Thats when Jason told me Dorothy’s shoes are on display at the Air and Space Museum! I got very excited because, next to Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz is a movie I watched all the time growing up (the third would be Annie). We went to the Air and Space Museum, got some expensive lunch from McDonalds and hit up the planes. And more planes. I guess Im not a plane person becasue it all sorta blended together for me. Though it was neat to see the Wright Brother’s airplane (I am afterall living in NC now). Then, THEN we headed over to Dorothy’s shoes. Not only where Dorothy’s shoes there, but 150 of the top pieces from the American History Museum! The wound that I had felt earlier in the day of them closing the American History Museum was a little bit healed by that. By far, that room was all of our favorite part of the Air and Space Museum (tee hee). The many things we saw… Abe Lincoln’s hat, the first light bulb, the sit in chairs, Mr Rogers sweater, Julia Child’s hand written recipes, George Washington’s uniform, R2D2 and C3P0 to name a few. Oh and Dorothy’s shoes is a lot bigger than I thought. I always thought they’d be small.

Sweaty, and a bit tired we headed to Georgetown becasue that was the plan. I think, looking back we all had enough at that point, Nicole and I poked around H&M a bit but didnt want to wait in line for a dressing room or to check out so we headed to Ben and Jerrys. That is a pricey place to get ice cream as it is, but apparently since we are in Georgetown, they can charge more. We decided calling it a day and getting groceries to cook out with sounded like a great idea. While at the store we rented a DVD from the redbox – The Breech I believe it was called. Its based on a true story that took place in 2001 about a guy who worked for the FBI and spied on his boss who was sneaking government secrets. Perfect movie to watch after a few days in D.C. Jason brought the projector from work down, which was a lot of fun to use.

Sunday morning the boys went to church to do soundcheck while Nicole and I went to Starbucks for some breakfast before church. Always fine it interesting how different Starbucks are around the country. This one was a two story one and had breakfast sandwiches. Been wanting to try them for a while, and man those are good. I dont even want to think about the amount of calories in them, but they will be dangerous when they do hit the stores here. Graham and Nicole’s church was really sweet. Mostly I loved the worship. With my new church not even starting yet, worship has been Jason and his guitar. While thats nice and all, I dont think Ive had a worship experience like I did on Sunday since probably college group. Theres just something about a band who knows what they’re doing but not trying to get attention that makes worship easy to slip into. Hard to say I haven’t been apart of such a worship service in such a long time. Thats probably a whole other post. After church we had leftovers with Graham’s parents and the packed up and headed home, via IKEA. We said we wouldnt spend hours in there, but we did. It was good time though since the last times Jason and I went to IKEA together was in San Diego and we didnt really want to drag things across the country with us. Jace got some things he’d been eyeing for a while and I got some fun things along with useful kitchen stuff. That place is crazy but oh so wonderful. They have this non-fat yogurt Jason cant stop talking about – which when you think about it, says a lot about the yogurt.

As busy as it was, it was a really good weekend. Fun people in a fun city. Being it isnt a far drive away, Jason and I already planning our next trip back in a few months (this time maybe write our congressman about getting us inside of the White House). Its one of the cheapest vacations I think we can take. We have very giving friends who said we can stay with them whenever we want and everything up there is free. That is my kind of trip! Photos will follow soon, we shot in RAW this weekend. While the photos are really crisp and full of color, they are not flickr friendly so after they are converted they will be up to see!