Baby Moon

It's been quite awhile since I was able to post a good update.  Life has been busy of late-in both good and bad ways.  But with my job wrapping up before  the holidays, I finally have some time to document all we've been doing over these last few months.  

Rich and I planned a last hoorah baby moon before we welcome little girl.  My first choice was naturally the Caribbean but unfortunately Zika was a huge threat to pregnancies in 2016.  I was really disappointed we couldn't go on a cruise as we so enjoyed for our honeymoon.  Naturally we turned to another place we've come to love: The North Carolina mountains.  Last year we took a great friends trip to the mountains, and we love celebrating our totally made up holiday of "fall fest", so it was the perfect occasion to escape coastal Virginia life and head to the NC mountains.

We looked into a few options for our trip in terms of lodging. While we loved the B and B's in the mountains, we wanted a way to bring our first daughters with us on our trip, a place that was private, and a way we could do our own cooking.  We got lucky by finding a cabin through VRBO that fit all our needs and was comparable to the hotels and B and B's we had looked into.  It had a ton of space but still was worth the price for what we could get with it.  We are located between Boone and Blowing Rock, and found the drive between those two cities to be perfect.  Located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway it was easy to navigate. 

 Sophie and Ellie both LOVED the mountains.  We were so glad we decided to bring them.  It was very clear they enjoyed the mountain crisp air. 

 The house had an amazing porch.  We spent most nights and some mornings out here taking in the sights and smells.  Sophie and Ellie always joined us of course. 

 We spent time visiting the actual Blowing Rock, as well as Grandmother Mountain Winery (Rich got to drink and I had to watch!)

It was a great trip with only one incident of trouble-we did manage to lock ourselves out of the house (the dogs were with us) and had to call a locksmith.  We got lucky to reach someone before they closed up shop!

NC Outer Banks Day Trip

I can't believe it is already the middle to end of August.  In so many ways I am excited for summer to be over, anticipating fall and all the great weather, football, and fun holidays.  At the same time, for so many years (31 prior in fact) my favorite season of the year has been summer.  This year, I just have not been a summer girl.  

It may be due to mosquito-zika season, or the incredibly hot summer it has felt like in VA, or my general displeasure with VA area beaches, but fall in calling my name loud and clear!

We didn't want summer to escape us without some sort of day trip to the Outer Banks. It's been nearly 15 years since I was there and Rich had never been. 

 We woke up one Sunday morning and map quested how close the main attractions we were interested in were from our house.  Surprisingly we could get there in less than two hours.  We packed up the car (left the dogs at home) and hit the road:

 I was really pleased with how pretty the outer banks beaches were.  On this day, the water was almost tropical blue (though its hard to tell in this photo).  There were shells EVERYWHERE!  It was a hot day so we didn't walk too far and we didn't take our bathing suits because this was more of an exploratory trip.

 You can't be married to an Air Force man without visiting the birthplace of aviation!  I had been to the Wright Brothers Museum and memorial in 7th grade, but coming back this time so many years later I had a greater appreciation of what those two brothers went through to give us the gift of flight!

 From atop the monument you can see where they flew their test glider.  I cannot believe they were able to carry it up this hill on hot days.  I could barely walk up just myself-and I had to take a break!

After Kitty Hawk we ventured down to Rodanthe where we stumbled upon the house from Nights in Rodanthe.  It is now an INN and you can spend a week here!  They've mostly restored it to how the movie depicts it and it is under new ownership.  It was moved off the beach within the last few years to protect it.  It really stood out amongst the other places there and was so easy to find. 

Wrightsville Weekend with Friends

At the end of July our bestest friends invited us down to the beach for a weekend of celebrating Kristen's 30th birthday!  Kristen always provides a great time and this weekend was no different!  We had so much fun and I even managed to stay up past 10 pm for nights in a row (of course I paid for it on night three...) but it was so worth it!

I'll never take for granted that we have close friends within a 4 hours drive!  There really is not many other feelings I enjoy more than spending time with my college friends. 

 To celebrate the big birthday we had dinner at the Pilot House and sang Karaoke at our favorite lil hole in the wall in Wilmington, the same place we sang for my bachelorette.  I loved the view from the Pilot House and the food was awesome too! Highly recommend for anyone headed to the Wilmington area. 

 This photo is proof that I was awake past sunset, a rare event for this lady.

The last day we were able to take our friend's family's new boat out for a spin and a boat day.  It was a perfect day!  Rich even got the drive the boat back to the marina since he just got his boating license.   We had such an awesome time with these fabulous friends for the weekend, so glad they all live so close to us that we can make weekend trips like this even possible!

Washington DC Recap: Day 3

 We were having such a great time in DC we decided to extend our trip a few hours, which was the perfect decision as it gave us a chance to have an almost four hour brunch with our dear DC friend Kim.  Kim is a great gal pal from my time at Wake and most famously remembered by the large hot dog she was given in Vegas (but that's a story for another blog post I think). 

We met up with Kim in Georgetown, which is not the easiest of locations to get to from where we were staying but oh-so-worth it!  Kim was sweet enough to treat us to the most amazing brunch at Sequoia in Georgetown, right on the water.  The only tough part of this day was that weather had drastically changed and we were ill prepared for near freezing temps and wild wind.  

As unflattering to us as this top photo is, it really depicts our level of cold and tiredness on our commute to Georgetown.  

Do you see that? That amazing-ness?  Yeah, thats a PORTION of the brunch table of sweets.  

 

 Georgetown, you are adorable.  If you want a Charleston-esque, King Street feel in the DC area, look no further than this cute little neck of the woods. 

It was a GREAT three days in our nation's capital.   We cannot wait until our next visit!

Washington DC Trip: Day Two

We knew the forecast for day two of our trip was going to be dicey-with the morning being rainy and the afternoon a bit sunny and 60.  We decided to get up early, head to the city for breakfast, and then hit the museums while the weather was rough.  The museums open at 10am so we grabbed breakfast and head to American History Museum only to find the line was packed!  We waited (in the rain, blah) for about 45 minutes to get into the museum.  (Pro Tip: if you don't have any bags, you can bypass the line and get in the no bags line which is much shorter.  We wish we had known this and not brought bags with us.)  

The American History Museum had my favorite exhibits and was well worth the wait.  I loved the exhibit about each of the wars and would suggest someone (my dad!) could EASILY spend an entire day in here.  

 It also had an exhibit devoted to the American Presidency which featured a part dedicated to the First Ladies, including their china patterns and gowns.  Had I not been with a boy who wanted nothing to do with this part of the museum, I could have spent a good hour just in this section. 

 Michelle Obama's gown (above) and Laura Bush's grown (below). 

 They had a great exhibit to transpiration which caught this car and train lovers heart. 

 Lunch was a nice break and a chance to visit a restaurant a bit familiar to me!  Our friend Pete used to work at Jaelo, a delicious Spanish Tapas bar owned by Jose Andres.  Rich got the Sangria and we split three tappas plates.  They recommended three per person but we felt like the three between us was the perfect lunch amount. 

 The rest of the afternoon we spent at the Natural History Museum, which thankfully had a much shorter line!  The museums were open till 7:30 on this day which allowed for a bit more of a relaxing stroll. 

 This museum had SO much it actually overwhelmed me!  I'd suggest taking it in chunks if you are lucky enough to have more time in DC and given how short the line was, I think it would do-able to do that. 

 Once the weather cleared up a bit we grabbed the bikes and biked down to the Capital Building. 

 All the biking, metro-ing, and walking were killer.  We were pretty exhausted.

 I mentioned on Day One the biking docks we used to dock our bikes.  This is an example of what the Capital Bike Share Docks look like.  This one by the Washington Monument was packed when we went to dock our bikes thanks to the Kite Festival. 

 It was hard to get a good photo of the tons of kites flying on the mall.  There were food trucks everywhere we grabbed fro-yo and took a seat to enjoy the kites. 

We metro-ed over to Eastern Market and grabbed pizza at Matchbox.

We enjoyed the market area, very diverse and lots of young folks and bars.  We were just too tired to stay out that night after the day we had (getting older ha!)  but would put this part of DC on our list for next time. 

Washington DC Trip: Day One

 One of the first things that ran through our minds when we were considering Hampton Roads was the possibility that it would mean we were closer to DC.  I LOVE DC and thanks to many college friends who either worked in the city in the summers or grew up in the NOVA area, I was lucky enough to spend a good amount of time in the city during college and graduate school.  It had been a few years since I had been back, so the thought of making another trip, this time together, was high on our list.  There was SO much we wanted to do and to eat and this trip we only had 3 days.  

We left after lunch on Friday and it took us a good 5 hours to make the trip (it should only take a bit over 3 but #rushhour is no joke in the HR area, even at 2pm on a Friday).  We checked in to Andrews AFB where we were staying and immediately beelined to the metro station near base.  We knew Friday night was our best weather night and the 83 degree night did NOT disappoint. 

 Note: this picture is part stir crazy and part excited because I was pretty crazy about getting us there ASAP on Friday evening to ride bikes around the city. 

 

We grabbed bikes through CapitalBikeShare which is an incredibly affordable and convenient way to see the city  It is 8 dollars per bike for the day and you have the first 30 minutes free after every time you "undock" a bike, meaning take it from one of the MANY docks around the city.  So essentially you pay 8 dollars and as long as you dock and undock the bike within 30 minutes of each check out, you don't pay anymore.  There is no waiting at metro stations and you can easily get around the city to the big sights quite easily.  The Capital City Bike Share app was a life saver since it will give you a little compass to show you where the nearest bike stand is.  We saw many folks doing this during the weekend.  We highly recommend it (once you figure out what you are doing and how to use the app that is!)

 The reason we picked this weekend was it was historically the best for the cherry blossoms.  Well, this year, not so much.  I think the blossoms were peaked during the week so we saw the tail end of them.  Not a huge deal for us, but I am sure folks who traveled from further away for this weekend and event were likely pretty bummed out. 

 We caught sunset right on the tidal basin near the Jefferson Memorial.  It was more gorgeous than this picture can suggest.

Friday night we ate at the most delicious place called District Taco.  I will probably be talking about it until our next trip (sorry Rich!) but it was THAT good.  We had such a good time biking and exploring that we didn't eat dinner until 9pm.  Given that we ate lunch before 12pm, it just shows what a great night that was.