Spring Break Part One: Washington D.C.

As I already mentioned, Adam and I spent the first part of our spring break working, studying, and spring cleaning. On Thursday night, Allie and Kailin flew up from Dallas to visit for a week!

We decided to spend the weekend in Washington D.C. since it's only a five-hour drive away. We had planned to take the Mega Bus there, but we weren't quite swift enough and the tickets sold out. So, we went with the next most economical option and rented a car instead.

Due to leaving a bit late and hitting some traffic, we didn't get into D.C. until six on Friday evening. We checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn near Dupont Circle, and immediately went to check out the White House.



We were all surprised by how small it was. But we didn't realize until the next day that we were checking out the back side of the mansion. Whoops!



Then we had dinner at Founding Farmers. We got all our restaurant recommendations from one of my favorite blogs, The Rockstar Diaries, and they all certainly lived up to her praise!



Being Friday night, we had to wait a little while for a table. Fortunately, the Founding Farmers' lobby was stocked with food-related books for us to peruse while waiting. {Eavesdropping on that cute red-haired girl's conversation also helped speed the time along.}



We were slightly disappointed to have visited Founding Farmers during Lent because they had some chicken & waffles on the menu that sounded amazing. Being such big fans of chicken biscuits, Allie and I have been wanting to try that combination for quite a while.

Instead, Allie got a scrumptious salad and Kailin got the best grilled cheese of her life.



Adam and I both ordered macaroni & cheese with peas and apples. As you can tell, we were very excited about it.



We stopped for dessert at Pitango Gelato. I tried the dark chocolate and pear sorbets. Delish!





The next morning, we got up bright and early to tour the monuments. Of course, we started off at the Washington Monument.





Then, we headed over to the World War Two Memorial, where we just had to get a picture with our native state.





Next, we made our way to the Lincoln Memorial.





And we finished up at the Vietnam War Memorial.





We split up for a little bit to do some museum-crawling. Allie and Kailin went to the National Holocaust Museum, while Adam and I checked out the Smithsonian National History Museum.



We saw a lot of neat exhibits, but my personal favorite was Julia Child's kitchen.



I also loved the First Ladies exhibit. Here's Jackie Kennedy's inaugural gown.



And here's Michelle Obama's gown, the newest addition to the collection.



We met up with Allie and Kailin for a late lunch at Teaism, a cute Asian place. By that point, we were so hungry that we didn't waste time taking pictures!

Then we finished up touring the monuments. We got as close as we could to the front side of the White House.



And walked along the Tidal Basin to see the Jefferson Memorial.



We headed out to Georgetown in hopes of getting a cupcake from the famous Georgetown Cupcake.



But when we saw the ridiculously long line and learned that we'd have to wait for at least two hours, we quickly abandoned that plan.



Instead, we browsed in the world's largest Anthropologie and had dinner at Paradiso Pizzeria, where we saw the red-haired girl from Founding Farmer's. What a small world!





On Sunday morning, we ventured out to the Catholic University of America for Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.



It's the largest Catholic church in the United States and absolutely gorgeous inside!





We had lunch at Ted's Bulletin in Capitol Hill.





Ted's serves the most scrumptious shakes.



And they play old movies in the dining area! They were screening Mr. Smith Goes to Washington during lunch.



Adam and I are big Jimmy Stewart fans, so we were pretty excited. Allie caught shots of our "tv faces" on camera.





We browsed in the Eastern Market for a few minutes and picked up some croissants from Le Pain Quotidien, a favorite bakery of ours from France that's been transplanted to America.

Sadly, it was time to hit the road again. But listening to the audio-book version of The Help kept us mighty entertained on the long drive home.

Due to lack of sleep and grumpiness about driving in DC traffic, I was a little cranky on this trip. But I had such a great time and I hope that Allie and Kailin did too!

P.S. You can check out more pictures from the trip on my Flickr page!