Sunday, March 20, 2011

Washington D.C. and Alexandria

Our Spring Break has been wonderful! We knew we were heading up to DC to visit my sister-in-law and Pennsylvania to visit my brother-in-law. We've had fun filling in the time in between with places that Cody and I have never been before (we were in 5 states!).
We started out and ended up in the D.C. area. I have been to D.C. once when I was a 5th grader (which one of my kiddos reminded me was a very long time ago).

Mt. Vernon: (George Washington's home) Such a beautiful place! It was a very windy day though. I was kind of disappointed at the majority of replicas in place of original artifacts. We did however get to see Washington's dentures (he apparently lost almost every tooth in his mouth due to tooth decay..brush those teeth!) Very surreal to stand where the Father of our Country lived.

Old Town Alexandria (King St.): A beautiful street in Alexandria with shops and restaurants. We even tried a cupcake from there!

Morning Run: Sunday morning we got up and headed into D.C. I was really really wanting to run the national mall, so my sweet father-in-law volunteered to run with me. We ran from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial and then back down to the Capitol. I would definitely recommend doing this if you are in D.C. Afterwards we walked around the area and ventured to the White House.


Whole Foods: I know, I know, Houston has these too, but I've never been to one before. I love Whole Foods! I think I would go broke if I shopped there regularly, but what a great place. We picked up lunch from their enormous prepared foods section and ate it at the tables in the store.

Kennedy Center: That night we headed back to D.C. to go see "Shear Madness." The Kennedy center was beautiful and had a great view of D.C. The show was really funny and allowed the audience to choose the ending.

Georgetown: This seemed like a very cool area, but it was just so crowded. There were so many stores and cupcake shops (Georgetown Cupcakes and Sprinkles). We had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Papa Razzi.

Masonic Memorial: Before leaving on Monday, we stopped by the masonic temple (lodge?) across from Lyndsey's apartment. The building was absolutely beautiful and the man giving the tour was very knowledgeable. It was very interesting.

When we returned to Alexandria on Friday night, we went back to King Street in Alexandria to eat at the Light Horse (they had amazing homemade "dressed potato chips").

Eastern Market: Saturday we headed to the Capitol Hill neighborhood to go to the Eastern Market. I really enjoyed this! There was a flea market, a huge farmer's market, people were selling jewelry, clothing, flowers, anything you could imagine. There were foods prepared you could buy to eat and these cute little donuts that melted in your mouth!

Afterwards we picked up pizza at We the Pizza (haha..love the name!), walked around and saw some cherry blossom trees already in bloom,

walked by the capitol & Supreme Court
(this is the Supreme Court)

& walked through Union Station and happened upon a Crumb cupcake before we made it back to the metro.

I feel like we got to see so much in that area thanks to our tour guide (Lyndsey) who knew where everything was! : )

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love D.C.! And how fun to run the national mall.

tatum said...

Hi ---

Thank you for the photos! Those all look great and we'll be in town to look at condos in D.C.. I'm excited to be visiting real soon and I'll definitely have to stop by some of the places you mentioned.