celebrating the nation

we fittingly celebrated the nation in the nation's capital.

it was quite the weekend.

we journeyed down by bus after work and met up with the pederson family for the weekend. and when i saw the ped's i MEAN the ped's - the whole gang was in town!

we checked out museums, found the nation's best burger (bold claim? yes. true? YES.), explored the city on a 3.5 hour bike ride, played games, caught up, and watched the most amazing fireworks with a few of the washington monument. it was pretty spectacular.

some of the highlights:

The bike ride. For 5 dollars you get a 24 hour rental for bikes that can be found all over the city (similar to London). My advice? Dtart your bike ride at 10pm. It's cool, the monuments are lit, the tourists have dispersed and it makes it that much more thrilling

The torrential downpour which we got caught in when we were at the top of Arlington Cemetary. We had 15 minutes to catch the last changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so the girls took off our shoes and ran for it. By the end we were soaked and laughing hysterically and enjoying the moment.

Good Stuff Eatery. When I say I may just take the train down to DC for this burger alone, I am not kidding. I am a BIG fan of burgers, but I've never tasted anything like this. Pair it with the rosemary, thyme and seasalt fries and a toasted marshmallow milkshake and you've got yourself one of the best meals you've ever eaten.

The fireworks. there were so many fireworks going off all at once I could have sworn they screwed up and just lit the entire show up at the same time. It was phenomenal. Especially when you have a view of the washington monument next to it. I've never felt so patriotic.

The family. Especially when coupled with iphone/ipad scrabble and a rousing game of celebrity. Moving to London right after getting married meant we missed out on getting to know our significant other's extended family very well. The weekend getting to know Kris and her family was probably THE highlight of the trip. They are fabulous and I'm so lucky I get to have these people in my life. Even more points since they love the game celebrity as much as I do!

... now one of the perks of having a fabulously creative cousin who I spend half my time with, is that when she writes a post on HER blog, chances are high that I was along for the ride. and chances also are, she took better photos of it than I did.

so because i'm notorious for terrible picture taking, and since it's nearly August and i haven't written about our 4th of july adventures, i'm going to thank miss morgan pederson for these collages!

we heart DC!