THE WEEKEND I MET OBAMA

Well, I didn't technically meet him, but I saw his house. Same difference.

Over Thanksgiving weekend I went to DC for the first time and spent the weekend with Lauren Richey, who was not only a fabulous host, but more than anything just a familiar face that felt so much like family on my first Thanksgiving away from home. It was such a great weekend. We had plenty of sight-seeing, eating and laughs to fill several blog posts, and because I wanted to share so many of the hilarious and memorable moments, I kept putting off the blogging... but it is time. I may not be able to get into the details of our adventures, but I'll share some pictures for now and maybe a couple a stories here and there. Otherwise I think this post will be left behind forever.

{THANKSGIVING DAY}

I pretended to be involved in the cooking process, and then enjoyed a very impressive Thanksgiving feast prepared by the amaaazing Lauren Richey and friends.

Here we are in Lauren's mansion with her friend Lisa before the meal:

And here is Mr. Bird:

And here we are, completely STUFFED and plopped on the floor to rest our tummies:

And, of course, here we are learning the Hannah Montana Hoe-Down Show-Down Dance (duh. its a family tradition):

{MUSEUMS, MONUMENTS & MUST-SEES}

I spent a fair amount of time walking around FREEZING DC exploring the sights, and other than the frozen snot, I loved every minute of it. I spent one day exploring alone and ended up in awe of the First Ladies' dresses and in sobs at the Holocaust survivor stories.

Here is a picture from inside the Holocaust museum, which left me with puffy eyes:

And here are some pictures from throughout the weekend while visiting the must-sees of DC:

(embarrassingly enough I may have been just as adamant that I visit Target as I was about visiting the monuments. Definitely counts as a "must-see") I filled the cart, and forced an exhausted Richey to follow me up and down nearly every aisle.

{GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS}

We will shop, and we will eat. And that is just what Lauren and I (and her amazingly fun friend, Lisa, who joined us for some of the adventuring) did.

...Starting with Adams Morgan and Ethiopian food, which is neither delicious nor easy to eat, but it was a very fun experience nonetheless!

And then venturing on to a yogurt store where Lauren aced all three of our trivia questions because of her brilliant geography knowledge, which (along with our stamped foreheads) earned us some pretty cheap yogurt.

This place was hilarious. Lisa was thrilled about the karaoke (keep in mind this is a small yogurt store with no more than five other customers at one time) and of course I instantly made clear my lack of interest in participating in any such activity.

...skip to about 6 minutes later...

I am standing up, mic in hand, busting out the moves to Bye, Bye, Bye, and singing with no shame. Lisa calls me out about my initial denial of participation while I am in my most passionate moment, and we all nearly fall over laughing at my ridiculousness. (meanwhile the other customers are 100% ignoring us. If you didn't know already, we are pretty cool.)

I think someone spiked our yogurt, because later Lauren and I were dancing circles around one another singing out, "look look we're in an old person parade, la, la la, la, la!" in the middle of the metro platform, and then the craziness continued as we put on a dance show for every one once INSIDE the metro, and even further continued when I "mooned lisa with my pants on," which is really not as juvenile as it sounds, I promise... ummm... yeah. That right there was the low point. Lauren and I, I think, had a mutual understanding/realization at that very point in time, that we had let ourselves get out of control and were probably indeed intoxicated, and sat down quietly trying to recover some dignity. I think it was too late at that point. But dignity or no dignity, we had a good time and for just a few minutes were completely in our own hilarious moment that could not have happened had I been with anyone else but my pseudo-sister.

um, hi. this is officially my longest post ever. if you are still reading this, you get a gold star.

I guess the rest I'll just wrap up with pictures... I have too many stories to tell and it is getting very late. (Surprising to any of you that I am still up at this time? Didn't think so.)

So lastly, here are some pictures of our shopping/eating trip into Georgetown and our breakfast at Eastern Market:

This last picture is one of my favorites because it was right after we walked out of Georgetown cupcakes with a half-dozen cupcakes in tow, when Lauren looked at me with such innocence and said, "I think I may have gone overboard." Haha, well-said, Lauren. But ya know what? Do they really expect people to be able to resist walking out with an entire BOX of cupcakes? I don't think they do. And I also don't think that "overboard" is such a bad thing at all. Especially when it includes red velvet and chocolate coconut cupcakes...

Wow. I feel like I need to sing a Julie Andrews goodbye song after a post like that, to you and you and you-oo. (Not that even three people will have actually made it to this point in the post...)

But if you have made it through, your name is probably Lauren Richey or Momma G, in which case I can safely say,

I love you and good night! :)