Eat, Pray, ♥

Two weeks ago I decided to head up to DC to spend Labor Day weekend with Mik and Jenny... boy, has it been two weeks already? Time certainly has flown this year!

Anyway, I headed up on Saturday morning and with only a small amount of difficulty (and about a 10 minute detour) I found Mik's new apartment complex and gosh, it sure is nice! I'd live there in a heartbeat. Mik, as it turned out, had gone home for the day for a belated birthday celebration for his mom, so Jenny and I decided to make it a girls day.

We decided to go see Eat, Pray, Love since we both wanted to see it, and if I hadn't seen it with her I would have either seen it by myself or had to wait for the dvd release... It was pretty good. Jenny and I came out of it convinced that we needed to move to Italy, or maybe Bali, or even India, because they just looked so darn amazing... and then of course, there was the food in Italy. As Rachel Ray would say, "Yumo."

I think the lesson I took away most from Eat, Pray, Love, was that you should enjoy life, food, and yourself, without caring (exactly) what other people think... It's ok to not be a size 00, because really, people will love you for who you are, not what you look like or the size of your jeans, or at least they should...

To complete our girl's day, we decided to get pedicures. Oh. My. Gosh. This pedicure was by far, hands down, blow your socks off, the best one I've ever had in my entire life. Granted, I've had about five total, but still, it was amazing. And now my toes are a pretty shade of purple, "Damsel in a Dress" purple to be exact... I feel so pretty!

Saturday evening Mik and his fam came back to DC and we all headed down to the Nissan Pavilion to see a Jimmy Buffett concert! Boy was that an experience. I've never seen so many people in Hawaiian shirts and pirate costumes. Even more fascinating was the number of men who felt compelled to don a Hawaiian grass skirt, lei, and coconut bra... wow.

On Sunday, Mik had to get up super early (by which I mean 7) to go to a soccer game, so Jenny and I slept in... love doing that! We were going to head to the beach, but when we realized that it was going to be about 75 degrees and that good ol' Earl was still slightly wreaking havoc on the ocean, meaning that there were still crazy riptides and currents and stuff, we decided to nix that idea. Instead we ended up going into DC to get cultured.

But first, Mik joined us for lunch in the city at a really neat pub/restaurant, R.F.D. Washington, that my dad would die for, thanks to their spectacular selection of beer, which includes over 30 variates on tap and over 300 bottled. The food was also phenomenal. Then we got CUPCAKES! Yum. Red Velvet Cupcakery is right down the street from R.F.D. Washington, so we each picked out a cupcake to have for dessert... with dinner. We were far too full to eat them then. My favorite was the B-Day cupcake.
Then Mik went home to start on his homework... lame... and Jenny and I headed up to the Mall to get cultured. Thanks to summer hours, we were able to check out the new evolution exhibit at the Museum of Natural History and then finish up the evening with the National Air and Space Museum, which neither of us had been to in a while. It was kinda neat, and sad, to see how they've sort of removed Pluto from the planets exhibit.
As we were leaving to get on the Metro, we noticed a huge crowd moving towards the Capitol building so, being the nosy people we are, we decided to check it out. A friendly police man informed us that the National Symphony Orchestra was giving a concert in about 15 minutes, so we decided to stay and listen for a while. It was really neat. We had to go through metal detectors to get in, but then we got to sit on the lawn of the Capitol and listen to the NSO. They played a few famous, yet obscure pieces, and then in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, they played a medley of music from the film Apollo 13. I was excited because that is one of my favorite scores of all time! Then, they played the march from Raiders of the Lost Arc, which made Jenny happy because that's one of her favorites!

On Monday, we were going to just make pancakes in the apartment for breakfast, but when Jenny decided that Bisquick pancakes weren't going to cut it, we decided to go to the restaurant Eggspectations. Boy was I glad we did... that place is amazing! Best french toast ever. Period. Then, on my way home, I decided to check out a new (to me) outlet mall and try to find some good Labor Day discounts... It worked! I managed to get a bathing suit for only $4. Perfect.

All in all, it was a pretty exciting and satisfying weekend... The perfect way to end the summer.

The Capitol is really pretty at night