Last DC Day

We had all kinds of plans last Saturdy.  The ward was doing a day of service all morning and then we had soccer.  But it has been raining here for a solid month.  I'm not kidding.  Rain for a solid month.  It has been hot and muggy and DREARY.  But I digress. The point is everything got cancelled so we decided to go into DC for a final day in the city before we move (that makes me sad).  We parked at the Tidal Basin and headed towards the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

 While on the way to the new memorial, we happily stumbled upon the Solar Decathlon.  This is a competition between different teams from all over (university students).  They build a house that runs on solar and are judged on the design, the architecture, the use of power, etc.  Very fun.  We had a good time touring some of the houses.

 Sadly the lines were longish and we didn't get to see as many of them as I would have liked.

 We left the decathlon and made it to the MLK memorial.  There were very cool quotes and the overall layout of the memorial is pretty cool.  But then....

 ... you get to the main part and the memorial just is lame.  The cartoonish sculpture is awful.  The dignity of the whole place, in my opinion, is destroyed by the monolithic sculpture.  I don't understand why they went with this one.  It's pretty bad.  I think it has gotten some pretty bad reviews and people are upset.  But I imagine there are other people that like it a lot.  To each his own.  I am glad we got to see it.

 Then it was back along the Tidal Basin to the FDR memorial, which is kind of huge and goes on and on.  But it's a cool one.

After this we thought we would head over to the mall for some museum time.  But as always traffic was horrific, there were gazillions of people, and nowhere to park.  Which reminded us of one of the reasons we want to move and just come to DC to visit.  So, sadly, we bailed out.  I will miss this place!  

Inn At Little Washington

As a thank you for letting her crash with us, Courtney surprised us with an awesome gift.  A gift certificate for The Inn At Little Washington.  If you haven't heard of it let me give you the scoop.  It's the only Michelin 5 star restaurant in the USA.  It is pricey.  It is in a beautiful setting out near the Blue Ridge in rolling farmland that would make Anne Shirley sigh with delight.  Anyway, it's fancy schmancy and we never would spend the money because it's kind of super pricey, and so this was the PERFECT gift (thanks again).  So anyway, we got all dressed up, and my hair looked horrible, but alas I can't do my hair, so it stayed that way.  The curl did manage to settle so that's good.  

 Anyway we drove out through the beautiful countryside and arrived at the Inn.  It was so fancy schmancy I feel like I can't even talk to most people now because they are mere commoners.

We sat in this room on one of the comfy couches with a view of a courtyard.

 They brought us out bite size nuggets of deliciousness, similar to these, to whet our appetites.  Seriously delicious.  I'm not kidding.  I don't know how it is done, but they really know how to cook here.

 All of these pictures are off the Internet but this most closely resembles my main course (it's a three course meal).  Beef two ways.  One is a braised short rib and the other is fillet Mignon wrapped in swiss chard.  And I will dream of it till the day I die.  Delicious.

This resembles slightly my first course which was a lamb carpaccio, which I don't even know what that is, except it tasted amazing amazing amazing.

Rob's first course was this super tuna thing that tasted better than most things I've ever tasted in my life.  You think I am exaggerating.  I am not.

We had many more delectable courses and desserts and all was completely out of this world.  How can we go back to regular restaurants after this?  And if we were wine drinkers we would have been in heaven.  Because everyone around us drinking wine was including the whorish (it's my blog and I can say what I want) old woman who was 98% plastic sitting next to us.  She had the face of Suzanne Summers (with extra pouty collagen lips) and the body of an overweight 90 year old, except her super perky super fake super large boobs that were falling out of her skimpy dress and was really distracting.  Seriously, it was good she didn't sit down until the end of our meal because she was super distracting and kind of killed the whole mood for me.  Anyway, when the meal is finished they brought out this cute little souvenir stuffed with more delicious treats. 

So anyway, it was the fanciest dinner I ever did eat and the ambiance was incredible and the service was unreal.  The servers are people doing internships.  These are career hospitality workers.  They are good at what they do:  make us feel super swanky.  

And then we got home and Rob pointed out that the Little Pony sticker Clara had put on my ankle to help prettify me had remained on the entire evening.  So then I remembered, oh yeah, I'm just a normal person and not really all that swanky at all.  But the illusion was nice while it lasted.

Graphing

Lucy, for a laugh (weird), made some graphs.  This one was super funny.  And then Clara made a chart in response.  In case you can't read it, Lucy's chart is titled How much I love Clara 2007-2011.  Along the bottom are the years and the side is percentages. Clara's, I'm not so sure, but she did have a very excellent presentation for her stats.

Happy Day To Me

I had a pretty great birthday last week.  And lets face it, birthdays are good when there is a great cake and good food.  Rob had it covered.  He made an amazing german chocolate ganache cake.  He also recently bought a grill cookbook and I have been reaping the rewards.  For my birthday he made some amazing chicken fajitas.  Delish.  It was a great day.  Thank you all for your good wishes, the gifts, the calls, etc.  

 

First Day of Preschool

While I was in Nashville Clara had her first day of school.  I was sad to miss it.  Rob got her all gussied up, however, so no worries about that.  Clara is very into her appearance.  She is vain (or just uber-confident?).  Anyway, she loves school.  I think we will have another reader on our hands in a few months.  She is making progress.  Exciting!!!  And unbelievable.

And for fun some Clara conversations.
Clara: Do you think the people at the store thought I was beautiful? (she often thinks about what others think of her looks.  Scary, but super funny)

Clara: When I grow up I want to be an ice cream girl.
Me: What do you mean?
Clara: I want to make ice cream and sell it at a shop.  But I also wonder what it feels like to be a doctor.  So I think I will be a doctor too.  And I also wonder what it feels like to be a Mom.  So I'll be a shop girl and a doctor and a mom.