Visit to DC! ~ A Day with the De Jongs

This weekend we were in Washington DC! Neither of us had been there before, and one of my best friends, Stephanie, just moved out there after graduating in December. (And she just got a full time job starting after her internship ends- way to go!) This trip was my birthday present from my in-laws. We had a great time! It was so neat to see such an important place to our country.

We landed and immediately had to figure out the metro, which was interesting. It took a little while, but we did it! Right when we got there, we met up with my college roommate, Jackie, and her husband, Joe, who had driven up from Virginia Beach. We spent Friday with them while Stephanie was at work. It was great to see them!

They had lots of pretty flower pots all over the city, so I immediately had my camera in hand and started snapping shots. Here are some flowers right off the metro.

They called their houses "row houses." They were pretty cute!

Food from a van! We don't have that in Iowa.

Beautiful cherry blossom tree. We just missed the festival of the cherry blossom trees by a week. Most of them had turned green now, but there were still a few beauties around!

Lots of tulips, too.

Library of Congress.

My first view of the Capital!

Steph's apartment building. She lives super close to the Capital and has an amazing view!

More cute row houses while walking around.

Walking around the Capital.

Plenty of protection- squad cars. The patrol police around the Capital had the biggest guns I've ever seen.

Jackie and I.

Kley and I (still at the Capital).

Kley and Joe.

The fountain/flowers in front of the Capital on the other side.

First glance of the Washington Monument! (There was scaffolding around it to fix the damage done to it by the last earthquake.)

Embassy Row.

You can't really see it, but this sign said "Obey this Signal" underneath. I thought that was funny.

Walking around the Newseum. We didn't go inside because it was expensive, but it was cool to even see the outside! They have the front page of the big newspapers from all over the country.

The Des Moines Register!

Capital Bikeshare- there are 150 stations, and you can "check out" a bike anywhere and drop it off back at any station. Pretty cool!

Snack stands.

Plenty of places to get your paper all over.

Riding the metro! (One of the funny moments of the trip was when Joe rushed on when the doors were closing, and barely got out in time, or else we would have been separated.)

Joe and Jackie took us to see the Washington National Cathedral.

A very unique and interesting place! Lots of pretty stained glass inside.

View from the top.

Walking around the gardens outside the cathedral.

Joe and Jackie.

Union Station- where we met up with Steph!

La Loma- a Mexican restaurant we all went to for dinner!

I had flautas for the first time- delicious!

After dinner on Friday, we said goodbye to Joe and Jackie and headed back to Steph's apartment. We hung out, laid low, and watched the news about Boston. Last week was a rough week- there were two bombs that exploded at the end of the Boston Marathon. Several were killed and lots were injured. (There was also an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West Texas last week that killed several and injured many.) There were two suspects, and there was a shootout and one of them was killed. The other was on the run, and the entire city of Boston was on lockdown for about 24 hours, until they found him on Friday night. What a week for our country. I don't understand why this happened, but am thankful that God is a big God, and is still Sovereign even in the midst of pain. (We went to bed earlier since we had woken up really early to catch a 6am flight! We were supposed to fly out Thursday evening, but our flight was cancelled, so we flew out Friday morning instead, which worked out okay in the end.)

One of my favorite parts of the trip was walking along this beautiful trail along the Capital, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial. It was a gorgeous day, and walking with two of my favorite people, seeing historic and important sites was so great!

Washington Monument.

The walking path.

The Washington Monument and reflecting pool.

Lincoln Memorial.

The place where the "I Have A Dream" speech was spoken. So cool!

View of Arlington from the back of the Lincoln Memorial (where Steph's internship is).

The cemetery from way off in the distance- at night you can see the "eternal flame."

Vietnam Memorial- the names of everyone who died or went missing in the order it was found out. So humbling- thankful for everyone who has served our country.

The White House!

Then we headed to Georgetown to walk around and get some cupcakes!

Georgetown Cupcakes (from the TLC show DC Cupcakes!)

We had to wait in line awhile, but it was worth it!

Another favorite moment from the trip was meeting MICHELLE KWAN! I saw her earlier in Georgetown sitting at an outdoor restaurant, but Kley and Steph didn't believe me. We saw her again later walking, and she was with her new husband (just married in January!), and we googled a picture to be sure, and it was totally them. We "chased" her down and talked to her for a minute! She was really nice! It was funny that we were asking Kley to take the picture, and she thought we were asking her husband, because I guess his name is Clay too!

I took ice skating lessons in Jr. High and was a huge fan of Michelle's, so it was so fun to meet her!

(Her husband has an important job at the White House too- the head of some security department!)

The restaurant where JKF proposed to Jackie.

We had dinner at two different places (combined- ha) near Steph's apartment. Both were owned by some guy named Spike who won a cooking show (I forget which one.) The first was Good Stuff Eatery, which was a burger place with great milkshakes, so we got some shakes for dessert (we got dessert first- bad, I know).