Hubs and I celebrated our fifth anniversary this year. Our original plan, made many months ago, involved my mom coming to babysit for a weekend while Hubs and I escaped to a cozy B&B.
But my mom's schedule changed and our anniversary happend to fall on the same day that our second baby turned one month old. Needless today, a big celebration for just the two of us wasn't in the cards. That said, we also have an agreement that we only go "all out" on years that end in 5 and 0 just to keep things simple (and economical).
Well, it just so happened that our anniversary was the same weekend as the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC. So we planned a trip into the city to have a picnic and see the Blossoms.
Of course, the night before the parade ended a little later than normal, so we didn't wake up as early as we would have liked, and we were going to miss the parade either way. So we came up with a Plan B!
We packed our picnic basket with a yummy lunch, loaded everyone into the car, and headed for the National Zoo. We'd decided that we'd have lunch at the zoo and wander around, and then take the Metro to the National Mall so we wouldn't have to worry about parking on the Festival weekend. It was apparently a really popular day to visit the zoo, though, because once on the grounds, we were directed around the entire park only to find that every single parking lot was full and we were directed right back out again.
Back to Plan A, with a twist!
We decided to boycott our picnic and find a Panera to eat lunch, use the restroom, and look up Metro possibilities on Hubs' new smartphone (he finally gave in to the beast!). Well, just as we were getting close to the Panera we saw on the way to the zoo, Hubs spotted a Fudruckers with a free on-street parking place right in front. We both love a good burger, so we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop. While we ate, Hubs discovered that we were only a few blocks away from the Tidal Basin, so after lunch, we packed up the stroller, loaded Dutch into the baby sling, and headed toward the National Mall. It was hot and crowded, and I was so glad I'd thrown the sling in the car so we weren't tied to taking both strollers with us!
That said, it was so crowded that we opted to stop to feed Dutch a quick bottle under the blossoms, snap a few pictures, and then head back to the Mall to tour the National Gallery, something neither of us has done despite many trips to the Smithsonian. Once Buddy Man started getting cranky, however, we had to cut our tour short and head back to the car. Along the way, we were thirsty and decided that even though our anniversary plans had been altered, we still deserved to have a drink and toast five years of marriage! We stopped at many places and had a hard time finding something that looked appealing and was also stroller/child friendly. Finally, just before reaching the car, we stumbled upon La Tasca! We sipped a half-pitcher of sangria (appropriate, since shortly after getting engaged Hubs met me in Spain, where my ship was in port during a deployment) and then headed back to reality. We came home, stopped by the ABC store to procure the goods to make some margaritas, and enjoyed left-overs from the yummy lamb kebabs I'd made for our anniversary dinner at home the night before!
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