President Lincoln's Cottage

I love nothing more than a good adventure.  Maybe that's why I loved growing up in a military family so much.  We were constantly moving, always checking out a new place, forever exploring, and making memories along the way.  In fact, my mom's motto for our family was Building Memories.  It stuck, and it's something I continue with my own family...especially when Mama comes to visit.

Much as I love spending my weekends being lazy and relaxing (especially by the pool!) I also love experiencing my community.  In the military I know I'm never guaranteed very long in one spot, so I want to make the most of my time.  That doesn't always lend itself to many lazy weekend afternoons by the pool, but it sure does keep my scrapbooks full!

So, every now and then, when I'm bored, I'll find myself scouring the internet for cool things to see, do, and eat, great deals, and just general information about my area.  I just discovered the Google app Field Trip and was super stoked to find that one of my "must see" items was part of a free deal going on this month!  So this weekend, we drove in to DC to check out President Lincoln's Cottage (normally $15 or $12.50 for active military, but free with our Field Trip deal!).

Lincoln's summer home is less than five miles from the White House and was Lincoln's retreat outside the city and stress during the Civil War.  My husband is an avid history buff, and I love a good story, so we were both looking forward to our morning tour.  I was really excited to check out the house, as I love the old historic homes and gorgeous decor, so I was more than a little disappointed to see that the cottage wasn't furnished.  But we learned a little, saw a site that I didn't even know existed, and got to enjoy a wonderful morning outdoors since it's cooled off just a bit the last couple of days!

Following our tour, we had plans to have lunch in the city, but we were venturing into meltdown-town, and parking in DC is always hectic, so we opted for lunch at Chili's by our house and we'll save the restaurant we'd planned to try for a winter lunch date when we have childcare at the ready!

Five Years & Cherry Blossoms

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!