Road trip to Iowa...

Last Saturday, after a SWEET black Friday shopping experience, Jimmy and I got up early, dropped Milly and Willy off with my mom and sister - who got REALLY sick and had to go to the hospital ON HER BIRTHDAY!! (AH!)- and we were off.

First stop: Wal-Mart in Atlantic, IA.

Purchased: Poinsettia, gift card, Hallmark card (duh), watch and some boots....

Next stop: Pizza Hut in Carrol, IA. I was extremely disappointed because there was not a lunch buffet, but I guess it was Saturday. But still. Jimmy was mad because KU was losing too.

But here he is thrilled to be waiting for some za!

This is my "I want a pizza buffet" face. If you can't tell.

This is Jimmy's "YUM YUM" face. He love the za.

And...back on the road again. We FINALLY made it to Storm Lake, even after our trusty Garmin led us astray a few times (No silly GPS, the Storm Lake Wal-Mart is not down town...thanks for blowing my cover when at the last minute we had to go to the farm and not my grandparents assisted living place. If you would have taken me to Wal-Mart, I would have known how to get to the farm....instead you blew my cover and Jimmy was mad because, yet again...I had no idea where we were going on our road trip!!)

After we walked around the inside of the farm house that my grandparents just sold- so sad that there is no more furniture and that after so many years of memories and happiness, it was just an empty house- we headed back to my grandparents apartment. They got to open their presents, we ate sweets (DUH, hence why I have a dentist appt on Thursday...), and we chatted away with family that we only get to see once or twice a year!

Here are my cute grandparents opening up their presents :) And yes, it's a Hallmark card...must you ask?

So finally, after Jimmy and I checked into our fancy hotel room (more on that later), we all went to eat at Lakeshore Cafe - my grandparents favorite and I'm pretty sure it's Jimmy's now too because they serve breakfast 24/7 - we took a second to snap some family pictures. And GO....

Everyone that was able to make it to Storm Lake...

Back row: Emily, Anna, Sandy, Brittany, Jimmy, Isaac, Brandon, Laura, Pam

Front row: Bruce, Grandma, Grandpa, Dennis and Roger (my dad :))

*not pictured: Lyndsay, Barb, Tammy and Todd!! We missed you!!

Here are my dad and his brothers with their parents. When you see them next to each other, they really look like brothers!!

Then the Bruns/Carter crew. Weird that we don't have the same last name anymore!!

Ok, so after that meal...we headed back to their apartment for more dessert--peppermint dessert...YUM!- and chatting. Then....Dennis and my dad busted out the Iowa Hawkeye uniforms from the 1940s. Where they got them, who knows. Apparently from their cousin? Very confused still with the origin of these and why they were present...but hey, we went with it. Best part about them...pretty sure they haven't been washed since the 1940s. Yep, that's 60+ years. There are skid marks to prove it people. I will spare you that picture (it made me gag). But these are real life, adult onesies...you know the cute little things you buy for cute little babies...but for big, hairy, sweaty men. Yuck. Here is my dad modeling one :)

And Emily tried it on---hilarious. This was her perfect lay-up shot- nice form :) The shorts were shiny and soft, complete with a belt. This is priceless. Apparently they want someone to "donate" them back to the university so they can put them in some historical thing. Do everyone a favor, wash before you donate.

OK. So then it was time for the thing that dominates our life....forever and ever, always. Yep, that's right basketball. And not just any basketball game, a KU basketball game. It wasn't on until 9:30...which is my bedtime for those of you unaware. But we watched the first half at my grandparents and then Jimmy and I headed back to the hotel for the second so whiny wife could go to bed :) Which I did.

The funniest thing about the hotel was that it was one we have stayed in a billion times, as it's right down the road from my grandparents farm. It has an indoor pool AND an indoor hot tub...SCORE. But when you are old, yeah it's not really that cool. And the beds, well lets just say when the mattress sales guy at NFM told to notice "see how you don't feel the springs on these mattresses"...I really had no idea what that feeling was like until we slept on this one. Jimmy farted and I literally heard the springs rattle. No joke. It's just hilarious because I seriously couldn't wait to stay in that hotel when we were younger! Oh how things and perception changes as you age.....but it didn't stop there. So I didn't know how to set the alarm (because I'm an idiot), so we woke up to my dad calling us. Which was good because he was early- so I hopped in the shower. Had semi-hot water until 1/2 way through and then immediately got out. Well.....that obviously meant little to NO hot water for Jimmy (I mean really, how does one person showering in a big hotel waste all the hot water?). I did feel really sorry for him, but his reaction was hysterical. He was so upset, but still jumped into the freezing cold. So of course, what does any wife do in this situation? Grab a camera and take a picture. Which made him even more mad. But lucky for you, I have thick skin...so you get to see the picture :)

Nope, I'm not done yet (bear with me...). After a cold shower and even colder departure....we were off. But I wanted to go back to the farm and get some pictures, since they sold it and we wouldn't get to go back. It was such a fun place to come when we were growing up. Of course, as we were driving to the farm (which is a short drive from the hotel), I was checking facebook on my phone and Jimmy missed his turn - oops - in which he got mad at me again. Sorry dude!! But then we finally made it to get some great pictures. And Jimmy was nice enough to take one of me too!

An Iowa sun rise---look there is SNOW!

The barn!

And me in front of their house. Don't worry this and many other things got me choked up about childhood memories, so be on the look out for a post on that. But in the mean time, we had a successful trip home - minus me spending $17 at a gas station because I bought sunglasses, Strawberry milk, a donut and a car smelly thing for a truck driver (don't ask...it was for karma purposes) - and were excited to be reunited with the dogs. Thanks to Bobby and Hillary for taking care of our house and Toby over the weekend too!!

Until next time....wishing you very eventful road trips. And only hot showers.

Thankful for...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone!!! SO many things to be thankful for this year and in the future :) We celebrated the Carter family thanksgiving last night with Jimmy's family and with my mom's family today, so it's been a great few days so far! Here are few things I'm thankful for:

My in-laws, particularly my mother in law, Sue, who always is so kind to host the entire family at her house every holiday and every year! Look at the beautiful set up last night-- and of course, there was delicious food and even better company!

(Jimmy in the left hand corner...always trying to get in the picture....)

The other table- there were about 24 I think for dinner in total! This was the kids table, but Jimmy sat there too. Kenlie is modeling next to it!

I'm incredibly thankful for THIS guy. Good old Jimmy. As much as I can complain about him and give him crap- he's just perfect for me and we make a great us. I'm lucky to have him, be married to him and live our lives together!! (PS This is Kenlie's photography!)

Oh, this is just a cute picture! I'm very thankful for Ben and Maren too :) So adorable!

But something that I never had experienced before getting married to Jimmy was being an aunt. And well, I'm obsessed. We have some awesome, adorable, and amazing nieces and nephews. Here is me with all the older ones last night- they are SOOO cute and I couldn't believe that they all just came over immediately to take this picture when Jimmy said "go stand by Aunt Brittany for a picture". I mean, way too easy, right? And look at those smiles!!

One really neat thing that my MIL does every year is make all the kids matching PJs and they wear them at the end of the night. It's hilarious because they are all matching! How cute are they?

And they were trying to take a pictures with Grana, but Maren was not having it. :)

And finally, as I mentioned in my last post, I'm thankful for my sister...but also very thankful for my wonderful parents! I didn't get any pictures at our lunch today at my grandparents, so this one is a great one!! My mom and dad and all their grand-dogs (and their 2 dogs) :) Hahahahaha! They are so awesome for always watching the dogs and loving them! But really, they are just a wonderful support system and SO fun to be around. Thankful for their guidance and more importantly, their friendship!

Ok and ONE more finally....I'm very thankful for all my great friends and friendships :) I wish we could all be together on this day of thanks, but I'm sending friend vibes your way. I cannot begin to tell you how much your friendship means to me!! LOVE YOU!!

Happy thanksgiving and ....happy black friday for those of you are going to battle the crowds! Jimmy and I are going to try to get some good deals!!

Where does the time go? 22 already!

Can you believe it's been a year already since my sister turned 21 and Vanessa and Chris got married? WOW!! Looking back on these posts makes me realize how fast time flies!!! Now Lyndsay is turning 22 and the Calcara's already hit their one year anniversary on November 20!!!!!! Love it!! What a fun day their wedding was!!

Just a reminder of that day...me and the beautiful bride!!

Mr. and Mrs. Calcara!!!

Vanessa and her bridesmaids! So fun!! Love you both and hope you had a great day closing on your second home in Houston!!

With that said---my baby sister is not a baby anymore! She is 22, getting ready to graduated from college in May, has a dog, boyfriend, and is a woman :) Yep, sorry mom and dad, it's true! She's the best friend and sister a girl could ask for!!

She's there for me when I need her the most, especially when it is super super important, like making sure your veil comes out of your hair just right on your wedding day.....

And is right along with me with in the sick obsession with Taylor Swift :)

And she is always willing to give me something to make me "feel better" aka, not want to function in the morning! But oh do we have fun :)

And from even the very beginning, we shared a great sense of style....and some great legs :)

But, best of all, she is just an all around wonderful person that has such a caring heart! I'm so proud of her and how hard she has worked and how successful she is :) She spends ENDLESS hours volunteering her time to help the community and it's really amazing how much of an impact her efforts make! I cannot wait to see the great things that are to come in her life...

So cheers to another birthday for my wonderful sister! Can't wait to spend a week in Florida very soon with these guys....and Barb and Roger!!

How I saved $18,000 this weekend

Ok, so not all $18K was this weekend, but something happened and with some elementary math, my estimates are that over the course of the next 40 years - until I'm 65 - this will save me a little over EIGHTEEN THOUSAND dollars. Now, to the good part---HOW?

I have brown hair. I like my brown hair a lot and I like it when it's a rich brown color. This is why when I schedule my hair appointments, I always set aside time for a "cut and color". So about every 8 weeks, that appointment comes up, I spend 2 - 2.5 hours of my evening in the salon (which is fine because I like my stylist) and about $120, with tip included, to get that rich brown look. I used to get blond highlights when I was like 18/19 years old, that was more expensive than the $120....so I figured that I was getting a good deal. Two hair appointments ago, Jimmy BEGGED me to get some highlights. So I got like 10 foils done and it was less...like only $80. So the next time I went in, I was just floored that I was spending so much money to just get one color put on my hair, which really doesn't require too much skills (I'm not saying it's easy or discounting the school that goes into this...because trust me, I know it's not easy!!)

Fast forward to my browsing through a SELF magazine and coming across an article talking about hair color and what is "ok" to do at home and what is better to leave for the experts. And there I saw it....brown to a richer brown...."save your money, do it at home". But what if it messes up? What if my hair turns red/orange/blue/pink? I HAVE to get it done by a professional. In comes my mom who always dyes her own hair. She says it's easy and I should try it. Ok, so she's my right hand lady in all of this now :)

So after much internal agony and research, my mom and I were off to Target early Saturday afternoon...bought some nice & easy hair dye....and started the process. I was nervous through the whole thing but was determined to try to do most of it by myself so I didn't have to ask her to help every time I wanted to dye my hair. So after a detailed application process, lots of dye on my skin (ears, arms, you name it), we waited. Then waited 5 minutes longer, and then rinsed. And ta da................. (this is with all 5 of the wiener dogs of course!)

FYI: This is (from left) Daisy- parents, Lani - sister's, Milly, Willy and Puddles- parents!

I love the color and it looks great, no streaks or anything! To give you some sort of reference to what it looked like earlier that day, here is a picture of Jimmy and I the night before getting ready to head out on our date night.....

Big difference :) Love it!!

For those of you that are interested---here is my math behind this:

Normal hair cut/color with tip: $120
Box of Color (with tax): $8
Hair cut with tip: $45
Total: $53
Hair cut/colors per year*: 7
*(52 wks/8 wks = 6.5 per year, I rounded up to 7)

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*120): $840
$$ spent in 40 years (840*40): $33,600

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*53): $371
$$ spent in 40 years (371*40): $14,840

Difference over 40 years (33600-14840): $18,760

So there you have it...exactly how I managed to save over $18K in a simple Saturday. Now Jimmy should be thanking me, right? :) While this is nice for me, since I really do like my hair all one color and it doesn't take much expertise to dye it like that, this will work great for me! And I can do it at my convenience as well, which is something else I really like! I know that this is just not an option for those of you that really shine in the highlights and love them, so I'm sorry, I don't have a money saving solution of that magnitude to off-set your hair grooming costs. I'll work on it though :) But really, if you are nervous about dying out of a box- DON'T be! A few tips that SELF provided:

- First section hair off into 4 sections. Focus on one at a time
- Start at the roots and work your way down your hair....make sure you get the hair line that frames your face well
- Don't spread the dye all the way to the roots, wait until there are 5-8 min left and then drag the color down to the roots- that will make it look more professional

And that's it!! Good luck if you dare to venture into boxed dye :)

Countdowns...

3

...days until my sister's 22nd birthday- HOLY COW

4

...days until Carter family Thanksgiving

5

...days until Thanksgiving day (YUM!)

7

...days until we are off to Iowa for Bruns family Thanksgiving/Christmas

35

...days until Christmas

36

...days until we leave for FLORIDA!!!!!!!!

42

...days until 2011 hits...and a whole new year, with new challenges, new excitement, new changes, and lots of FUN starts all over again :)

Everyone is looking forward to something....what are you looking forward to and are thankful for today??

Happy Friday!

Guest Blog Post: Dog chaos

I was more than delighted to receive an email on Friday with an attachment from my mom saying "for your blog". Haha! It was all about the past weekend when my mom was at her house with my parent's 2 dogs: Puddles and Daisy and my sister's dog: Lani...and my dad was so graciously staying at our house watching all 3 of our dogs while Jimmy and I were living it up in Baltimore/DC!! All I could think when I read this, is "wow...we really are related" :) Enjoy!!

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Lani came back to live with us on Tues afternoon after Lyndsay’s friendly neighbors threatened to start a petition to get her kicked out of her apartment because of this crazy barking dog. It is fine, we can easily handle one more dog, right? Thurs morning Roger got out of the shower, put on his slippers and walked through our bedroom to the kitchen. All of a sudden I heard horrible cuss words coming out of his mouth! Lani had pooped on our hardwood floor in the bedroom and Roger slipped on it. Great way to start the morning!

Sweet little Lani...

There have been so many wonderful dog moments this week, here is a short recap:

Why does Lani have to roll around on a dead worm? And then she eats it. Just five minutes later, she goes into the kitchen and throws up the dog food she ate about 30 mins. ago! Joy! I don’t get the whole dogs rolling in bird poop and dead worms.

The first afternoon Lani was here, I put her in the kennel while I worked out in the basement. She barked for about 10 mins then crashed! What were those picky girls in Manhattan complaining about?? I didn’t get it….until 1:30am. Roger refused to put her in the kennel to sleep. Picture this…Lani laying peacefully around Roger’s neck and he says,” But she is sooo cute and adorable, I can’t stand putting her in the kennel to sleep!” So she is the newest addition to our king size bed with Puddles and Daisy already claiming their territory in the middle of the bed. We all settled into our normal sleeping spots and Lani was roaming the entire bed, bothering everyone! I tried to calm her down for about 30 mins and at 11:00pm, I gave up and put her in the kennel. No problem, no barking, no whining and everyone got some sleep. Until 1:30am when Lani woke up and barked until 4:00am. Constantly. Not even coming up for a breath! How does she do that? I closed the bedroom door, put the pillow over my head knowing that I could not go and get her because that would just reinforce that negative behavior, right? Roger swears that he didn’t get any sleep either during that time frame but he was snoring louder than Lani was barking. Puddles was up and wandering around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. It was a circus! I was tempted (for about 1 min) to get up and go walk on the treadmill and read my book…I was awake, might as well take advantage of the time. But I didn’t, I just waited until the alarm went off at 5:28 and the morning began again. I was so tired during the day, just the perfect excuse for a nap that afternoon! With all three dogs on the couch while watching Oprah!

Lani up to no good....

Friday I came home at 2:00 after a college meeting. I let the dogs out to do their thing in the back yard. Puddles wasn’t too happy that Lani is back on Mullen Road. Here is this 14 year old dog with no teeth and arthritis and all he wants to do is poop in private. Lani just doesn’t get it. She must think he is in a play stance when he is pooping because she will jump all over and under him. Imagine an 81 year old man trying to poop and a kid jumping all over him??

Lani attacking poor Puddles!!

The only place that Puddles is safe from Lani’s tormenting is on our bed. So I put Puddles and Daisy up on the bed. I left the bedroom for a few minutes and when I come back, I smell something horrible. I look around for Lani poop and can’t find any. Then I saw Daisy looking at me with these sad eyes and I saw it. She had massive explosive diarrhea on my comforter! The comforter that I bought last summer (at 75% off! And matching pillows, window treatments, etc!) which cannot be replaced at that incredible price! Horrible, disgusting smell! So I blotted it up with paper towels and realized that it seeped through the comforter, through the blanket, through the sheets and onto the mattress pad! Are you kidding me? I was gone about 3 minutes! So I stripped the bed and started the laundry while looking for a 50% off coupon from Pride Cleaners in my most recent Entertainment book. None to be found! I laid the comforter across the footboard and turned the ceiling fan on high.

Puddles and Daisy on their "spot" on the couch....as far away from Lani as possible! Except she learned to jump on the couch....

I had a 4:00 hair appointment so I put the dogs in the laundry room and Lani in her kennel. Upon my return, my bedroom smelled horrible! The comforter spot was dry but it still smelled. I pulled out the special Trapp Orange Vanilla candle and lite it in the bedroom. I usually use this candle for “special” occasions! This definitely qualified! I eventually decided to wash the comforter in my new washing machine on the gentle cycle. It wouldn’t fit in the dryer so I hung it over the second floor balcony so it could dry! As I walked through the bedroom to gather up everything, I stepped in a small spot of Lani pee. Just one foot and I had on my favorite “sleep sock”. I guess it would have been worse if I hadn’t had on my socks! So I threw the sock into the washer in one of the 4 loads of linens! The three dogs and I hit the bed after a night of washing linens, eating popcorn and drinking one too many margaritas! Just think, I could have been, should have been in San Diego with Susan this weekend! Hmmmm….what was I thinking?

The comforter hanging from the balcony and drying!!

Wonder what Roger, Toby, Milly and Willy are doing at the Carter’s in PV? He left at 7am on Friday morning and I called him at 5:30pm on Sunday night and asked if he was moving in with the Carter’s! I think he liked it a little too much! Just imagine if all six of the dogs were over here this weekend! It would be a nightmare! Is this just a preview to our weekends in the future with the grandkids, instead of the grand dogs?! Maybe this idea of us staying at separate houses during these special child sitting weekends will carry over to hanging out with the grandkids! Sounds good to me!

CUTE!!

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Thanks Mom, for a GREAT post :) So now you know---it's not just our house where the dogs take over our lives........but you have got to love them, right? There were lots of videos my mom sent too, but those are like impossible to upload to blogger!!!

Cut off from the world

The title of this is the way I feel when I'm at home now because we have no Internet at our house...yep, you read right (Vanessa, you can understand this!!!!), no Internet. Why? Oh because brilliant me went searching to save some $$ on our monthly cable/Internet bill while adding some services (all home DVR = very nice for Jimmy and Brittany because they don't like to share). However, I forget what a pain in the butt getting everything re-installed in our house is.

• 4 hour time frames detailing when the installer might show up
• 3-4 hours to set up
• Things don't work the way they are supposed to
• You realize that your 50+ year old house doesn't have a phone line installed
• ....which in turn means that Internet you thought you were going to have last week,
• yep...that takes a week and a half (estimated) to get someone to your house to fix it
• then they give you an EIGHT hour window for them to show up
• hours spent on hold talking to one department after the other
• mounds of frustration building up
• whispers saying "I'm going to punch (insert company name, person's name, etc)"
• whispers saying "I'm going to knock out (insert company name, person's name, etc)"
• whispers saying "What was I thinking? Was this really worth the monthly savings?"
  

And there you have it my friends, what I am living through right now. Let's just hope come Friday.....this Internet gets up and going because like Jimmy said, I'm going to go CRAZY without it!!!

P.S. However, I will note that Direct TV came and installed it in our house on Monday and he did a fabulous job, was nice, showed up early, and even though it took forever...it works great!

Baltimore/DC!!!

So last Friday afternoon, Jimmy and I jetted off to BWI to visit Jay, Jimmy's best friend, and his girlfriend Sara, for a weekend of fun on the East coast and a visit to the capitol city!! And boy did we have FUN!!! First of all, thanks SO much for Jay and Sara for being such fabulous hosts! We had so much fun hanging out in Baltimore and seeing where you all live...and then THANKS for taking us all the way to DC and trekking around sight seeing with us all weekend! It was such a good time and we can't wait to come back :)

To kick off this picture heavy post (I have WAY more, so these are just the most entertaining), here is a shot of the four of us at a local bar. Which I referred to as "Narrow Bar"...everything thing in Baltimore is narrow! Sounds weird, but being from the Midwest where we have plenty of space....the East coast is quite different because all they have to go to add more space is UP! So that's how everything is...houses, bars, restaurants, etc. Just very different! And makes for a lot of running into people.

The next day, after a nice relaxing night of sleep, we hopped in Jay's infamous Neon and were off to Washington, DC. We actually didn't get stuck in much traffic, which was lucky because they said it could be bad! Sara and I were just chilling in the back seat catching up :)

And...we made it! After we checked into the hotel we were staying in that night and dropped off our luggage, we stopped for some coffee (duh) and were off to see everything that DC has to offer! First stop, the Washington Monument. A really nice guy actually got on his back on the cement sidewalk to take this picture so he could get the whole monument in it with all of us. Now THAT's dedication people!!

After that, we walked over to the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial that were both amazing! And the reflection pool....well it was amazing and the perfect day for site-seeing with beautiful weather!! This one is going on our Christmas cards folks!!

Here are the KS people representing at the WWII Memorial!

On our way to the Lincoln Memorial (to see it up close) we figured out that DC has some pretty brave squirrels. Either that, or they are just hungry and not afraid to BEG. Hilarious! I got super close to one to take a picture and then freaked out because all I could imagine was it just attacking me!! But they were so cute; I would put their friendliness up there with the squirrels in Manhattan, KS...which says a lot! PS That's Jay's foot.

We made it to the Lincoln Memorial...without getting attacked by a squirrel!! And look at how awesome it is :) It was so huge and breathtaking and hard to believe the construction, detail and work that went into this to honor a great man!

Jimmy and Abe.

He got really mad because I made him take this picture :)

After a short stint there and a bathroom break, we headed on a LONG walk along the Potomac River, we made it to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial! We were beat from all the walking, but not ready to give up site seeing yet! However, we were ready for some FOOD to refuel!

This was when Jimmy and his walking GPS on his phone took us on a "wild goose chase" after a PotBelly. We walked around for what seemed like literally FOREVER and through all these buildings where there was no other tourists and lots of big buildings. Then we spotted it and everyone got excited to A) Eat and B) sit down and get out of the wind. Well, it was closed. Yep...so after a complete disappointment, we luckily found a cab and went to the museums because we didn't know where to go. The cab driver was not-so-friendly and didn't have any suggestions at all on places we could eat (REALLY??!). So then Jimmy found another PotBelly, called to make sure they were open, and we were off and walking again.

After finally getting some food in our stomach and warming up a bit, we headed back to the museums and hit up the National Museum of American History first. The Americans at War exhibit was amazing and very powerful, as it took you through a visual timeline of America from when George Washington was fighting for freedom to present time. It was definitely a great history lesson for me, as my husband is well up to speed on his history, so it was like I had my own tour guide :) But seeing the uniforms that people wore, the impact the wars had on all of society and honoring the men and women that served to protect our freedom in all the wars across history, was...powerful.

Where it became so real was stepping in front of the September 11 exhibit and literally being transported in time to my junior year of high school in economics class. Watching the TV because the first world trade center had been hit and then seeing the 2nd one on live TV....it takes my breath away thinking that we lived through something that impacted America so much. I have to say, I am so much more thankful for all the men and women...and the families they come from for serving to protect our country, now and before, after seeing all of this.

After we finished that exhibit, we headed over to the exhibit on presidents...and found none other than Jimmy Carter himself on the timeline :) Of course, I forced Jimmy to stand in front of it!

We then headed across the West Lawn, saw the U.S. Capitol Building where Congress and Senate meets! We didn't make it all the way there or get a tour of that, which is a bummer...but there's always next time, right?

Here we are in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This was pretty cool to see how much things have changed from when the first flight happened. We saw some WWII fighters, went inside a cockpit of an older plane....and THEN Pat called (Jimmy's brother) about the KU game and that was about it for us. Haha. I happily took a seat to rest my tired feet and waited for Jimmy to check continuous updates on this phone and talk to his brother. Sara and Jay were still exploring :)

After that, the museums and sites were closed and we were off to see the town! We got all dolled up and headed to the W hotel's rooftop bar, called the POV :) Very swanky, very DC. Haha! Here we are headed out for the night....leaving our hotel! Jimmy and Jay look like twins!

Sara and I waiting for the guys to get us a drink in the downstairs. You had to go up and get a ticket that told you a time frame you were allowed to go up the elevator and get up to the bar. Interesting. We had to wait like 15 min and then go through all these roped off areas to get the elevator. It made us all question how much overhead/payroll goes into that operation of getting people up to the bar. But when we made it up there and bought some drinks, based on the cost I realized they were probably doing ok employing like 15 people for that process :)

Jay and Sara and the cool lights!

Jimmy and I!

And....we made it up! The monuments were pretty cool to see at night from so high up!

Apparently all the tables are reserved...as it specifies "standing room only" on our ticket. Even though there was no one in them. Odd. Guess that's what makes it fancy? So we sat at the bar and had a few drinks and tried to figure out where we were going to eat!

Per a recommendation from Jay's co-worker (or maybe boss...) who mentioned it's a great place to eat but you better have your credit card ready (yep, he was right), we ended up at Occidental Grill and Seafood, just 2 blocks from the White House. It was fun going to a fancy place and eating delicious food though, and even for all the food Jimmy ordered---he did eat it. And I had the most delicious lobster bisque! AND we got dessert, which was all wonderful.

The restaurant is 105 years old and they have pictures EVERYWHERE of all the famous people and politicians that have eaten there over the years. It's crazy. JFK, Thomas Edison (yep, the inventor of electricity ate there!), Ronald Regan, Richard Nixon....and the list goes on and on. So after dinner we took time to look at all the pictures, which was neat and got the waitress to snap one of all of us!

NEXT (yes, this is still Saturday....), we were off to Dupont Circle to meet Lauren and Chris at Buffalo Billiards where they were watching the K-State game! I'm SOO glad we got to see them and we did a lot of catching up! Their life in DC/Virginia is so cool and it's just such a different world than old KS :) However, I can't wait to have them back in KC (hopefully) after Chris finishes law school!!

Sunday morning, we woke up and headed to eat brunch at the hotel, complete with a made-to-order omelet station. It was delicious and gave us a nice break to sit down, chat, and catch up on other things than monuments.

But then, right after we were off to see the final destination of the weekend: the White House!! DC is just such a cool place because you will just be walking and literally you will turn the corner and some historic monument smacks you in the face! Which is what happened when we were looking for the White House! It was so pretty, I had to get multipe shots in here. And there were SO many people snapping pictures in front of it. Sara got asked to take a group's picture and they liked her so much....they made her get in one with them! Haha! So funny!

Jim and I in fron of the White House. I contemplated making this our Christmas Card picture...but my hair was too poofy.

So, after we saw the front....I wanted to see the back. So around we went and on our way, we passed the Department of Treasury. I liked it because it has to do with fiscal things. Haha.

Jimmy, admiring a statue. He was in awe of all the history all weekend. Probably got home and set the DVR to everything on the history channel!!

And the "back". So gorgeous! However, on our way to the back, we almost got in huge trouble by some police/secret service people. Jimmy figured since the road was blocked off, there was no reason why we couldn't walk on it and didn't need the sidewalk like all the "other tourists". However, about 3 steps in the street, a man blew a LOUD whistle and with a very strong hand gesture, suggested that we get off the street. Jimmy was mad at him the rest of the day. I think he was just embarrassed :)

And that's it! Our trip to visit Sara and Jay in Baltimore, MD and site-seeing in DC! What a fun weekend. We made it back to KC and our flight landed early, which was amazing. However, Jimmy dvr-ed the Chiefs game, which didn't end too well...but we were happy to be back home to some great KC weather and see our dogs!!!!

Thanks again for being such great hosts, Jay and Sara!!!