Laura's Visit in November

I know these are like a month overdue, but I did create an entry either over Thanksgiving weekend, or the following weekend, but it was "lost" and did not get posted. Then I was irritated and put it off, and then was busy with holiday stuff.

So, these are pictures from my friend's visit. I can't remember everything we did, but I do remember it involved lots and lots of walking.

Saturday night after picking her up from the airport, we went to RiRa's, an Irish pub in Bethesda for dinner.

Sunday, Laura and I attended services at the National Cathedral. After church we did a tour of the cathedral. Part of it was closed off for events occuring later in the day. But it is a magnificent building. The 6th largest cathedral in the world. After touring the Cathedral, we headed down to Alexandria, VA. Got some food and walked around and looked in some of the shops in the area.

Monday, we ventured down to Georgetown. We took the metro to I believe Foggy Bottom, and then walked to Georgetown. We walked around the neighborhood, went on to the campus, and then walked around the mall there for a bit. After that we started walking toward Dupont. We ended up stopping at the National Geographic building and going through the little "museum" they had there. One of the exhibits was their photography contest. There are some really good photographers out there. Many of them much younger than me.

We also visited the AIA, American Institute of Architects, building. We stopped to look at the Octogon museum, but ventured into the lobby of the AIA, where there was a bookstore. Laura actually got some really good deals; unfortunately that meant lugging home a little more than she had bargined for. I think we went by the White House that day too.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant in downtown Silver Spring. After dinner it was time for a stop at Cake Love. (It's owner, Warren Brown, has a show on the Food Network.)

Tuesday we drug ourselves back downtown. We went to see a designer showcase (an interior design thing) that was a few blocks south of the mall. Then we had lunch at the Native American Smithsonian musuem cafe. It was good. Just a lot pricier than we were expecting for cafeteria food. After that we walked to see some of the memorials. Apparently I did not represent how far away the FDR memorial is (for future reference, it is quite a walk from the mall). We kind of made an early day of it as all the walking had kind of caught up with us.

Houses in Georgetown

Laura in Alexandria, VA

the National Cathedral

Detail of the door.

This view was taken from the tower.

The top of the cathedral. This view was taken from the tower.

Stained glass in the Bethleham Chapel

Alter in the Bethleham chapel.

Pictures from the Crypt - mural painted on the wall of the crypt. on the right you might be able to see the 3 crosses in the upper corner of the painting. The left shows the procession of the burial of Christ.

The National Zoo

Went to the National Zoo Saturday the 6th. It was fun.

One of the first things we got to see was feeding time for the otters. One of them lost his fish down the pit between them and the fence. It was sad.

The pandas were not being very cooperative when it came to taking their pictures but I got a few.

Apparently the baby panda likes to spend most of his time up in the tree.

The red pandas enjoyed the trees as well.

My least favorite place was the birdhouse. They have an indoor flight room where you can get up close and personal with the birds. I highly recommend not taking pictures in there, as the birds can get a bit testy. One of them ( see below) tried to hit me in the head. Stupid bird.

I was also disappointed as there was only one lion and the lions are my favorite animals in the entire zoo.

Paulanne is obsessed with the Capybara, so we had to get a picture. It is mentioned in the book The Princess Bride and is a real live ROUS (Rodent of Unusual Size for those of you not as obsessed with The Princess Bride as I am). ;)

This is a Mara when it is sitting it look like a giant rabbit.

The male tiger was stalking around growling cause he was hungry and two of the three cubs decided it was play time. All very entertaining, also very sad because we tend to get the same show from our cats at home.

We musn't forget Lisa's "lion". She was seeing them everywhere. :) This a true wild horse that are only located in Mongolia.

It was the first time to this zoo for all of us. We didn't visit everything, saving some for the next time, though the zoo is one of those places I don't think I could ever get bored with. Watching the animals and the people can be very interesting.

Christmas in DC

Had quite a crowd come out for a Christmas visit. The fam got here Tuesday night, late. Wednesday we let everyone sleep in. Lisa needed to check in at work and Megan had to go to work. I had to drop my car off for some maintenance work. So later when everyone was up and moving we headed over to the mall near where my car was. Did some shopping and picked up the car. Then we headed home to start dinner preparations.

Dinner was an interesting event. Everyone got in trouble. Daevy started and asked to go talk to grandma in the other room. The rest of us found this kind of humorous and ended up going off on a tangent and cracking up. we knew we'd get in trouble as soon as mom came back to the table and we were right. After dinner we had a little Christmas celebration.

Thursday we headed downtown. It was Donna's first trip since she's learned to walk, so we had to take her to the National Mall. We saw the Capitol, the Smithsonians, the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. We also went by the back of the White House and saw the National Christmas tree.