Thanksgiving

I know, it's technically the first of February - but I'm still in this blog make up phase...it's still going to be awhile before I'm current... taking half the year off from blogging is making this catch up phase crazy long. Oh I the fact that I do some cool stuff once in awhile also makes for a lot of blog posts. 

So, back to Thanksgiving. This was going to be my first Thanksgiving on the east coast without family - but that's okay because I have made a really good friend in 2018, Stephanie. Stephanie invited me out to her family's Thanksgiving in Maryland. However, the night before Thanksgiving, Stephanie's car broke down and so we decided to do Thanksgiving in the city. We pulled some stuff together and surprisingly had most of the traditional food (except for turkey). I made the best sweet potato crunch casserole, ever and green bean casserole. 

It was a great day and I had fun spending the day with Stephanie and Anton at their house in Glover Park (northwest part of DC). We had a great feast and watched a couple episodes of Black Mirror. 

While it may not have been the Thanksgiving we thought it was going to be, it turned out to be a perfect Thanksgiving and I am so thankful to have a great friend to share it with! 

Barb's Here - Day 1

The time has finally came! Barb was here for almost an entire week. I so was looking forward to spending a whole week with one of the most important people in my life. Barb means more to me then I could ever put into words and I felt truly honored that she came back to DC for a third time to see me! Barb flew in late on a Thursday night and so I did the heroic thing and drove to Baltimore to pick her up and drive back to DC. I am getting so good and driving on one road in DC - haha! Since she got in super late (we didn't get back to my apartment until around 12am) we had a late start to the morning and  decided to start our day with brunch at Union Market. There is this great crepe place I like to go to. 

After wandering around Union Market, we decided to take a walk to the US Capitol. Barb had been to DC many times and didn't necessarily need to see all the touristy stuff, but I still wanted to make sure she saw some things and the trees are so beautiful in the fall. 

Then we decided to walk to Chinatown for some dinner at Matchbox - thanks to Becky who gave me an awesome gift card! As we were walking to Matchbox the rain started rolling in. 

It was a wonderful and chill first day! 

Opera In the Outfield

This was another bucket list activity that Stephanie had on our list and something I had been wanting to do for a few years. Opera in the Outfield, is an event where you can sit in the outfield on the Washington Nationals field and watch an opera that was preformed at the Kennedy Center It's free and a total DC only kind of thing. I am not a fan of baseball or the opera - but what a unique opportunity. I had read that they only allow a certain amount of people on the outfield and then everyone else has to sit in the bleachers. I really wanted to sit in the outfield so we got to Nats Stadium about an hour before it opened and we played a game with Gina and ate our donuts from Ocean City. 

There were many lines for security and of course I picked the one where they lady made you take everything out and even made us take off our hats. It was ridiculous and she should have been moved, I do appreciate the attention to detail, but there comes a point. 

Even with the intense security check we made it to the field! 

Since we are at a ball park, we had to eat ball park food, not opera food! 

So cool to the the field! 

After our fancy dinner we wandered around and had fun with some of the activities. This is a real guy, dressed as a bronze statue that scared Karen. 

Then we went and played dress up!

Now it was time for the opera. It was the Barber of Seville. It had subtitles (thankfully) but was super funny and really good.

It was a super fun night!