Friday, June 27, 2008

DC is all kinds of awesome- Part I

First of all, I haven't changed a poopy diaper in 8 days. No that does not mean that Ryan is potty trained, it just means I was gone for 7 days and Ethan was the lucky one to get this morning's. You smell it, you change it. Lucky me!!! So, DC was so fun and tiring...but mostly just really cool (not weather cool because it was HOT and HUMID). This post will probably ramble on for days, and Michelle McCoy already thinks my posts are long so sorry in advance.

Ethan and I have not traveled like this since our honeymoon back in 99. Most of our vacations have been relatively short, and usually by car. Ethan had never been past Colorado and considers everything past there "East Coast" LOL. I have been to Florida overnight, but other than that, not a lot of traveling over there either. So, the fact that we traveled by plane, car, metro, train, taxi and bus is kinda cool. The fact that we didn't lose eachother on the metro during rush hour is pretty astounding.

We flew into BWI on Thursday evening, after leaving Oakland at 9:30. We brought our GPS and I cannot say enough good things about having it. Ofcourse I printed out Yahoo directions for everything, but Ethan likes to hear the lady telling him where to go instead of me. FINE. I also like that its not my fault if we happen to get lost. I tend to think the voice is a bit snippy sometimes and I swear she has an attitude, but whatever. It totally works. We decided to find somewhere to eat and hang out because we were exhausted. Our hotel was near the airport in Lithicum, or something like that. I must say that Maryland loves their Wendys. We were able to find at Wendys and a liquor store at every turn...not so much what we were looking for. After driving around for a while we decided to eat at Wendys.

Friday we headed over to Pasadena, MD where my friend lives. That is where I found out you cannot by liquor at the grocery store, hence the amount of liquor stores. I also found out no one in Maryland cares about their butts because they don't have toilet seat covers anywhere... Is it a CA thing? Her parents moved to Missouri in 1993 and they said its the same over there too. I just thought we all cared about toilet seat cleanliness and it wasn't a regional thing. This is also the day I found out there were no wedding flowers. GASP. Go ahead, have a freak out.

The bride had decided to go with an on-line wholesaler. She had planned to use hydrangeas from her own yard and they are spectacular, so she was ordering white roses and some other fillers for the center pieces. She even did a test run about a month ago and everything showed up on time and good quality. They were supposed to ship Thursday over night for a Friday arrival. She checked UPS and the order never shipped. Cannot track an order that was never shipped. The company's phone goes straight to voicemail. Are you getting the picture? Oh yes, they are out of business, but not before they took her money. Luckily it was put on a credit card and she reported it on Friday and the credit card people were so nice and when they heard it was wedding flowers they were all over it. I think they enjoy going after the bad guys :) Miraculously, the bride didn't panic. We decided to use more hydrangeas cuz we had them at our disposal, then sent everyone out to Costco and local grocery stores to buy flowers. I think the flowers looked better than if we had received the order. Her aunt made all the center pieces, bouquets and corsages. She was totally Marthat Stewart. We spent most of Friday getting the house/yard ready because they were getting married there.

As for location, you could not have paid for anything better. They are off the Chesapeak Bay (i think) and its absolutely gorgeous to have your backyard be the water--actually i think its the front yard. They have a great deck and two sailboats at their dock. I know, must be rough. Saturday was the wedding and the weather was fantastic. Not as hot as it was supposed to be, and there was a breeze. Her hairdresser came to do our hair and mine was so cute. Elegant and classy, nothing too weird or too fancy for a garden wedding. And my dress...it ended up being fine, but it needed to be a bit more fitted at the top. Nothing major. I was able to wear the suck it in garment without pain but in the photos I look about 300lbs and my face looks gigantic. I'm gonna blame it on water weight from the heat...does that sound good? Honestly, I am not pregnant but I kinda look it. Oh well. The point of me bringing up the dress was that it matched the hydrangeas perfectly. Could not have asked for a better color. Well, I would have looked better in navy, but we won't go into that :) I made a toast where I blubbered from almost my first word. I know, nice. My super fantastic husband got it on video...let's hope it doesn't show up on YouTube. I was just happy for her, happy we have been friends for so long (since we were 4). I was a bit embarassed that I didn't even cry at my own wedding. Whatever.

Sunday was a Maryland style crab feed back at their house. Since she could only put about 50 for the sit down dinner at the reception they had another "party" for the rest of their friends. I don't eat fish...but hey, I'm always up for a party. We drove to downtown Baltimore in the morning to one of the harbors and to see a maritime museum, then back to party. We left around 5:00 thinking it would be a good idea to get into DC before it got dark. Again, the GPS was awesome except for it took is directly to Union Station, but we couldn't find where to return our car. There was nothing obvious. We drove around for a while, then I called the Budget at Union Station. No one answered.....never. I called the Budget at BWI where I rented the car...no one answered and they are supposedly open 24/7. WTF? Now its getting dark and we still have to get on the metro and get to our hotel. Finally I call the 800# for Budget and the only help I get is its near "H" street, by the trains. Not helpful. Flynn, I so almost called you. Finally on one of our many turns through the circle in front of Union Station Ethan sees a rental car return sign. The sign was itty bitty. No joke. Basically you drive into a parking garage and some random guy takes your car. I think he was in an Alamo uniform. Then he sent us on some weird chase to the Budget office in the building. Honestly, more of a chore than it should have been. We made our way to the Metro and ended up in Dupont Circle. Then Ethan asked me, where is the hotel? I was told by my friend it was a few blocks, no big deal. I didn't exactly map it out...so what I'm saying is, I had no idea. I felt like a total idiot. After all my planning, I forgot to ask which direction to walk. Ethan called the hotel and we were only 2 blocks away. No big deal. Then we had a great dinner at Dupont Grill, which was in our hotel. This was a big deal for us because we aren't used to staying in nice places that have restaurants...not $75 dinner restaurants for sure. We're lucky to have a Dennys next door. So, it was nice to walk downstairs, have dinner looking out onto the streets of Dupont Circle...then notice everything was wet. Apparently it had rained while we were checking in...then the thunder and lightning started. Oh my...we were hoping it wasn't going to rain the next few days or we were screwed. But we enjoyed a lovely meal, finally having some time for just the two of us.

3 comments:

Liz said...

i almost had a heart attack when you said no flowers...but it sounds like it worked out really well & her house sounds amazing.

yay for fun adventures =)

McCoyFamily said...

I'm so glad you got some much needed time with your hubbie...The wedding sounds so fun you'll have to post some pictures I'm sure you looked amazing!

Our Family of Four said...

YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED YOU GOOF I live less than a mile away and could have explained it to you. But all is well that ends well! Glad you had fun. Your hair did look amazing!