A Night In DC

Let me just say this, for the record.  My cousin Sara rocks.  Seriously.  Not only did she welcome our family of five into her home to invade her space and mess up her house and tear apart her kids' toy room, but she literally shooed us out of her house so Deonne and I could enjoy a night out in DC.

How awesome is that?!?

After getting the kids settled and started on a movie - Deonne and I jumped in the van and headed out.  We had no destination in mind - just to go AWAY.  I knew I wanted to go to the Lincoln Memorial - I've always wanted to see that at night.  For some reason I've never made it at night during any of my previous trips.  But it wasn't dark yet, and we wanted to walk around.

So we set Mr. GPS for Georgetown so we could walk and wander.  We'd already eaten dinner, so we weren't really hungry - but thought something sweet or a drink might be nice.

Because I'm a lover of TLC and cupcakes - we made a stop into DC Cupcakes.  We waited in line to get in - purchased our little cakes of love (+ a hat for me) then kept on wandering.  We ended up at Serendipity - a place I'd heard about but thought was only in New York.  We ordered one of the Frozen Hot Chocolates - this ridiculous drink they are famous for - to see what all the hype was about.

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I get it.  I think the waitress said there were 17 different kinds of cocoa in it - or something crazy like that.  And you know what - it totally tasted like hot chocolate - but frozen.  I can't describe it.  But it does.  (And not just like a chocolate milkshake like I thought it might.)

After that - we walked a bit more - then made our way down to the Mall.  It was dark now - and I figured it would be a quiet time to see Mr. Lincoln.  Couldn't have been more wrong.  There were hundreds of people there.  Deonne said there were more there that night than earlier in the day when he'd been there with the kids.  But it was still amazing to see it all lit up - and the views from there are awe inspiring.

I'll always love this place - where the Capital, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial make a straight line.  Hands down this is my favorite place in all of DC.

We drove around a bit after that - looking at the White House - getting as close to the Jefferson Memorial as possible (I still haven't see that up close yet - poor Jefferson - he gets bad PR - they stuck him so far out and away from the rest of the Mall that by the time you get all the way down to see Mr. Lincoln - you're pooped!)

Finally, we headed back to Springfield - for our last night - and to prepare to pack everything up the next morning.