One Wild Weekend

Let's just say this weekend was enough to make me have to take a sick day today because I just couldn't manage to get out of bed and go to work today. For those of you that know me, this is a highly unusual occurrence because I usually use my days off for traveling, not for being sick/personal reasons. But today, I just couldn't muster the courage to go into work and was so beat down that I just had to take another day off! Luckily for me, that means that I will now work three four-day weeks in a row, followed by one five day week, and then I'm off to Port Aransas so that week I only have to work 2 days! Yay for me! :)

I hate to give a play-by-play (and I won't of all of it), but here are the highlights:

FRIDAY:
Our plane was supposed to leave at 7:15 in the morning. We got up at 4:30 am to shower and dress and close up the suitcases. We got to the airport, ate some breakfast, and waited. When it was about five minutes before we were supposed to board, they informed us that the Pittsburgh flight next to us had a plane with mechanical problems and that since our flight wasn't as full and they had easier ways to get us all to DC and no ways to get them to Pittsburgh or make their connections, that they were giving our perfectly good plane to the Pittsburgh passengers and having us wait to see if they could "fix" the plane. At this point, we tried to convince them to go ahead and move us and they denied us. But then Austin went back up there again, and got them to at least transfer us to another flight leaving at 9:25. So we got up at 4:30 for NO REASON and got to sit in the airport for another two hours. Turns out the mechanical problems were that the plane was smoking when it was turned on and having electronical errors. I was glad we weren't flying on that plane. I called Jen to tell her I wouldn't be there in time for the luncheon now and hoped this would be the last disaster. The flight was good, we got in at 1:15 DC time, and headed to get our rental car. You would think that since we were two hours later than we were supposed to be, that our designated car would be sitting there and ready for us. But no, we waited another 30 minutes for our rental car to appear. We took the wrong directions getting into DC, circled the city forever, ended up in the wrong hotel parking garage, and finally pulled up to the front of the hotel. We got inside and after terrible service in trying to check in, we went up to the room. It was supposed to be non-smoking, king size bed and have a mini-fridge with small freezer section for Austin's medicine. It had NONE of the above. I was already tired and frustrated and could get no help, so we decided to call the Marriott Residence Inn right down the street that we had contemplated booking at originally (the first hotel was the one that the wedding block was for) and luckily managed to get the last room!!! We picked up our stuff again, went downstairs to check out and get our car, and drove down to the other hotel. It was BEAUTIFUL. It just opened in January 2005, we had an efficiency suite with full kitchen, hot breakfast buffet each morning, and even a cheaper room rate and parking rate! So we checked in there at 3:45 and had to wait 15 minutes to get our room clean, so we walked to the nearby McDonald's to have a quick snack since we hadn't eaten since 5:30 in the morning and weren't eating until after 7:30 that night. We came back, checked in, threw on our fancy clothes for the rehearsal and headed for the church in Arlington, Virginia where the rehearsal was being held. We made good time, but I still don't know how we got ready that quickly! That night actually turned out great, even though the job I was supposed to do (coordinate the day of the wedding) was taken over by the reception venue coordinator. We had dinner at the Occidental (very fancy restaurant by the White House) which was wonderful, and we headed back to relax at our hotel.

SATURDAY:
We got up Saturday morning, enjoyed a good breakfast, and headed over to the National Mall. We didn't have a whole lot of time, but we walked down the Mall, went in the Smithsonian Castle, and toured the Air & Space Museum. That was about all the time we had, so we headed back to the hotel, jumped in the shower, and got ready for the wedding. It was supposed to take about an hour to drive out to the wedding ceremony/reception location. It took us an hour and 45 minutes so we were later than we planned. I proceeded to try to decorate the place the best I could with what I had and try to put out the many "fires" that were occurring that day. It was an outdoor wedding in a tent, and it was SO HOT! I have no idea how the groomsmen in tuxes didn't pass out. We stayed for part of the reception, but after the weekend we were having and since Jen said there wasn't much else to happen still, we had to get out of there and get some dinner. I would provide more details, but probably better to do that in person if you are interested in knowing. We headed back into town, an hour and 15 minutes this time, and changed and tried to find a place to eat dinner. We finally found something, tried to walk around and see some of the monuments at night, but we were so exhausted and unaware of where we were because it was dark that we decided it was safest to head back.

SUNDAY:
We got up Sunday morning, packed up our bags, went down and had breakfast, and checked out of the hotel. We managed to find free street parking near the World War II memorial and parked there for the day. We walked up to the White House, across to the WWII Memorial, over to the Korean War Memorial, over to the Lincoln Memorial, over to the Vietnam Wall, back into town for some lunch, over to the National Archives, and back to the car. We walked SO MUCH and it was SO HOT. Then we jumped in the car, headed across the river, and went to Arlington National Cemetary. We walked that too, and saw the JFK gravesite and Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the changing of the guard. We saw A LOT in one day, which was good and made the trip worthwhile, but we have a few more things to see next time we go back. We dropped off the rental car, headed to the airport, had dinner at Friday's, and got on the plane. That plane ride was actually pretty good. We got home last night, and we were so sunburned. Luckily, that doesn't really matter because I have blisters on my toes that are so huge and painful, I still don't know what I'm going to do about them. That is part of the reason I couldn't go to work this morning because I can barely walk. I have one blister on my little toe that is literally as big as the toe. I have never seen a blister so big! I have another one on the ball of that foot and another one on the other foot on a middle toe, but those are smaller at least. I want to cry!

Needless to say, it was a long and crazy weekend. I am so grateful that we have a long weekend again this weekend and this time, I have no plans except to relax and hopefully swim in the pool! I took a ton of pictures and will try to have the energy to upload some of them, but right now I'm trying to carefully maneuver around the apartment so I can do a little bit of laundry and then get to make the dinner before Austin gets home! For once, I will be home before him! Hope you all had a much calmer weekend than mine, and hopefully I'll post the pics tomorrow or so! :)