April goes to Washington

 _________________________________________

A couple of weeks ago JB and I went to Washington D.C. to visit his bro Austin and our new(er) SIL Lauren. I had never been to D.C. before, and as someone who likes America and History and Family, I was set to have a good time.

And I did! (So did JB!)

Here's our Top 10, chosen by me (you'll be able to identify the usual suspects in most photos, but Lauren is the ghost in the long shot of the Lincoln Memorial):

10.) Went to a fabric shop in Fairfax, VA. Fail. The place was nice, but all the fabric was sorted by color. Which defeats the purpose of buying matching fabrics from a particular line! Which is what people like to do! The fabrics are spread all over the place and you cannot find what you're looking for. I got a few things. But it wasn't as exciting an experience as I hoped it would be.

9.) Watched the series finale of LOST with JB. We cried and cried and cried. It was a great finale. 

8.) Went to the MegaMall in Tyson's Corner. Money,  money, money. They had stores there that I've only seen in magazines. Like United Colors of Benetton. Naartjie. L.L. Bean. Shopping there really hammered home how downtrodden the Michigan economy is right now. This mall had big name stores, little to no sales or clearance racks, bright lights, and even brighter, happier shoppers. Michigan malls seem so funeral-like compared to that place. However, I still scored a megadeal at L.L.Bean. There was one lone sweater on the sale rack. One lone red cashmere sweater originally $100. I got it for $25. My first cashmere sweater. Or part-cashmere. I don't care. Even 10% cashmere would make me feel glamorous!

7.) Lost all four games of Ticket To Ride (Europe) that we played. I tried and tried and lost and lost! But you can't go wrong with building your own trains through Europe so it was fun anyway.

6.) PUPPIES!! Puppies, puppies, puppies!! Took a harrowing car ride in and around curves, up and down mountainous road, to see Austin and Lauren's future black lab puppy (and 9 others). By the time we got there JB, Lauren and I were about to vomit. Austin was perplexed at our sickness. JB explained to him it was because he was the driver and was not subjected to the chaotic ride. He drove as carefully as he could on the way home. We all felt much better. Though perhaps we were just riding in on our puppy euphoria. 

5.) Smithsonian! There are a ton of Smithsonians. We hit up the American History one. Most of the exhibits were not as impressive as I had thought. Perhaps the hundreds of people milling about everywhere were the problem. JB and I dug seeing the Julia Childs kitchen and now he has agreed to do our next kitchen with all wood cuttingboard countertops. I am thrilled. My other huge memory from there was the Vietnam War exhibit. I saw an actual helicopter that had to fly in and out of the warzone chaos, picking up dead and wounded. It wasn't like the big helicopters that rich people buzz around in. It was dinky. Like smaller than my kitchen. Vietnam vets are some brave mother f'ers.

4.) Went to the Holocaust Museum. A great experience. Very disturbing, though. Why didn't more Jews or good Germans revolt??? How did that much mass murder happen in modern day?? I held it together until I walked through the boxcar that had taken Jews to one of the concentration camps. I thought of all the babies and little kids who had to squish in there and who died by the time they reached their destination. Imagined being a mom and a.) watching your child die in front of you, and then b.) having to hold that dead baby for days in a cramped car. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

(Did you know that Denmark refused to play the Nazi's game? They resisted till the end. Go Danes!)

3.) Walked through Arlington. I don't care what the liberals say: God Bless the U.S.A.

 2.) Saw WWII and Vietnam Memorials at night, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. If that don't make you proud to be an American, nothing will.

1.) Rode to the top of the Washington Monument: AT NIGHT. Tours are closed to the public at night. Unless you flirt with the security guard like Austin did. :) The view was amazing. Unfortunately the windows were clouded over on the outside, so I didn't get a stellar shot, but I'm sharing what I did get anyway.

Treasures

Well, the Top Ten list is on hold until JB completes the entry for #5, as it is about adventures he had without me, so I cannot write about them. If he does not complete #5 by the weekend, I will pick up with #4, and you may never know what #5 is! Mu-ha-ha!

So this week I got 3 unexpected treasures. Well, one man's trash...

1.) Steamer Trunk
My mom stores all her sewing stuff in an old steamer trunk. I thought that was a pretty clever idea and wanted to do the same myself. For my birthday last year JB got me a steamer trunk for $20. After we got it home we realized how badly it smelled inside. We can't get the smell out. So my sewing stuff has remained in this clear plastic tote, which looks kind of tacky in our dining room.

But this weekend, Marian gave me her old steamer trunk! She had gotten different furniture for a guest bedroom and the trunk was kind of off in the corner, all lonely. It's in much better shape than the other one, and it doesn't stink badly. YAY! Thank you Marian!


2.) We hit up the Allegan Antiques fair on Sunday. There I got this vintage quilt top that the seller had picked up at an Estate Sale. I'm not sure where to put it on my list of quilts to do, but I'll find a place for it. This quilt must have taken someone HOURS to complete (it's a "trip around the world" pattern).



3.) I had admired this serving platter when it Williams Sonoma first advertised it. For $54! A little out of my price range. But on Tuesday when Lizzy and I were shopping the mall, there it was, marked down to $16.99! Agh! I decided to buy it, but before I could get the lady to ring it up, Lizzy bought it for me as a present for taking her shopping. Lizzy is Chris's wife (Top Ten #9) and as a Brit, she isn't used to driving on the right side of the road (well, and it's fun to have a shopping buddy). Thank you Lizzy!

Austin and Lauren's Wedding

I wish I had some entertaining things to relay about Austin and Lauren's wedding, but we were so busy at that time that I didn't have a chance to reflect or write down thoughts. Sorry, guys!

Basically, the wedding consisted of four days of wedding festivities, and I gathered that this was typical Southern fashion. And this was only wedding stuff, and did not include Bier family fun-times, which JB and I were not able to participate in as much as we had wanted. Cry, cry.

JB and I enjoyed the celebrations, but I still craved a day of rest. At one point I broke down crying in front of JB because I realized I wouldn't have time to return to the mega quilting store, Stitcher's Garden, in Franklin, to finish shopping. The store is so huge that Marian and I only got through about half of the building on our first trip. We squeezed it in while the guys were off getting their tuxedos. Fortunately, Lauren's Dad lost his car in the mall parking lot, so it gave us extra time to shop before we had to meet up with the guys again. Okay, so it wasn't any fun for Mr. Brown, who thought that his car was stolen (it wasn't--he just couldn't remember where it was parked), but it helped Marian and I out. :) Yes, I am weird for crying about not getting to go to a quilt store, but that's me.

The rehearsal was your typical rehearsal, but the dinner was something else! We ate at Mere Bulles, and it was very good food, and JB and I had a lot of fun visiting with people and also relaxing. I had 2.5 glasses of wine. That was about 1 glass too many. Ooops--haha! Here is Austin working hard on rehearsing, with Aaron Zull in the background:



The ceremony was very nice, if you ask me. The Reverends did a nice job. Aaron Zull (longtime family friend of the Browns, and incidentally I went to SLT with his son, who played the cello at the wedding, and his wife was Marian's IV staffer at UofM--small world!) did the message, and Chris Wright (longtime family friend of Hunts) did the marrying part. I enjoyed myself. Though perhaps a bit of the enjoying was due to the fact that Olivia was in the nursery with a sitter. I love being a free woman! Oh, and I had a front row seat:




The reception took place in downtown Nashville, at the Avenue, an old warehouse just south of Broadway. I had never been down Broadway, which is full of honky tonks and cheesy neon lights. It looked so fun! I secretly wanted to go there instead of the reception. I wanted to drop Olivia off at the reception and go have fun without her. No, I am not a bad mother. I am a woman. A woman who has for years loved Big & Rich's song that has the line, "Ridin' up and down Broadway, on my old stud Leroy," and now I knew what they were talking about.

But I was a good sister-in-law and attended my brother-in-law's reception instead. Where we got to hang with JB's family, who are lots of fun:


There was a live band, which I learned was Lauren's Dad's band. The dinner was dee-lish, though I didn't get enough of it, due to time and Olivia. JB did his best-man speech, which I think was head and shoulders above the girls' speeches (sorry, ladies, but victory for Jib!). And, no, I don't just like it better because I helped him write it (the gun show reference was all me)! Then they cut the cake. Wedding cake is so...so...generic? IDK. I just don't like cake, unless it's homemade with the frosting that you get in a plastic tub. Any other frosting is too sugary to me. So I never get excited about desserts at weddings. Fortunately, Austin had requested cheesecakes as a special side thing. MMMmmm. Good move, BIL.

I attended the reception with Olivia in tow. I had wanted to get her a sitter, but Marian reminded me that there would be plenty of people to play with her (and who would want to see her), so she came along. And Marian was right, that plenty of people wanted to play with her, but in an odd twist for Olivia, she only wanted to play with me. She was a very, very good little girl, but I couldn't just do whatever I wanted because I felt responsible and that I should be checking on her regularly, since she kept wanting me. She stayed up until 10:30, and then her little baby body gave out on her. The next morning I realized that she was cutting a tooth that night. So really, she probably would have been a party animal like usual, if it wasn't for that tooth.


So, a good time was had by all.

For more photos of the fun, check out my flickr set.