Finally...a date night.

Ok. So I shouldn't say finally. We do pretty well at making sure we spend lots of time together--chances are, if you see one of us, you see the other. In fact, some people have begun to wonder if we're the first ever male/female set of conjoined twins. :) Ok...so I made that up. But I wouldn't be too surprised (if they thought that, not if we WERE the first ever set...I WOULD be pretty surprised by THAT). But with all the hustle and bustle, and holiday travel, and online shopping (I've become a hermit), and ward mission stuff, and ward marriage class (no...we're not in therapy, although that would be a good story. Everyone in our ward is supposed to take the class, and the last 7 weeks it was our turn) we were just feeling like a lot of our time lately hasn't been out and about with each other...so out and about we went this Friday. Which brings me to the Top Ten Reasons to Visit the National Harbor at Christmas time:

#1-The big ole gorgeous tree overlooking, well, the National Harbor. :)


#2-The fun parking adventure. Ok, actually parking was a breeze, or could've been. We knew we weren't supposed to pay the outrageous Gaylord Resort parking price, so we headed into another garage, then decided to u-turn and see if the other garage was even cheaper (which is about where Brian said, "Oops...there's a police man behind me"), then saw a meter and u-turned to take that spot only to find it was more expensive than the garage (this is about where I said, "Um...isn't that the same police man?"), then u-turned to head to the other garage, then found that the other garage was the same price but farther, then u-turned to go back to the original garage (I was giggling too hard to point out the policeman...who was obviously in a very Christmasy, no-ticket mood), then missed the turn in to the other garage and u-turned... ANYWAY. You must try it.

#3-The first and only Peeps & Co store. We highly recommend spending the $6 it costs to fill up a tiny bag of Mike and Ikes. The green apple and raspberry ones are to DIE for.



#4-The Sizzle Meter in the Peeps store. Apparently Bri is "Smokin'" and I'm "Fiery"...ah cha cha! youch!

#5-Walking up to the Gaylord Resort and totally feeling like you're sneaking in illegally because there's no WAY someone as un-posh as us can go in THERE... it's PHENOMENAL! All the hotel room doors face out into an indoor atrium that has trees and a creek and little Old Town looking buildings... awesome. And it was DECKED out for Christmas, complete with a glass, 7,000 pound tree hanging from the ceiling.

#6-The choir at the Gaylord.

#7-The indoor fountain show set to Christmas music. Kinda like a little mini-Bellagio shin-dig. Really cool.

#8-Watching the little kids in this picture shriek, and I mean SHRIEK, with delight every time the fountains shot up. As soon as the water died down, they'd get as close as they could, and go into spasms the next time it went up like they were totally shocked it would do that... :)

#9-Walking along the pier you can pick up some pretty good looking boys, like this one here...

#10-Hmm....well...that was anti-climatic. I really only have 9 good reasons...didn't plan that one out very well, now did I. But uh... go. Just go. :)

Also, totally unrelated side note (which I know is totally unexpected coming from me...a random interjection?! NEVER!!) I recommend the DC temple in the first snow storm of the year. Beeeeeeeeeautiful.