Final Days as a City Girl

I am actually writing this post from Utah so my days as a city girl truly are over. Here is a photo display of what I accomplished in my last few weeks in Washington D.C.

They presented a movie on Monday nights on the National Mall and the event was called Screen on the Green (clever little title I think). While the movie we watched was awful there is something about watching a movie on the grass of the National Mall with the capital in the background that still makes it fun.

The only touristy places I had left to visit were the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. I loved the Library of Congress! It was my favorite place, there is something about seeing great architecture and a whole bunch of books in one place that gives me goosebumps. It was just gorgeous.
This is the Supreme Court, also neat to see. They are working on updating it as you can tell.
I was able to visit with many "old" friends. This is my dear high school friend, Nicole. She is a bigtime lawyer in DC and has a super cute baby. It was so fun to catch up with her and chat about our high school friends.

Since I have been in many BYU wards, I have many BYU friends. Here are a couple of my favs. Joseph and Regina both live in DC now and it was so fun to go to dinner and chat about silly things with them. Joseph totally fits the t-shirt he is wearing by the way, but you can't trust him!

Now there are many fabulous ice cream places in DC and Virginia. The fact that I cannot fit into any of my clothes is testimony to their deliciousness and my dedication to visiting them often. One of my favs was called Dairy Godmother, (even the title is great!) and evidently I am not the only one who enjoys a nice yummy custard from them...

My roommate Patti was asked to sing at the Kennedy Center the day before I left. I was so excited for her. Singing at the Kennedy Center is a big deal! I was told Nora Jones sang there before she made it super big. I am sure Patti is on her way. She is on the left and sings beatifully, she was the best one there! It was so great to be there for her and enjoy her show.

We had a roommate dinner as a good bye to me and you can see why I had so much fun this summer. We took like 6 pictures because we were goofing off so much! So there is me, Patti, KaRyn, and Mary on the end. Sharyn was out of town with family and we missed her dearly for our roommate picture. We got along so well and had probably too much fun together!

As you can see my whole summer was filled with adventures, happy times, and great people. This has been an amazing summer and while I am actually excited to be back in Utah and get another school year under way, I will never forget my summer as a city girl and the things I learned about myself. It was also special to see my family and dear friends I have known for many years as well as make new friends I will know for many more.

Family Time at the Fair

Another activity I needed to complete before I left was a visit with my Aunt Michele. She lives in New Jersey and we had talked about getting together all summer so with only a few days left we needed to make it happen. Michele discovered that halfway between us was the world famous...Delaware State Fair! Having just gone to Delaware the weekend before to go to the beach I was now an expert at driving to Delaware and was super excited to see Michele. So she packed up her husband, Grant and her cute kids Megan and Kettner and I packed up myself and off to the Delaware State Fair we went. Sadly they had more traffic than I did this time. I got the fair in a record three hours (a two hour improvement from beach time) and it took them four! We enjoyed the heat and walked around looking at all the yummy foods. We enjoyed some fun rides and of course we visited all the award winning farm animals. It was a grand day at the fair. To top the day off, Grant found a quaint seafood restaurant for us all to relax and enjoy a good dinner at before we went our separate ways. It was so good to see Michele, and have family around. We realized we see each other about every nine years but we are going to break the mold and see each other again in just a few months or even weeks!

Me with my Aunt Michele and my cute cousin, Megan. Yeah, Michele and I are pretty much the same age. Cool huh?

Michele and I relived our childhood days and rode the bumper cars. I totally won the bumper war! These are Michele's kids (aka my cousins), Kettner and Megan. They are so cute and have great personalities. It was fun to meet them and hang out with them for the day.

A Day at the Beach (or a day in the car getting to the beach)

There are only a few things I had left to do as my summer as a city girl winds down. One of them was a visit to the beach, a must do in the summer. I grew up in San Diego where the beach was a daily occurance so I was excited to head to the beach on the other side of the country and experience the waves, the sand, the hot sun, and life guards! My roommate knew of a great beach in Delaware and though it would take 2 hours to get there, it was going to be worth it. We loaded up two car loads of friends on a sunny Saturday and we were off for a day at the beach. About half way into the trip we ran into some traffic, a common occurance in these parts, but an hour later we were still in the same traffic! And an hour after that the other car decided to turn around, they didn't need the beach THAT bad. Well my car was ready to endure so we continued on. Five hours and many veggie strips later, we had made it to the beach! It was 3:00 in the afternoon and as many people were leaving for the day sunburned and beached out, my roommate, KaRyn and I were ready to party. The beach was so small and very crowded, definitely different from the west coast. We stayed for a fun filled couple of hours, ate some dinner, and headed back home. So... was it worth it, probably not, but I did love being near the beach and have decided I am a coastal girl and need to live near the beach (or at least have a beach house:)

KaRyn and I and our Veggie Strips. We spent more time in the car than at the beach but as you can see we still had fun!

Lots and lots of people and I still got to see life guards!

I love the beach!KaRyn introduced me to these delicious ice cream place before we made the trek back. At Rita's you get Italian Ice and Custard in one yummy treat called Gelati. At this point in the day the dessert looked better than I did so I am letting it have full shot in the picture.