Nov30

Look. We can talk about me being a slacker later. Right now I’m trying to post something.

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Look. We can talk about me being a slacker later. Right now I’m trying to post something.

Jason and I went to DC twice this month. One weekend we went with his sister Christina, her husband, Reid, and their cousin, Candi, and her boyfriend, John. And then the next weekend we went with his mom, Donna, and dad, Roger. Did you get all that? It’s like a family reunion up in here.

Christina, Reid, Candi, and John were all staying in DC, so Jason and I took the Metro down for the day on Saturday to go adventuring. After some mild confusion as to where, exactly, we were meeting (Jason and I popped into the wrong museum and then were walking around the wrong floor of the correct museum) we all met up to peruse the halls of the National Museum of American History.

And, I don’t know how familiar you are with the Smithsonian museusm, but they love having these strange white plaster-looking statues everywhere.

Reid really liked them.

The museum was pretty neat though. And they had a gargantuan train there that was from Charlotte, NC—where Jason’s family is from—and that was impressive.

Then I got this sweet picture of Jason, but I have no idea what the picture above him actually is. Something in a ship I think. YOU’RE WELCOME.

The four of us popped into the National Museum of Natural History for about five minutes, but we barely made it through half of the dinosaur exhibit before growling tummies forced us to leave for lunch. I did get a picture of Jason and a t-rex though.

And us in front of a triceratops.

And whatever this is.

We accidentally went to an upscale lunch at The Capital Grille, but it was absolutely delicious. Jason and I got crab-stuffed shrimp because we are fancy individuals. Oh! And they gave us free shots of homemade pineapple vodka. It was the bomb. Jason managed to get his hands on three of them from around the table. Yup.

After lunch, we decided to walk around and check out the monuments. We started at the Capital Building. Jason and I went to pose in front of it and at the last second he leaned over and fogged up my glasses.

We wandered our way down the mall while Candi regretted her choice of heeled boots, until we got to the Washington Monument. Of course, more pictures ensued.

Then Reid joined.

And this happened.

And here’s Jason looking handsome.

After what everyone else informed me was a grueling walk, we made it to the Lincoln Memorial. Jason and I took a picture in front of that, too. So touristy!

Shortly after that, Reid spit right on my glasses. He was trying to fake-spit on them and then accidentally did. Unfortunately, didn’t snap a picture of that. Here’s this instead.

Oh! Christina, Reid, Jason, and I also went to a Redskins game. My dad was kind enough to give us the four tickets that he had gotten through work, so we got to go for free.

Even though the Redskins got stomped, we had fun. And we saw Gano sail in a 59 yard field goal, which was pretty amazing. (Not sure how he can make those but have blocked PATs. Who knows.)

The next weekend, Jason’s mom and dad came to visit. On Saturday night, they came over to my parents’ house and had dinner. Jason and his mom played a couple rounds of ping pong.

Which promptly ended when he smacked her right in the nose with the ball.

On Sunday, instead of praying to the gods of football, we went back to DC for more adventures. This time we started with the National Air and Space Museum.

Jason and his dad seemed to really enjoy walking around and talking about engines and things. It was adorable.

In case the name didn’t give it away, the Air and Space museum has lots of planes. Surprise!

And Donna took a picture of us looking at a plane.

But I got a cute family portrait.

And Jason took this.

We went to a sports bar for lunch so that we could check out what was going on in NFL-land. Jason’s mom got attacked by a plant.

We went by the National Archives, too. I’d never been to the one in DC. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, of course, but we were impressed by the giant things outside.

We also went to the Holocaust museum. I don’t know if you’re allowed to take pictures in there, but it didn’t really feel like I should. It was an amazing museum though. I absolutely loved it. It was both fascinating and terrible.

Finally, a short metro ride took us to Ted’s Bulletin in Eastern Market where we had dinner. It was really scrumptious and they have amazing milkshakes. I highly recommend going by there.

So, those were really the two exciting adventures of the month. Thanksgiving came and went. Jason was in North Carolina with his family and I was in MD with mine. I’ll get back to better blogging pronto. I promise.

In conclusion, here’s this neat thing Jason did and I was impressed.

Nov4

As it turns out, carving pumpkins is pretty rough stuff

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As it turns out, carving pumpkins is pretty rough stuff

Jason and I had the whole weekend planned out. We were going to have dinner with my parents on Friday, carve pumpkins on Saturday during the day, and then go to Six Flags Fright Fest that night, and finally on Sunday, we were going to go over to my parents’ house again and watch football. It was an awesome plan. So, as you could imagine, something went wrong.

On Saturday, of course, it snowed. In October. According to the news it was the first time since the 70s. Which was just lovely news for Jason and I since we had purchased our nonrefundable tickets to Fright Fest on Wednesday. Hooray! Needless to say, we were super bummed. The park’s website even said it was closed for the day, so there was no chance of even going up there and freezing our butts off.

Thankfully though, a short call to Six Flags let us know that we would be able to use our tickets on Sunday instead. The only problem was that this threw a monkey wrench into our weekend plans. Number one being, now what were we supposed to do to fill up our Saturday? (Play video games, carve pumpkins, and drink beer.) And two, how were we going to fit Fright Fest and football into one day? (Moderately successfully.)

Overall, everything turned out wonderfully, though. We still had a great weekend. I bought a replacement pumpkin for Sad Pumpkin which had been thrown away, and Bruce and I transported it very safely to Maryland.

Have I mentioned that Bruce is my new favorite thing? Because he is. Except for maybe pumpkin carving. And I guess Jason is alright, too. And he’s the one who got Bruce for me.

So, with Six Flags off the table as an option for our Saturday evening, Jason and I bought some beer, utilized our Renaissance Festival mugs and went to town.

And as soon as we set up shop on the counter, we decided it’d probably be easier to put the pumpkins on the floor to clean out the guts.

I looked considerably more pleased to be doing so, though.

As soon as we cleaned them out though, we were back up onto the counter, applying our paper stencils. Fun fact: tape doesn’t like being stuck to pumpkins.

We poked holes and outlined the stencils and then got to work carving.

At some point, my horse’s leg snapped off and Jason’s fingers snapped off of his pumpkin. Jason even had to take a short break from carving because he was so discouraged by the mangled-looking hand. But! We persevered and the pumpkins turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.

We very cleverly used nails to hold the broken pieces on, so it’s almost like it never even happened! Pumpkin magic!

We couldn’t find any normal tea lights, though. So, we put pumpkin spice candles in them and let me tell, you. They smelled delicious. We even had a trick-or-treater come up to the door and say, “This house smells amazing.” Oooh yeah, pumpkins. What’s up!

On Sunday, we decided we would hit up Six Flags at noon when they opened and then head back early so we could still watch football with my family. And catastrophes abound, a crazy woman tried to murder us in her car. She missed her exit and cut across three lanes of traffic—on 495 no less—and veered directly in front of us, almost perpendicular to the road. Thanks to Jason’s amazing reflexes, he managed to stomp on the brakes and bring us to a halt mere centimeters away from her bumper. Then she drove off the exit without a care in the world. Didn’t even look back to check on the potential destruction she’d left in her wake. Once our heart rates had settled, which took a good twenty minutes, Jason and I spent some time cursing that woman with great creativity and vehemence.

Shortly thereafter, we made it to the park unscathed and headed in for some thrills and chills. We discovered upon entry, however, that the Fright Fest portion of Six Flags only occurred after dusk, so we were going to miss all of it. I lay the blame for that fully on the snow. We still got to ride some sweet rides though with almost no lines! The only times we waited in a line was if we wanted to sit in the front row. And even then it was only a handful of people in front of us.

I even made the executive choice to risk my iPhone and take some pictures while we were riding on the coasters. You. Are. Welcome.

And I got a nice view of the park as we were on our way up.

Because the ride is super tall.

I even snapped a shot of Jason as we flew around the track.

We also rode the Joker’s Jinx:

And the Batwing:

But I was too scared to actually take my phone out on either of these rides. Also, Jason kept warning me that we were going to get thrown out of the park if I kept using my cellular device while on a ride.

We saw a short comedy/stunt skit while we were there, too. It was pretty good, it had sword fights:

And at one point one of the guys jumped on another’s shoulders and shouted “Transformers, robots in disguise!”

But they were still no London Broil.

After that, Jason and I left and went to my parents’ house to watch some football. It was a nice, relaxed sort of night.

And, of course, then next day was Halloween! Jason and I went over to my parents’ house again so that we could hand out candy. I tried to get a cute picture of us and ended up with this:

Okay, I got this one, too:

We handed out a whole bunch of candy and maybeprobablysortof ate a whole bunch, too.

In conclusion, here’s a picture of Jason looking really handsome holding his roommate’s dog.