More DC pictures

Some of my favorite flower pictures from the Botanical Gardens
The Folklife Festival with the Monument Background
Some music of the Folklife festival

Oh the best part I forgot to mention... all of this stuff was for FREE! The only thing we paid for was food. It might cost a fortune to live in DC but there is so much to do for free!

DC trip

Union Station hallway
US Supreme Court
Capitol building
Capitol Building view from the front
Some museum we visited

We left for our DC trip at ~8 am on the 4th of July. Surprisingly there was very little traffic. We got into DC at ~10:45. Bonus... we found a parking spot on the street literally across the street from our hotel. Our hotel was a quaint hotel room which reminded me of some of the European hotels we stayed in. Since we arrived so early, we started out on foot. We visited the Union Station, also a reminder of Europe. Then off to the Supreme Court for Matt, of course. Then to the Library of Congress (again Matt). Then we saw the Capitol building. Went into a museum to look around and eat lunch. From there we found the Smithsonian Folklife Festival but I was insistent on going to the Botanical Gardens. So we headed over to the Botanical Gardens were I scored some awesome photos. Then we went to the Folklife Festival. Then we walked all the way to the Monument Building (far walk!). After resting there, it starts to sprinkle so we head on back to check into our hotel where it proceeds to rain harder and harder. We head on out to eat dinner at the Capitol City Brewery. It was still only ~8 pm so we went to the room to rest before the fireworks show. At ~9 pm we head out to a park about 2 blocks away from the hotel. Unfortunately, as we set our blanket down on the grass we hear the fireworks. So we get up and head out in search of a place we can see the fireworks. Unfortunately, we get to the Capitol building but all the trees blocked a good view of the fireworks. So we missed a good firework show. Instead we saw a few fireworks through the branches of trees. Bummer. Saturday morning we drive to the White House. It's pouring down rain so that limited our ability to go on more walking tours. Bummer! (Yeah right, by this time I was saying no more walking!) So, did you know the White House is literally like across the street from the Monument. You mean, we walked all the way down to the Monument!! From the White House, we head out on a car tour of the city, end up lost, and fortunately end up at an Ikea... the one in Maryland! Yeah, we drove so far lost we ended up in Maryland!

Quick Update

We went to Washington DC for a quick overnight trip. One of our last getaways before Baby Besmer comes along and gone are the days of fun overnight trips. We also got a chance to go to Ikea. Matt had grand epiphanies to rearrange our entire house (well, almost) to make it more "liveable." Worse part of it was that they didn't have the crib I wanted. It would have been perfect. It was much lower set than most common types of cribs, so it would be really easy for me to lean in and set the baby down. Good news is that we did get to purchase the dresser. It will double as a changing table by just placing a changing pad on top of it. Finish off the room with the glider I want from Target, and the baby room is fully furnished! So next on the list is to go back to Babies R Us to find a white crib and to Home Depot to find a color to paint.

Here is a picture of the dresser from Ikea. I'll take pictures of the "real" one once Matt gets it put together. I suspect that will be in a few weeks since he is going to do all the other rearranging projects to the rest of the house. In the meantime, I can paint the guest bedroom and the baby room.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the growing baby bump and pictures of DC. Boy did the baby bump shoot out there the past 2 weeks!

Okay... I bought something!

Well, let me tell you how my day was finishing up. I was driving home on my alternative route across a bridge before the 2nd tunnel and I see this car ~2-3 cars ahead of me swerve across the slow lane and slam into the side of the bridge. As I'm driving past him, I see that he is having a seizure (tonic-clonic to my seizure friends out there)! So of course, I have to stop and see if he is okay. On my way to the car, I dial 911. When I get to him, he's in a tonic clonic seizure (oh tonic clonic means shaking all over, the typical ones they show on tv) for ~1 minute and then starts stiffening his arms, myoclonic seizures, then goes post-ictal (non-responsive after a seizures) for ~2-3 minutes. He starts coming around ~5 minutes after the seizure but is barely able to give me his name. Eventually, he is able to give us his whole name and birthday but not able to tell us the current year, day, date, name of president, etc. After a few minutes, the ambulance and police come and relieve us of our duties as good Samaritans. What surprised me is that they didn't ask us for any information. They just said, thanks for helping and sent us on our way. Don't you think they would need to know what happened prior to when they got there and what precipitated the 911 call? Oh well.

So which leads me to my purchase! So since I'm feeling all excited about my good deed, I might as well as purchase my first baby item. Well, in truth I have purchased a lot of books, What to Expect While You are Expecting, The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy (a must read for first timers), of course a couple of Baby Name books, Best Baby Products, Baby Bargains book, and Baby Wise. So, I have purchased my official first baby product, a new diaper bag! I'm going to leave the bags I have registered for unless I truly LOVE the new bag that should be on it's way. It got really good reviews from the ebags.com website. So here it is... my first baby purchase! Isn't it exciting?!

Something new for the baby!

The Nestle representative sends us cool new stuff all the time, so I snagged my share! It's a cool diaper bag, I'm guessing for Matt since it's a backpack AND I really want the ones I registered for at Target and Babies R Us. Inside also came with a cool towel hoodie, a cute book, "Guess How Much I Love You," and some free sample items including some formula. Hopefully everything goes well and I won't have to use it though! I'm hoping to get my use out of the cool new breast pump!

Thanks Brooke!

Thanks to one of my old co-workers, Brooke, I have my first baby gift! I am the proud owner of a gently used Medela pump! I am so excited! If any of you have one of these out there, you know I have just saved a couple hundred dollars from this gift alone. It makes me excited to go out and buy something else. I can't believe I've gone 27 weeks and have yet to actually BUY something for this little kid. I'm sure soon enough I will feel like that's all our money goes to! Next up... furniture for the baby room!

27 weeks pregnant!

Well, here I am sitting in my last week of my 2nd trimester. Wow! Next week I'll enter into the 3rd trimester with only 12 weeks left. We still have not done anything to get ready for the next family addition. Other than go to Babies R Us to register and look at furniture, we have yet to actually go and do it. But we have designated July to be the month to get stuff together. We are making a trip up to Washington DC the 4th of July weekend for two purposes - 1) to go to Ikea and 2) to visit DC. Ikea has some very reasonably priced baby furniture so we are going to look at cribs and a dresser. Plus the "Baby Bargains" rated their cribs with an A for quality and sturdiness. And before the little tike comes along, we are going to do as many things we can do! So in addition, we are going to stay the night up in DC. I haven't been to DC to be a tourist since I was 7 or 8 years old. Hopefully we can go to the Cherry Tree festival with the kid next year! Hopefully the Ikea furniture works out because our "back-up" alternative is a $400 crib at Babies R Us. Ouch! That cost more than our own bed! And that doesn't include a mattress! If the crib and mattress works out at Ikea, we will spend ~$300 on both! So cross your fingers that we come back with some good sturdy furniture from Ikea!