Weekend Roundup: Melting

As of yesterday, the DC area had had 11 DAYS STRAIGHT of 95-degree-plus heat, but I am happy to report that, today, it is a cool 79 degrees.  I LOVE IT!!!!  Anyway, this weekend was absolutely incredible, so I apologize in advance for the really long post!

On Friday night, Dan and I had a really relaxing night at home.  We went to Maggiano's for dinner, since we were both in the mood for some good pasta, and then got Frozen Yo on the way home.  He recognized that we had been watching a lot of his type of movies (a.k.a. not chick flicks or romantic dramas), so he said that it was my turn to pick a movie.  I had innumerable ways in which I could have tortured him, but I went with 500 Days of Summer, because it is definitely not your typical love story.  While I don't think it was his favorite movie of all time, he chose to grin and bear it, and admitted that it was not terrible.

On Saturday morning, we were up bright and early so that the two of us and Lauren could drive out to Harpers Ferry, where we were meeting up with a group of friends (there were 16 of us in total!) to go whitewater tubing.  It was supposed to be about 105 degrees on Saturday, so I was definitely apprehensive about both getting sunburned and getting heatstroke.  However, despite the fact that I used 15 sunscreen, which was the lowest denomination among our group, I did not get burned at all, and it was actually surprisingly refreshing out on the water!  As we stood around waiting to get bused down to the river, I was sweating like a pig and was starting to regret the decision, but, once we were in the water, I felt 100 times better.  So we floated down the Potomac for a few hours, stopping occasionally to eat and drink, and, while the "whitewater" part of the trip left a lot to be desired (those were some pretty meager waterfalls), I had a fantastic time.  I couldn't think of a better way to spend such an unbearably hot day, because I certainly would not have wanted to spend the day outside otherwise! 

On Saturday evening, Dan had made plans with friends, so I met up with the tubing group at Churchkey for a light dinner.  Like most places in DC, the air conditioning was apparently not working, so we were all sweltering.  After we finished eating, we walked down the street to Policy, my new favorite place.  Because we got there so early, we were able to get a large booth for all of us.  We ended up leaving relatively early, shortly after the dancing started, because we were all exhausted (and some of us injured) from tubing earlier on in the day, but it was a nice, relaxing night out.

Lauren and I had planned to meet up with my parents on Sunday morning to go to the Titanic exhibit at the National Geographic Museum.  It was my first time at the museum, and the exhibit was interesting.  We all agreed at the end that we had hoped to see more artifacts from the wreckage.  The information there was all very interesting, but we thought that it could have been better visually.  We checked out the samurai exhibit afterward, which didn't really interest any of us, and then a photo exhibit, which was very moving.  All of the photos were from stories that had been published in the magazine in 2011, but these particular photos were not published.  The one series that moved me the most was about child brides in Yemen. In one photo, a girl, whose age was not provided but who was described as "pre-pubescent", sat with her noticeably older husband and their four children.  In another, a woman sat with her husband, who she married when she was six and he was twenty-five.  I wanted to vomit upon looking at those photos, because it is truly tragic to me that, in this day and age, child brides still exist.

We grabbed some lunch after checking out the exhibits, and then I headed over to Dan's.  And THEN came one of the most anticipated moments of my summer to date: THE COLDPLAY CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  My wonderful Dan got the tickets for me for Christmas, and I think it was my most anticipated Christmas gift ever!  I had built the concert up a lot, since it was three years in the making for me (for those of you who know me, you'll recall the time when some friends and I were thwarted in our attempt to go to a Coldplay concert), and it really did not disappoint.  They are incredible entertainers, and I was belting out all of the lyrics and dancing around like a crazy person, not at all caring what anyone thought.  Dan could see the glee written all over my face, and I was so grateful for that amazingly thoughtful gift.  We got home much later than we normally would on a Sunday night, but, once again, we dodged a pretty nasty thunderstorm by about 10 minutes.  Jeez louise, I hope we keep this streak going!  I was having a hard time falling asleep, and was jumping every time I heard a large clap of thunder, so Dan made sure I was okay before attempting to fall asleep himself.  I am very lucky :)

I will post pictures of this epic weekend tomorrow, and I look forward to updating you all on our travels to Boston!  We leave on Thursday, and I'm pinching myself.  I told Dan last night that, as much as I was in my element last night, I will be like that ALL WEEKEND when we're back in my beloved Bay State!

Also, I usually take a look at the readership stats for this blog, mostly to see which topics seem to get the most hits (but maybe a little bit to reassure myself that people actually are reading haha), so thanks for making this gal feel good with that last post!! When I checked this morning, 18 people had read it!  I mostly blog for myself, to have a record of sorts, but it sure does help when you know that other people are finding some value in it!