4 friends, 6 days, and 30 glorious miles

As with so many of my best intentioned plans, I started this blog and went on vacation…literally. Just days after my first post, John and I packed up and headed to Washington, D.C. where we spent 6 lovely days sightseeing, visiting old friends, and recovering from the hustle and bustle of every day life. We also walked… a lot. We had planned many trips from one end of the DC metropolitan area to the other, so John wore one of those cheesy pedometer things all week to clock our mileage. I'll get photos on Facebook soon, but I am proud to announce that we clocked 30 miles that week!!!

Surprisingly, John and I also ate pretty well on vacation. The hotel had a continental breakfast with fruit, yogurt, and eggs every morning, and we had a little kitchenette in our room, so we stocked up with a week’s worth of groceries and avoided eating out. Naturally, the time we spent with friends was another story…

On our first night in the city, Claire met us at the hotel, and we walked to Chinatown for fresh cut fries and one of the best hamburgers I have had in a VERY long time. While I broke my no fries rule within the first hour of landing in the city, the food and the company were well worth it, and I like to believe that our 2 mile walk back to the hotel at least worked off the spuds (which were from Idaho).

The next night was my birthday, and Claire introduced us to a cute little restaurant at the back of a bookstore called…Afterwords (get it?). We enjoyed fresh key lime pie, chocolate mousse cake with raspberry topping, and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It was heavenly!

In fact, Afterwords was so good, John and I went back the next night with Emma. After spending the day together, we ended up at the Darlington House for dinner. My garganelli with artichoke and shrimp was delicious, but the Death by Chocolate cake was calling my name from across the street! Of course, my fabulous husband contributed to my lack of self-control and ordered a second double chocolate dessert…they were both well worth the calories!