teabelly: ali and aimee's visits

in an effort to get all my blogging done, i decided that i can't post thanksgiving until i have caught myself up. no going out of order...so...

this election cycle was buttressed by visits from the packard girls. aimee came first, just before the election. it was the one weekend i didn't go out canvassing. she said she was doing her part to get mccain elected. it probably would have been better for her to swap with ali because the anticipation of the election and all the hopes of the outcome was a bit intense. aimee and i have been bff's since we were 14. the first big fight i remember having with her was about the rights of americans to burn the flag. i made the argument that part of what made america wonderful was our freedom of speech and that our nation had enough self esteem to handle a few disaffected burning the flag. plus, are we really pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth or ideas? aimee thought that there are things that should be sacred and treated with dignity. that if you allow people to burn the flag it is a slippery slope into other even more ugly acts. i don't remember much about the fight other than us going inside aimee's house and having her mom try and referee. it didn't really work. i don't even think we agreed to disagree. i think we just learned that politics is not really going to be something we can talk about.

but dispite all the political tension, we were able to have a good time.

i picked aimee up at BWI and we headed immediately to lindsay's office to eat some greek food

we are doing a self portrait. this is the best we could come up with

saturday we went on a bike ride along the GW parkway.
we intended on riding to mt. vernon but got rained out
still, we were rockin'!

the rain left us few outdoor options,
so we decided to do some site seeing in the car in the afternoon
it was raining so hard that we couldn't even see 10 ft in front of the car
so we ended up going to cheryl's to hang out

at cheryl's we all decided that we should go get some clam chowder.
we looked online and found that the "best clam chowder" in dc was at the
blacksalt market in the palisades
but it seemed to far and $15 for a bowl of chowder seemed steep
ESPECIALLY because i am on strict austerity measures AND it is only $11 during lunch
so we decided to try another highly rated chowder

here we are at the tackle box
i am going to give the tackle box 3 stars out of 10
the chowder was über creamy but just kinda tasteless
the fries were soggy
grilled green beans just tasted blah
and the atmosphere was nothing to write home about
but we still had fun and walked around georgetown (anthro, etc)

then we drove around and did some site seeing.
this is the basilica...

the next day we went to church and then did some more site seeing
the weather was PERFECT

@ the FDR

the white house

tidal basin and washington memorial
can you tell who was on top of the phototaking duties?

and here we are just as we are about to go to the airport.

it was a short visit
i hope you come back soon!

between visits from packard girls the qualters moved in for a few days.

it was super fun to have them and really fun to hang out with maya!

maya halloweened up!

bookclub reunited and it felt so good
we made a new rule.
nothing over 100 pgs
so now we can just read chapters or articles or something
i hope it emboldens more participation

then ali came.
we had more time and better weather

we went to sushi first
it was AWESOME!!!

but then i saw this news...sushi taro will be closed from dec 14 until the end of february.
not sure this is the best idea because they will miss a continuously packed house during the inauguration BUT...i will save some money!

we hiked great falls the next day

posers!

INCOMING

on the way home we stopped by sibley hospital to meet HETTIE!

welcome sweet cute baby!

check out what a natural kimber is!

then we went to ackc and ate too much chocolate with some friends

sunday we churched
then

we went to the blacksalt market
it was so much better than you can even imagine
i am giving it a 10 out of 10 stars
the service was amazing
they didn't have chowder on their brunch menu,
we told them that we had come just for the chowder, so they made it for us
and it was MIND BLOWING!
they brought us fruit while we waited
then we got this delish crawfish eggs benedict
(pictured half eaten above, we were too distracted by deliciousness to take photos)
honestly, i have to go back!
it was just too good!!!

then we went to the mall to site see