Hello Summer in DC

Ever since we got back from the beach, the weather has been so typical of DC during the summer. Hot, sticky, sweltering humidity during the day and thunderstorms just in time for the evening commute. I still do love summer in this area, though. There are SO many different events going on every weekend. There are outdoor movies, race events, farmers markets, and lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. I went ahead and made a list of things I want to take advantage of this summer in DC:

Kels and Mike:

• date night at a restaurant with piano music (Mike got us reservations at this little restaurant in Old Town that is supposed to have live piano music!)
• spend a morning at a farmer's market and get things to cook for dinner (whatever looks good)
• kayaking!
• hiking (we were supposed to go with Kelly and Alex this weekend, but got rained out so we'll have to reschedule)
• Because we've had SUCH a craving for good sushi: http://www.sushicapitol.com/
• go to a trivia night!
• make time to visit the zoo and museums
• movies to see: Inside Out and Trainwreck 
• obviously: http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-dairy-godmother-alexandria

Just Kels:

• Summer Cleaning
• Outdoor Yoga 
• Having Tea with Kay and Absi (one of my coworkers recently got brunch at a fancy tea room and it sounded so amazing!)

Here are some pics from the past couple of weeks!

Success Team Reunion (my old coworkers) at The Big Board on H Street. Alicia just moved to Colorado last week! :(

Mike and I attempting to be healthy. We've been trying to abstain from sweets and alcohol since the beach, and while we haven't been perfect, we've DEFINITELY been chopping a ton of veggies every week.

Mike and I tried this new restaurant near our gym, Tazza Kitchen. They had amazing guac and happy hour specials. The pictures came out blurry because the humidity that night was unbelievable and the thunderstorm luckily ended right as we dinner did.

Mike's bourbon drink was amazing!

Post-storm picture. Mike was driving while I was photographer.

After our 6-mile run today! I ran without stopping to walk at all! 

While babysitting the other day, the family's cat decided it wanted to perch on my shoulder. It was too hilarious.

Flower Mike got me that I had to take to work because Rupe tried to eat one:)

View from a weekday morning run. Found a new route:)

Still missing the beach, though:)

Just Scroll Down to Look at the Bird

This post will cover up to June 16th or so, and will mostly feature pictures. First, some pictures from a visit with our nephew Ashton:

His mommy woke him up when we got there so he was a little unhappy.

But coloring with Auntie Kulsy (his pronunciation, not mine) made him happy.

And he joined Uncle Mike in the time-honored tradition of bashing toy cars into one another.

After that, we went to the beach. 

The view from the house.

The view of Kelsey's view.

Us at the butterfly gardens!

The whole beach week 2015 crew. Beau and I realized during this beach week that this was the tenth consecutive year that we have gone to the beach together. Lots of ten year anniversaries this year.

Traditional skewers for grilling.

Traditional people not actually grilling but sitting near the grill to pretend as though they were helping in some way.

The actual grilling (done by Brian, who slowly wrested control from the incompetent grillers (me) over the years).

Traditional poker.

Oh, and this bird at the Brookgreen Gardens Zoo.

Now scroll down for more of the bird.

Best picture I've taken so far.

Extraverted and Introverted Weekends

Memorial Day Weekend Mike and I had people staying at our house, multiple events planned, and we were basically going the whole weekend. As the more introverted of the two of us (I will probably never believe Mike is an introvert actually), I told Mike beforehand that I would probably need to be a hermit the following weekend and he understood. So this past weekend we just chilled and went to the movies to see Pitch Perfect (WHICH WAS AMAZING), walked around Eastern Market a little, and then possibly saw the best GoT episode of all time on Sunday evening. Here are pictures from the past couple of weekends!

Friday evening started with a cocktail at Ambar while waiting for our friends to show up. I have yet to find a better happy hour than Ambar.

Friday night of Memorial Day weekend.
Double date in Barracks Row with a Marine JAG and his girlfriend who went to WM.
We got to see a Marine Corps parade INSIDE the barracks! Super awesome!

This is the Marine Corps mascot. He was a huge celebrity after the show, so I had to snap a paparazzi pic of him.

Marching onto the field right before we saw rifle routines!

Of course we got milkshakes at Ted's after the show and our waiter ended up bringing us 3 poptarts instead of one for the wait! The salted caramel pop-tart was the best. I had a plain vanilla milkshake and Mike had smores.

Memorial Day cookout at Jeff and Sara's. When Sara was sitting on Jeff's lap it made for the best picture.

Pretty sunset over the Pentagon one evening as I was picking Mike up from metro.

Me freaking out on Facetime with Ashton when he said my name "Kuh-ee" for the first time!

Also: we got a new camera! See previous post.

Mike Gets a Camera

It has been a very busy week. Many of our trials are finally coming up and we were given three new cases. The good news is that I have leave next week. I offered to do some work while gone since I knew our team would be busy, and my boss yelled at me to never offer to do work on leave again. Fair enough.

I have never owned a camera that was anything better than a point-and-shoot, and the last standalone one of those that I had died or was lost back in the 2005 era. So I decided recently that I was just going to buy a nice DSLR camera and learn about photography. 

And annoy Kelsey

And annoy Rupert

And annoy Kelsey some more

And again

And take pictures of Union Station

And whatever this building is

And the Supreme Court

And the Supreme Court again

And our patio area which we may have to weed...

And Rupert.

It is a fun learning process. I now know lots of things about F-stops and ISOs and shutter speeds that I did not know a week ago. Hopefully the qualify of photos on this blog will increase along with my experience.