My Love. My Life. My Best Friend.

Last week, I had an outreach trip to Washington, and Ryan and I decided to make a weekend out of it.

First, Ryan and Adrielle drove me to the airport to wish me a safe trip back East. It was sad to leave this little girl...

When I landed in Washington, Alexa, Von, met me at the airport to introduce me to their darling daughter, Zoey.

She was so cute--and so mellow. Check out this cute family!

My colleague, Monte, and I visited with agencies, private businesses, and congressional representatives. But, it wasn't all business.

In between visits, we snapped pictures in front of the Capitol...

Visited the Library of Congress...

And walked past history...

The neat thing about the trip is that this little girlie...stayed with her grandparents and Ryan and I enjoyed a little quality time!

I think she was happy to have a vacation from her boring parents.

So, Kenz went to bed and charged me with finishing the story with my point of view. You may just want to skip through my mumblings and enjoy the pictures.

First, I love flying in and out of Reagan National. The views of the monuments, city and the Potomac are breathtaking.

From the tarmac you can see the Washington and the Capitol.

When I flew in, Kenz was in meetings and so I metro-ed into the city. I was doing so well until I got off on the wrong side. Now, DC is pretty navigable, but when you can't see both street signs and you don't know which way will take you to ascending numbers or letters, it's easy to walk a little before you get your bearings. But with the help of the trusty iPhone GPS, I made it with minimal delays to the hotel. And upon arriving, I showered and fell asleep. Red eye flights are not my favorite.

Kenz later came and picked me up, and we all (the two of us and her colleague) went to McLean for a little tour of CIA. No biggie. Unfortunately, there are no pictures to document our tour. But, it was AWESOME.

Later that night Kenz and I went on a little dinner date and walked around the city a little before meeting up with our friend Adriel.

Yeah, I'm one of those annoying tourists that stops in the middle of the street to take a picture. I used to get so mad at people like me.

After meeting Adi, we hit up the Cheesecake Factory for a little dessert and found ourselves at Iwo Jima on the way home.

And we discovered Adriel has a secret identity: the reverse ninja. (Not to be confused with the backwards ninja whom my roommates and I all dreaded when he would make an appearance.)

Total reverse ninja.

Saturday mornings should be spent at Eastern Market for breakfast. I hate pancakes, but love Eastern Market Breakfast Blue Bucks. Try them and you will not be disappointed. We met up with our friends, the Sousas, for breakfast after Kenz's colleague joined me for one of my favorite runs in the world, which happens to be a 6-mile loop around the monuments and mall. Anyone want to join me next time?

So many cool things to see at Eastern Market.

See?

After 10 years, Kenz had never made it to the top of the Washington. I guess we were too busy or lazy to wait in line for hours to get tickets. Truth is, we still are. Kenz got tickets online.

But waiting in line would have been worth this view:

WWII, Reflection Pool, and Lincoln Memorial.

National Mall and Capitol.

Jefferson and Tidal Basin.

White House and Washington, D.C. Temple

And to make it even better, the weather was perfect.

Yeah, we love this city.

I believe I found this guy on the IRS building (someone correct me if I'm wrong, please).

And if all of this was not enough, we met up with another friend in Georgetown to have Ethiopian at Zed's, followed by cupcakes and a walk along the boardwalk overlooking the Potomac.

Despite the fact that I squished this, it tasted awesome. (Lemon raspberry with sugar on top in the form of a heart.)

The Kennedy Center and Watergate.

We then met another friend at Ford's Theater and since it was closed for a performance (and frankly not very cool or historical anymore), we took a walk along the Mall and stopped at the WWII Memorial.

Wow. Getting tired yet? Yeah, and we did all of this before 3:00 pm. Way to pack it all in there. But, this is not all. We then took the beloved metro to Reagan National to pick up our rental car, which we then drove to Kenz's cousin's house in VA for a BBQ.

The beloved metro. Sometimes I wish SLC had people movers like this.

Sunday morning, we attended church at our old ward in the city and took more pictures on the way.

Union Station was all decked out with wreaths for the holiday season.

And this last picture is for our dear friends, the Sousas who put us up for a night at their beautiful home. They are alumni of Catholic University.