i went to the district of columbia : day two

day #2 docket:

breakfast at eastern market

mount vernon

(walk on random path + castle pics)

old town alexandria 

(chik-fil-a)

unique - a ginormous thrift store

asian karaoke 

we had quite the list of things we wanted to do this day and ended up doing even more (the things in parenthesis were not in the original plan) which was a bonus. eastern market was great great great! i wish we would have walked around the neighborhood it was in because i loved all of those homes. we got to drive through a lot of it looking for a parking spot though, so i got to see a fair amount. oh the brightsides of the east coast! 

i rarely pull the nice cam out anymore so when i do it is like i fall in love with photography all over again! i remember things like depth of field and what a sharp picture looks like and how you can take nice pictures without putting it through a filter. if only that thing wasn't so heavy to lug around i would take it everywhere! i've just gotten so lazy. 

so anyway. while we were waiting in the longest line ever to get breakfast i was so fascinated by this:

a blown up blow fish! if you notice there are sick sick not blown up ones right next to it. i couldn't stop staring at it and laughing and wondering how it was possibly real. i should have just bought it so it could continue making my day, every day. i mean really, those teeth!

friends sara and katie were such a treat to be with all day. i met sara in college and then katie met both of us through efy. really just the salt of the earth, those two.

(and please say you knew this picture was really taken for the man in the background)

the colors!

i should have bought that book and stolen that bike. first two regrets of the day!

so many good flowers. so many good yards. i came home with way too many pictures of both. 

next up was mount vernon. we thought we wanted to go but once we got there we saw one million junior high kids (the first of many sightings, as you will soon see) swarming the place and decided maaaaaybe we didn't want to do that after all. 

but i really liked the parts i saw! and they had such great flowers that matched my pants so that was definitely worth the drive. 

as we were driving back i kept seeing things i loved so sara would pull over and let me love them for a minute. one of those things was that castle fortress something or other behind me. give me that!

i also saw this semi hidden path that intrigued me a whole lot so we turned around and walked it for a bit. it had the best bridge (just right a few feet from the freeway!) and felt so chronicles of narnia to me. we also listened to disney pandora which made the whole experience ever so pleasant. 

we then headed to old town victoria to walk around and see the dreaminess which it is. i LOVED this place. i think it might have even been my favorite? there were definitely some really close seconds but i just loved how all the houses were connected yet each had their own personality. 

i know. I KNOW. so good looking.

and i don't know why i loved this whole boutique set up but i did. just loved it. 

and just when i thought it couldn't get better we went down a small alley and found ourselves at a pier with real good boats and colors and street performers! 

and the cherry on top of this delicious old town cake would be when you look down and realize that not only is everything around you the best but you are also walking on cobblestone streets. i die. 

after that great experience we decided to go hit up chik-fil-a since this girl never gets to go (they hate chik-fil-a in boston apparently). sadly it did not taste how it did in utah and it was gross which might explain why there will not be a picture in this post accompanying this story. 

after that sara took me to a thrift store called "unique" which was basically the most ginormous thrift store i've ever been in. it was a thrifter's heaven i tell you what! we only had an hour so i had to skim everything real quick but even with a short amount of time i walked away with a few gems so it still felt successful.  

  

then we closed the night with a bang by renting out a karaoke room in the back of some korean restaurant and sang our little hearts out! for some reason karaoke always stresses me out so i wasn't too keen on the idea of doing this but it was absolute MAGIC. ten girls just singing their hearts out to every song in such a cramped space changed all my feelings about karaoke and i now want to do it every night of my life. i seriously cannot remember the last time i enjoyed myself that much. 

and just when i thought there was absolutely no way the day could get better, i noticed these two asian older gals just singing their hearts out to battle hymn of the republic and other songs just like it hahaha.

it just validated my feelings that asians really are the best! and this day was the best. the end.  

i went to the district of columbia : day one

the luckiest thing happened. a girl from my mission called me back in february and asked if i would be willing to fly down to DC and be her wedding photographer at the end of april. umm..yes. yes i will. 

they were nice to not only pay for my flight but also let me choose what days i flew in and out. seeing that i have two good  friends who live there and how i've never been to DC before, it seemed appropriate to make this business trip a sight/friend seeing trip as well. 

beth picked me up from the airport late thursday night and it was wedding time bright and early the next morning. by 10 am i was already in love with this place. it is so green and foresty and beautiful. i have since seen areas in boston that look similar but i hadn't at the time so i was just dying over how good everything looked. i loved the grounds of the DC temple and thoroughly enjoyed walking around as they were being sealed. 

here is the happy couple. they are both originally from taiwan so it was very asian-esque. i loved being surrounded by so many taiwanese people and so many people speaking chinese! they even had a chinese buffet style luncheon and everything. the whole day was really nice and i enjoyed being a part of it. (you can go here to see some of the pictures from it, i finally got them up)

sara picked me up from their luncheon and we drove around georgetown (which i really enjoyed) to get to the arlington cemetery. she knows i love cemeteries and really wanted me to see the changing of the guard. 

we had taken a few unexpected detours so we had to actually run (literally, we were running) to make it to the last changing of the guard thing for the night. definitely still sorry for breathing heavy once we got there, you could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet! it was cool and somewhat disturbing to me that the only time those guys talk is during these little ceremonies everyday. i would go crazy! i would also hate to wear those awful clicky shoes they have but that is a story for another day. the grounds were BEAUTIFUL and i loved it just as much as she thought i would. i felt so sad we didn't have more time to walk around and explore but i guess that just means i'll have to go back!

we had just enough daylight to check out iwo jima which was nice to see in person. the east coast is so good at memorials. 

by that point i was so crazy tired that we decided to go home and crash..but not before making a walmart run (they are so rare in boston it is sad) to pick up many boxes of red hots, which if you did not know, are my favorite (and hard to find anywhere). i also got chex mix and raspberry sherbet in case you wanted to know/feel grossed out. 

i am so mad at you right now

yes you. random guy who won't listen to me when i say you need to stand in the back if you are tall and other random guy who thinks looking at his own picture on his camera is more important than posing for two seconds so the actual photographer can take a picture. it is people like you that makes photographers become jerks and have a no camera policy for guests at their events or in the case that the photographer doesn't say anything, you are enabled to ruin every picture for the couple because your camera is all up in the photographers way the entire time or some people are looking at your camera instead of the photographers. i'm glad you cared more about having your own snapshots throughout the day than allowing the pictures look nice that the couple purchased for hundreds of dollars. I'M SO ANNOYED. i'm going through all these pictures i took of the wedding and as hard as i tried to let everyone do their thing and take their own pictures it ruined so many of mine and that upsets me. note to self: when i'm the obnoxious person at a wedding taking a million pictures, don't get in the photographers way.

the end.  

you know you live in boston when you find yourself not only celebrating patriots day but

..at a revolutionary war reenactment. 

we woke up bright and early (like 3:30 am!) so we could get some good standing area 

but still ended up behind all of this 

so a lot of this happened (just watching it from your phone haha)

and i just had to hold up my camera real high and hope for the best

i soon forgot how many hours we stood there and how much i hated everyone in front of me when the five second battle began. 

so many iphones and wounded soldiers

and so much real life smoke! 

and such a good sunset for it all to happen 

(i felt like i should add my instagram version of this event because it looks more how it really was than the nice camera..fancy that!)

cue the series of very typical megan creeping other people photos:

..i was in telephoto lens creeping heaven. 

by this point i had no idea where anyone was so i joined this little march

and took more pictures

and then eventually found my way back to our car/the scouts

THEN i got to go to work for the next 8 hours. 

from the photo above you can probably guess it was a really good idea. 

patriots day can mean many reenactments but also the boston marathon!

if i'm still living in boston next year i definitely wont be working on this day again, it is like boston's very own 24th of july

so even though i missed most of the action i still wanted to go so i headed after work to the finish line. 

it wasn't as magical as i had hoped (mostly just trash everywhere) but the flowers were pretty!

and i got to see a few of the walkers cross the line and that was exciting

i was going to just jump back on the subway to go home but realized it was a really nice day and i should just try to walk to fhe

so i strolled down commonwealth avenue and DIED over how gorgeous everything was becoming. 

moving to boston in the winter was a great idea because i am pleasantly surprised everyday as it gets warmer how gorgeous this place is

the sunset was so nice that night as i made my way over to fhe.

and to top off a fantastic patriots day, our fhe activity was to make (morbid)

chocolate creations out of easter candy!  

i like patriots day.