Obama mania!

Well, inauguration day has come and gone, but we wanted to share our experience with everyone so here's a post a few days late! Our crazy friends (Jeremy and his step-sister's boyfriend, Doug) did decide to drive out from St. Louis (overnight 14hrs in a snowstorm!) to join us for the inauguration festivities. They were super tired on Sunday, but we forced them to stick to our plan for the weekend which was to check out Great Falls National Park just a short drive away towards DC.



The last time we were at Great Falls it was before we moved here in the dead of summer -- 90 degrees, 90% humidity. This trip was the opposite extreme -- we had just had our first snow fall of the winter that actually stuck to the ground. Here's Jeremy, Mike, and I on a bridge over the falls. Yep, it was freeeeezing cold out. We considered it practice for bundling up on Inauguration Day!


That night we headed into the city to find dinner and pick up Doug's girlfriend, who was so jealous of him making the road trip out to DC that she changed her schedule and flew out that night using frequent flier miles!

The capitol hill area was packed, and we soon found that restaurants had 2 hr waiting lists. Somehow Doug managed to find a quaint Italian restaurant that could seat us right away! A glass of wine, tasty pasta, and we were ready to rest up for the next day!

We avoided the crowds on the metro the next morning by actually leaving the house around 8am instead of 4 or 5am like the crazies who thought that waiting in line that morning would get them a better view. When we got to the mall, we saw crowds starting to form by the Lincoln memorial already!


Here are a few more pics from the day! We are so glad that we decided to go -- it was definitely a historic occasion. But even more than that, it was amazing to see so many people of different backgrounds and different ages come together. Definitely a memory that you tell the kids about!