Tourism and a NYE Wedding in Washington DC

Happy New Year, you lovable bunch of SOBs! I hope your 2014 ended on a positive note and that your 2015 is already making last year look like a chump.

The past couple weeks have been mostly spent away from my computer, which has been both a nice change of pace and a much-needed break for my neck/shoulder. I left the Boston area on Saturday December 20th to head to Pittsfield for my nephew and niece's birthday party, and I stayed there through Christmas (which was lovely!) and then drove south to Connecticut for a UMass friend's wedding on Saturday Dec 27th. (Congrats Luke and Dani!!!!)

On the 28th, I drove back up to Boston, relaxed for a day, and then flew out on the morning of the 30th to head down to Washington, DC for the New Year's Eve wedding of another UMass friend, Rabbi. (His name is actually Eric, but no one calls him that, and I'm sure not going to start now.)

I arrived in DC late morning on the 30th with my friends Derek and Jrod, and we made our way via cab to our hotel - the brand new Marriott Marquis in downtown DC. The hotel was enormous, and our block of friends was more or less scattered around the 9th floor, with a few exceptions. After settling in and meeting up with a few other friends, a handful of us headed out into the blue and crisp afternoon to find some food. We wandered the streets for a little while before heading into The Laughing Man, where my Buffalo Chicken Wrap did the trick to quell my growing hangriness.

Properly fed, we headed back out into the sun to be tourists in our nation's capital. Confession time:  This was my first trip to DC, and I was absolutely oblivious to the fact that all of the touristy national sites were SO accessible from downtown. For some reason I had it in my head that they must be more on the outskirts of things. I was way off. We spent the rest of that first afternoon in DC walking allllll over the place, checking out all of these thaaangs:

- The White House
- Eisenhower Executive Office Building (which I found much more impressive than the White House itself)
- Washington Monument
- World War II Memorial
- the reflecting pool
- Lincoln Memorial
- Korean War Veterans Memorial (larger-than-life statues of soldiers frozen in action as they make their way across a garden - a scene with a lot of impact)
- Martin Luther King Jr Memorial
- We saw the Thomas Jefferson Memorial from across the water

.  ye olde white house  .

.  eisenhower executive office building  .

.  the lincoln memorial  .

.  featuring ya boy, abe  .

.  reflecting pool and washington monument  .

.  successful selfie at the lincoln memorial  .
.  note to self:  zoom out, then snap  .

.  martin luther king, jr memorial  .

.  thomas jefferson memorial  .

.  the washington monument  .

That night a large group of us went to City Tap House - a restaurant just a couple of blocks from our hotel that featured a great atmosphere, delicious food, and fabulous dinner service. I ordered a kale salad that was decked out with dried figs, pomegranate seeds, toasted pecans, grana padano and maple-pecan vinaigrette, and my friends nommed on mussels, pizzas, chicken & waffles, and more.

We spent the rest of the night at The Dignitary - one of the multiple bars located within the hotel itself - with a ton of others who were staying at the hotel that night (mostly the wedding party and their significant others, with a mix of random friends).

The next morning we gathered up a crew and headed out again to find breakfast food, finally landing at a place that had no breakfast menu... but they did have desserts. So... peach cobbler for breakfast, it is. Then it was off to the National Museum of Natural History, where we saw exhibits on the deep ocean, dinosaurs, insects, gem stones, and the Hope diamond. We saw some big ass insects and some other creepy things, and had this terrifying experience with a tyrannosaurus rex:

.  derek, me, scotty, jrod  .
.  it was a close call  .

Some of my favorite parts of the museum that day were the many stunning photographs of animals and the natural world. There were even a few pictures of Oregon and Washington that had me longing for the Pacific Northwest. And clearly I couldn't resist this charming fellow:

.  dose lips doe  .
.  magical moment captured by derek  .

That night was New Year's Eve wedding time! I got dolled up in a new blue dress that I'd just purchased a couple of days prior from Kohl's and wore it with dangly chain rhinestone earrings, black nylons, black closed-toe booties, a bright magenta lip and a straightened ponytail. Here's the only photo that I have of myself from that night. Naturally, it's blurry:

.  with my fwiends kara and dan  .

Rabbi and Brooke's wedding was being held at Right Proper Brewery - a spot chosen because of the bride and groom's fondness for the place. It was a really cool venue for a wedding - laid back, spacious, perfectly set up to serve drinks and appetizers to lots of people, and adorned with interesting artwork on the walls.

After a nice ceremony that culminated with the smashing of a glass and an enthusiastic "Mazel Tov!" we nibbled on apps, drank, and enjoyed dinner before turning up the music and dancing the rest of the night. Leading up to midnight, they turned on a video feed of the Times Square ball drop, and we all participated in a countdown before exchanging tons of smooches and lighting sparklers.

(I'll skip the part about me getting sick that night after the wedding. I recovered just fine, and that's the important part.)

The next morning a group of us went back to the City Tap House for a very long New Years Day brunch that actually ended up being the perfect way to end the trip. Then, with full bellies and most of us still in one piece, we exchanged goodbyes, killed the perfect amount of time in the hotel lobby, and headed to the airport to trot trot back to Boston!

Turns out that a New Years Eve wedding in Washington, DC is a right proper way to ring in the New Year. Surrounded by friends who make fabulous tourism companions by day and who all want to give you hugs and smooches at midnight... not too bad, Bail. Not too bad.

I hope you had a fun and safe New Years Eve doing whatever it is that makes you smile when the clock strikes twelve! Sleeping? High-fiving? Sparkling? Twerking? Get it.

Happy New Year!

FACEBOOK TWITTER PINTEREST INSTAGRAM BLOGLOVIN

Starry Night New Year's Eve Nails

So as I was painting my nails last night, David looked over at them and said, "That looks like a starry night." He was right. Thus, the title for today's nail polish post!

If you're into getting yo' glam on for New Year's Eve, but don't have a ton of sequins in your wardrobe - these nails are for you. The silver sparkles will catch the light, and after you slap a nice shiny top coat on these little ladies, everyone will forget to kiss each other at midnight because they'll be too busy staring at your dazzling digits.

I used three coats of Revlon's Stiletto polish on all of my nails, then topped them with one coat of Pure Ice's Beware and one coat of Love & Beauty's Crystal Silver.

Do you have plans for New Year's Eve yet? I don't foresee anything raucous in my future, personally. Last year we just took a long walk into downtown Vancouver, all the way to the waterfront, and did some late-night people-watching. I'm perfectly happy doing something like that again!

And as a random parting sidebar, my 2013 New Year's resolution of "be gentler when brushing my teeth" has been going really well all year long. *Fist bump to myself*

Find me on Facebook! ~ Holla @ me on Twitter ~

{Linking up with Mani Monday, The Nail Files, What I'm Loving Fridays,  Friday's Fab Favorites}

#TBT: Last Year's Winter & Holiday Nails!

I supppppose it's about that time to break out the holiday nails and splash some cheer onto our digits, eh ladies? And that was an American "eh" - not a Canadian one, by the way. Don't get those two confused.

To gain some inspiration for my holiday nails this year I've been taking a peek back at all of my holiday looks from last year. That's one of the best parts about keeping a blog - the ability to look back and remember what you've done!

Check out last year's holiday and wintery nails, and then stay tuned over the next couple of weeks for this year's nails!

Gettin' Festive:

Christmas Lights:

Quick and Easy Snowfall Nails:

Little Santa Suit:

Winter Bling Nails:

New Year's Eve: Getting Buckwild, Throwin' Confetti:

New Year's Eve Pop Champagne Nails:

Now that we've gotten that out of our system, I'll be turning my attention to holiday/winter 2013. Have you seen any holiday nails this year that have tickled your fancy? I'm trying to think outside the box... Stay tuned!

Find me on Facebook! ~ Holla @ me on Twitter ~

New Year's Day in Whistler

Well I suppose I ought to finish this New Year's blog before January completely passes by...

We had a very low-key New Year's Eve this year - went to dinner downtown at a restaurant called Earl's (Dave's parents gave us a very generous gift card to the restaurant for Christmas!) and then walked around the city looking at holiday lights and enjoying the non-rain. We were back at home by 11:30, in time to watch Seattle's incredible midnight fireworks display on TV - which really was an impressive display, by the way.

On New Year's Day we decided to make the bound-to-happen-sometime trip to Whistler.  It's only about an hour and a half away and it was a nice sunny day - so why the heck not?

Where's Whistler? It's all happening above Washington State, for you States-siders.

Zewmed in:

This was as low-key a trip as our New Year's Eve had been the night before - we didn't have any big plans to go hiking or anything. Here are some pics from the drive there...

I finally got to see and drive over the Lion's Gate Bridge:

I tried to take pictures of the scenery along the drive, but the road between Vancouver and Whistler is super winding and my motion sickness was preventing me from doing anything but staring straight ahead at the road and trying not to vom. Here's the one cool picture I was able to snap along that road:

.  i dont know what this is a picture of  .

Arriving in Whistler...

As I said, we didn't have any particular plan for what we'd do when we arrived in Whistler Village, so we walked around to see what we could see. The town was adorable... and was not jam-packed at the time because it was early afternoon and most people in town were out on the slopes.

Here's something really cool... the gondola/ski rental/base of the trails area is right in the village. That's how entrenched the skiing lifestyle is in the town - skiers are coming down the mountain and practically just skiing right onto the sidewalk and heading to lunch. It's like instead of a Town Hall... they have a gondola.

Here are more ski things that I didn't participate in but happily observed while in Whistler:

We took a group picture for a family and in return they snapped our pic for us:

.  tourist prom pose  .

Something big happened here a few years ago. I don't remember what it was.

That's about it from Whistler! We got ourselves some lunch but eventually the town started really filling up with people as they all came off the slopes for the afternoon. It became a little too packed pretty quickly so we skeeee-daddled. A quick and lovely jaunt to Whistler!

On our way home we stopped at a pull-off to admire the mountain views alongside the road and snap some pictures:

We got mountains. Come see them! :)

I hope we head back to Whistler soon to do some hiking or snowshoeing and will certainly blog about it when we do!

Vancouver Holiday Lights & VanDusen Botanical Garden Festival of Lights

I go nuts for Christmas lights and have been a huge fan of seeking them out each holiday season for as long as I can remember. When I was much younger, my whole family used to pile into our minivan and go driving around Pittsfield in search of the best displays, which is something that I look forward to doing with my own kids someday. In the meantime, I'm totally content to check out local Christmas lights each winter, sans kids.

Vancouver was a lovely place to spend a holiday season, lights-wise. The city itself was full of businesses and homes/apartments alike that decked their halls and trees and front doors and balconies with plenty of holiday lights.

Walking over the Burrard Bridge towards Downtown, we could see Christmas lights on the balconies and Christmas trees inside the windows of all the high-rises...

.  all of the blues, purples and reds you see in that picture are different strands of lights  .

And here are a few more Downtown/neighborhood pics of lights from this past season:

.  watch a video of this ball of lights in action here  .

.  downtown, robson square, ice skating rink  .

.  christmas lights on palm trees  .

.  lights filling the front yard of the sheraton hall centre downtown  .

.  lights of hope in front of st. paul's hospital  .

Here is an exceptionally awesome display from within our own neighborhood. This one apartment was decked out like a tiny Las Vegas, and I had to swing past it with my camera one night to take this video:

David and I also attempted to visit Bright Nights, which is a park-wide display of lights that can be seen via a little train ride through Stanley Park (a park just northwest of Downtown Vancouver). However, we didn't realize that the train ride was mandatory in order to see the displays... we thought we'd have the option of being able to walk through the park to check it all out. Since I like walking and also hate waiting 3 hours for an open seat on a train to see some Christmas lights, we did not end up taking the train. Here's a bit of what can be seen of Bright Nights if you do not take the train...

.  the front .

.  the middle .

.  the back .

... Not a ton.

HOWEVER! All was not lost... because Vancouver has another Christmas lights extravaganza that requires no train whatsoever - the VanDusen Botanical Garden's Festival of Lights! David and I spent the early evening on New Year's Eve walking around the Garden for a couple of hours, taking in the lights. It was exactly what I needed!! Click on any of these photos to see a slideshow of larger versions:

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without a couple of horrifying monsters... 

... right?

There were really a ton of lights at the Botanical Garden. The grounds were larger than I expected them to be and then were totally covered with displays, with lots of different paths going off in every direction. Every half hour, there was a light show around the garden's Livingstone Lake, with "dancing lights" flashing and dimming in time to music being broadcast over loudspeakers throughout the garden. I hurried to catch it on video, below... it starts out a bit fuzzy but becomes clearer, so bear with it!

Today I've begun the process of taking down our Christmas decorations and un-dressing our tree. I'm not pleased about it though, because the tree still looks, feels and smells terrific. (Sidenote: Watering your Christmas tree with sugar water is the way to go. It was a tip I received from the guys I bought the tree from, and the tree has hardly shed any needles at all!) Aside from it making our living room smell nice, having a large plant in the room (even a large dead plant) with white lights on it has provided a really nice light treatment for our living room. Soft white lighting emanating from a 5-foot tall douglas fir? Suck on that, Ikea Vidja floor lamp.