Weekend Rendezvous in DC

I was SO excited to hear that my best friend, former roommate, bridesmaid, fellow feminist and general confidant, Gloria Gong and her husband Carl Brinton, were living in DC for a short few months.

So, Steve, Eliza, and I went up to DC to visit with them (a week and a half ago- I know I'm slow on blogging lately).

(The newlyweds, Carl and Gloria)

We rendezvoused at the free! National Aquatic Gardens in DC which had gorgeous Lotus blossoms and lily pads like these:
I also got to see one of my other college buddies and former roommates, Thelma! She's living and working in DC for the U.S. Campaign for Burma! So cool.
The aquatic gardens were amazing, and apparently the marsh purifies the polluted water from the Anacostia river from Maryland. There were absolutely beautiful plants and some awesome birds including some inspiring* cranes .
Eliza loved it too, we just had to make sure she didn't fall in to any water b/c she seemed ready to climb right into some of the little ponds.

(I'm sorry to everyone else, but I just have to say that Steve looks like such a hunk in this picture, especially holding hands w/ a cutie like that!)

I hadn't seen Gloria since she left on her mission to Taiwan in Fall 2006. I was barely pregnant with Eliza at her "farewell" party, and so, as you can imagine, a lot has changed for the both of us since then with only the occasional contact here and there.

Our more ambitious plans for DC involved rendezvousing at the gardens at 7:30am (which we did), then headed back to the house that Gloria and Carl were house sitting and making pancakes, and then heading downtown to the Freer Museum, and then heading back to Charlottesville around 1pm, so I could make it to my 3:30pm shift at work.

But it was just soo WONDERFUL to be able to talk and discuss and share with this group of friends that we never made it beyond the pancakes part of the plan (and then we found some of the infamous DC traffic which put us on an hour and a half detour and made me late for my 3:30 shift).

Anyone who knows Gloria, knows that she's one of the most amazing discussion facilitators . So we got to have a scrumptious conversation involving questions and topics like:

If you were to speak to the women of the church, what would you speak about? What do you think they need to hear? or

How have you seen our new age of sexism infantalize men? or

What does Ralph Nader have to do with your research here on China's energy policies?

What is really more efficient, cloth diapers or biodegradable diapers or regular diapers. What do most parents' budgets afford? or

What piece of advice could or would you give to newlyweds. or

How have you found spiritual assurance for daily moments of despair? or

How am I surprised that the newlyweds got accepted into the 2 year FBI/CIA recruiting program which will be paying them to study in and about Beijing, China?

It was great stuff.

All the while Eliza pulled apart puzzles and did other things like this:

We also got to see Kate and Aaron's new place up in DC too. They were really nice to let us crash at their place on Friday. We got to have a fun, relaxed evening with Katy playing a new strategy game and watching the Olympics and making a fiasco of a chocolate cake. (Note to family: don't assign me to grease the pan. I'll ruin your life! and the cake too.)

Unfortunately for us (and many others too...), Russia had just decided to invade Georgia around the time we visited, so Aaron didn't get back from the White House until after midnight! It was still fun to see them. We miss them a lot; it was really nice having family in the same town! Who knows the next time that will happen for us!