Happy Thanksgiving!

I know I'm a few days late, but our Thanksgiving celebration was a bit delayed this year. Our original plan was to go for a hike and then make Thanksgiving dinner. Well, it ended up being cold and rainy that day, and to boot, we forgot to take the turkey out of the freezer in time. I was so disappointed in the day I was ready to burst out in tears, but my husband reminded me of how good we actually had it - even without the turkey. Everything turned out alright in the end. The actual Thanksgiving day was a bit of a wash, but the rest of the weekend turned out pretty nice.

Friday started off with my first ever Black Friday experience. I had avoided it all these years, but I wanted to get my husband the $3 coffee maker. I didn't even try getting up for 5am doorbuster tho (not that desperate to save money), so I didn't get it :( But, I did get there early enough to walk away with a few other goodies that we wanted, all at a very good price. I was so excited about my shopping experience that my husband claimed he had never seen me look so happy.

Later on Friday, we checked out the National Harbor. It was the first time there for both of us. We went there primarily for the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony but also had a bit of a walk around the area. They had moved the Awakening statue from Haines Point to here. There is also the Gaylord National Convention Center which had very nice Christmas decorations and a short fountain show. There was also the ICE! exhibit, which looked pretty cool, tho we didn't go to it. I also had fun taking pictures of Brad with silly characters like Mr. Peeps, the Christmas Tree Lady, and Scrooge. The ceremony itself started at 5pm with some musical performances. It was a very cold night out tho, so we decided not to stick around for the actual tree lighting or fireworks. Oh well.

On Saturday, we did a bit more shopping, taking advantage of the continuing sales this weekend. Then we prepared the meal we were supposed to have on Thursday. I gotta admit everything came out of a box. I don't usually make Thanksgiving dinner since I typically crash someone else's house on this day. Still, it was a nice change of pace from the meals we normally make. Very filling indeed. We gave thanks for our newly wedded life together, and finished the night off with a bit of karaoke.


Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day - perfect for doing the hike we were going to do on Thursday. We did the Section A hike of the Billy Goat trail. It had been 2 years since I first went to Great Falls on the Maryland side. I had forgotten how much more interesting the trails are there. Brad enjoyed the rock scrambling a lot and we had a good day out. We also started talking about traveling again towards the end of the hike. As usual, we got carried away thinking about our travels. It finally dawned on us though that we would never really get to see everything we want to see - at least not in the next few years like we want :P We decided we should stop obsessing about traveling, and just concentrate on enjoying our everyday life here. We can still throw in the occasional trips as time and finances permit. As travel-holics with a thirst for adventure, neither of us thought we would ever be ones to say such a thing, but we both agreed, now that we have each other, life is great no matter where we are.

Terracotta Warriors Exhibition in DC

One of the countries I have been wanting to visit for a long time now is China. It's been high on my list of places I want to go since 2003. Unfortunately my husband recently went, so it is likely to be a while before we make it out that way. So when I heard that the Terracotta Warriors were on exhibit at the National Geographic Museum I thought I should go see them. When I found out that they were giving away 200 free tickets on Wednesdays @1730, I thought I should definitely go. Given today was Thanksgiving eve, I was able to get out of work just in time to pick my husband up and drive into the city by 5. I dropped my hubby off while I looked for a place to park, annoyed as hell about having to drive in rush hour traffic (even though it was not as bad as it normally would be) and look for parking (no street parking was allowed during rush hour). Eventually I gave in to garage parking right by the museum, which worked out just fine since it was only $5 for the evening after 5pm. When I hurried over to join Brad though, I was very disappointed to find out we would not be able to get tickets for that day. Apparently people have been standing in line since 2pm or so and there were more than 200 people already in line - at least according to the staff working there. On top of that, all tickets for purchase were sold out until December 1. I debated for a bit about whether to purchase the $12 tickets for the first weekend in December, but when I found out there were only about 15 of the warriors (of the 8000+ in China), it seemed kinda silly. So we gave up on the exhibit and decided to go check out the photography gallery at the museum.

Whilst looking for the gallery, we accidentally ended up in the Terracotta Warrior exhibit through one of the back entrances. Once we realized where we were and that no one is chasing after us to get out, we figured we'll stay and check it out (especially after all the troubles of getting there). Perhaps because of the advertisement for "free" tickets, there were many people in this tiny exhibit. Yes, tiny. Well, to be honest, we only saw half of the exhibit because it was split into two sections and we didn't try to sneak into the other half. In any case, the half we saw consisted of roughly 5 warriors and 1 horse statue, along with other small artifacts like weapons, armors, accessories, etc. There was also plenty of information on the Qin dynasty - not that you couldn't get the same information from a book or online. I pretty much left the exhibit glad that I didn't drive into DC for nothing and that I didn't pay to get in. Maybe there was something really awesome in the other half of the exhibit, but I couldn't imagine what. Regardless, I do plan on visiting China someday, and for what people pay to see this exhibit, I will see the warriors in its original setting (nevermind the fact that I have to fly over there). For those of you who have no plans to visit China though, it might be worth a visit if you have nothing better to do with your $12. The exhibit is on through end of March.

Lake Accotink

Today was a pretty balmy day for November, so we made plans to do a nice walk in one of the areas parks. Usually, my trail of choice is the one around Burke Lake. However, today we thought we'd drive a few minutes further to Lake Accotink since we hadn't been there. This lake isn't quite as big as Burke Lake, but still has all the nice charms and facilities. The trail around the lake is probably an easy 3.75 miles. There were many bikers whizzing by, but for the most part, not a very crowded time of year to visit. We were surprised to see some nice colors still lingering also.

Dancing Ninja Nomad

I have a tendency to procrastinate when it comes to coming up with a Halloween costume. This year was no different, so on the day before Halloween, I went to a shop to look for a costume. It was hard enough that selections and sizes at the last minute are poor, but to make matters worse, most women's costumes are on the slutty side. I'm not generally one who tries to look sexy anyways, but I didn't think my husband, who had to be out of town for the week, would approve. I probably spent an hour looking through women's costumes before a man's costume caught my eye. Yep - a ninja costume. I had always wanted to do ninja for Halloween one year. I love martial-arts and read a lot of mangas about ninjas. The last one left was a men's size small - and it (almost) fit. Woo-hoo! So I went to my two parties happy with my costume. At my second party, I got to swing my sword and kicks around a bit. Check out the clip below. You'll see a glimpse of me in the beginning and a slightly longer cut around the one minute mark.