A new vocabulary word

We're Back! Well, Kind of.... We have been having lots of fun, quick dates whenever we see each other but none have been on our "30th" date.  Chris is still in San Antonio awaiting my graduation from Georgetown CRNA school and immediate move from DC.  But we believe we will not miss another 30th together for a while...maybe even years if I get my way!  This month Chris came up to visit me in DC.  (Let's be honest- he didn't plan his trip around a 30th date- he just happened to be here at the right time!)  It being our very last 30th celebration in DC I knew we had to do something downtown.  Chris is kind of over this monthly tradition of a date night (he says we go on dates whenever possible which we do) but I want to keep it going so I planned it this month.  I packed a lunch- a fairly good lunch if I may say and we headed for downtown.  It was near freezing so we ate our lunch in the car people watching.  After lunch we ventured into the stamp museum which houses the largest stamp collection in the world.  Upon entering we learned a new word- Philately.  Neither of us knew the meaning of the word (it is the study of stamps) and now neither of us will ever forget it.  What a world we were missing- stamp collecting is a hobby of millions and have made a few lucky millionaires as well.  We learned about the history, the stories, the coloring, the printing, the famous errors of stamps.  Leaving the museum we remembered our dilettante ways and added "Philatelist" to our hobby list.  Really, though if we were observant enough to see an airplane upside down on a stamp and make millions how cool would that be?

5 Years Together

By a miracle we were able to have our 5th year anniversary off. Leigh needed to have dental work done in FL so she was able to get off work. And Chris was on a Radiology rotation, which is the easiest one of the year. The majority of the day was spent at the dentist office. Around 3:00 we were done and went to check in at our hotel at Clearwater Beach. Despite growing up here, Leigh had never stayed down here. We took long walks on the beach, swam in the ocean, enjoyed the hot tub, and watched the sunset. For dinner we went to one of Leigh's favorite restaurants, Island Way Grill. It was amazing, and we even ordered Key Lime Pie to go for breakfast the next day. It was short but sweet. The next day we went to Orlando with family for Zach's wedding and enjoyed our time there as well.

Philadelphia Freedom

Sadly our time in DC is coming to a close and we are trying to see a few things left on our bucket list despite our schedules. One of those has been the new Barnes Foundation Museum in Philadelphia, which is one of the largest collections of impressionist paintings. So we snuck away for a quick trip. Luckily, Leigh's aunt and uncle live nearby in Valley Forge and we are able to stay with them when we want to head up there. We spent time at the Barnes Foundation and then the Rodin Museum. These were both wonderful and perfectly matched our museum tolerance of 2-3 hours. Both of these museums have wonderful smartphone apps that will provide narrations for many pieces. We felt so much smarter afterwords.  If you are in Philadelphia, the Barnes Foundation should be on your list.  And now I'm just going to include several of my favorite pictures.

Bicycles, Planes and Automobiles

It has taken me a while to get around to posting this 30th. Life is busy as an intern and an SRNA. 2013 should just be an anomaly because we fully intend to continue our monthly "celebrations" of our anniversary and go on a fun date. We have still been able to go on small dates, but they rarely coincide with the 30th because of schedules.  However, January 30th happened to fall on a weekend and we were able to enjoy it together. We started out the day car shopping. Since we are moving to Texas soon, we have to get a new car for Leigh soon. There is some level of pride in being able to survive on one car for 5 years though. I'm more excited than she is and have been doing all the research, but I give her veto power and she has to sit in each one to make sure it's comfortable and she can see well out of it. I really like the Subaru Forester below.

After just a couple of dealerships, she continued to Old Town Alexandria to get on the Mt Vernon Trail for a bike ride. We actually headed north away from Mt Vernon and towards Roosevelt Island. We highly recommend this bike trail. It continues along the shore of the Potomac from Mt Vernon through Alexandria all the way up to Roosevelt Island. There are wonderful views of the monument from across the river and beautiful trees and parks along the way.

On the trail, you actually ride past Reagan International Airport. One section of the path is just next to the start of one of the landing strips. The planes fly over at fairly regular intervals and are so close it seems as if you can reach up and touch them. I felt like a like kid pointing to Leigh and shouting, "Did you see that?!" And of course we follow all bicycle safety rules. We make helmets look stylish.