Monday Morning Meeting: Ball Games, Biergartens, Garden Tours and Flamenco

Another exciting weekend it’s been!  Dad and Kippy arrived on the red-eye Saturday morning and we’ve pretty much been going non-stop, trying to pack in all the adventures D.C. has to offer (not possible).

Friday we got sushi and wine from Trader Joe’s and spent a good four hours cleaning up the house.  We only clean the house when people visit, so it’s a bit of an endeavor when we do.  And come to think of it, I don’t know if we’ve ever really scrubbed the bathroom floor… it’s always the last task, and we never get to it.

We decided to switch out our winter and summer clothes while we were at it, which probably means it will snow on Wednesday.  While foraging in the attic, Courtney discovered a jumbo suitcase of my clothing that I’d packed when we moved and thought were lost and gone forever… including my favorite vintage red dress!  There were also a number of dresses (fifteen in total – I counted!) that I’d totally forgotten I owned.  Going to have to get creative with closet space, because clearly I need to keep each and every one of these dresses I’d forgotten about for seven months.

After Dad and Kippy got a tour of the house, Dad and I set off for what was supposed to be an eleven mile run.  Except that we got distracted at the ticket office at Nat’s stadium, and decided to wait in line for some $5 tickets to the afternoon game.  After slightly cheating the system to get four tickets, we finished off a 4.5 mile run.

It was a beautiful day for a game!  And I found a new use for the shoe compartment of my Anthropologie purse!  Who pays $8 for crappy beer?  Not this girl!

It was a good game.  They lost, but nobody really seemed to care.  I also introduced Dad to Ben’s Chili Bowl.  This was the start to a very healthy day.  Lunch: chili dog and beer.

Post game snack at the brewery by the ball park:  garlic fries, sweet potato fries and beer.

Dinner: A wurst platter (bratwurst, bauernwurst, and knackwurst) with potato cake and sauerkraut, pretzels and cheese.  And a lot more beer.  Sauerkraut is a vegetable, right?

Sunday we forced our beer and grease laden bodies to do a 6.5 mile running tour of the monuments.  Then we headed back to the White House, for the second weekend in a row, this time for a White House garden tour.

We took a nice long walk back to Capitol Hill and got great big salads from Sweet Green (finally, some vegetables!)  After a power nap, we decided to go enjoy Vinoteca’s Sunday night flamenco show.  They were excellent, as always, as were the tapas and sangria.  We even ended the night with a glass of Pedro Ximenez, bringing back many fond memories from Spain.

Johanna