Cherry Blossom Festival

I got into work on Friday and was like, "Mom??? How did you get in here to pack me a lunch and leave it on my desk?" Turns out, one of the ladies I work with is super nice and brought me a lunch and happens to have eerily similar handwriting to Mom. I haven't eaten the lasagna yet but it does look tasty.



I'm watching the Active Dog Championship or whatever it's called and man! This is as addicting as Project Runway. Djengo just went through the tube when she should have gone over the A-ramp! Stupid dog! The dogs are funny, but their handlers are even better. The one that just went was this overweight, slow woman whose dog had to keep slowing down to keep pace.

Heh, this tiny dog just stopped halfway up the seesaw and looked confused when nothing happened.

This program has the picture quality of the mid-nineties. It looks taken straight from America's Funniest Home Videos.

Now they're on to the 'veteran's category', with these twelve-year-old dogs are creaking through the obstacles with their elderly handlers.

So, the question on everybody's mind is: how were the paddleboats? The paddleboats, Alaina!

They were paddletastic! It took a lot more energy to get anywhere than I remembered from boats past, and I tried to keep blaming it on the wind no matter which direction we were heading.



We were about ten minutes late because a million people were trying to get on the same Metro car. I reached behind me and grabbed Travis to make sure that we didn't get separated and then magically, Travis appeared beside me. Oh god, I grabbed a stranger. Probably inappropriately. A lot of these people on the bank were waiting in this huge line for the boats but we were just like, see ya! Thanks, tidalbasinpaddleboats.com!


Travis sez: the Potomac smells gooood!







We were able to paddle up to 20 feet away from the Jefferson Memorial bank. There was a choir singing something that sounded like a slow version of 'Home on the Range'.



The Monument.










We passed the time by reading fine literature. I was responsible for the paddling.








After boating, we had lunch and I managed to find the 10x10 foot space in the entire park that alcoholic beverages were tolerated. The plum was great and the allergies didn't really kick in too badly.



Here are some of the real life cherry blossoms.







Jefferson Memorial thru blossoms.








Washington Memorial thru blossoms.











Air Force chopper thru blossoms. There had to have been something going on because the helicopter kept going back and forth.





Have you met Paddles? He's the least sophisticatedly drawn beaver in the world. The planners took an entire five minutes to find a clip art picture of a beaver and decided to call it a day.



Paddles was everywhere! Bad Travis!






The FDR Memorial was expansive. Some guy came up to me after I was taking the picture and was like, "Who's the statue of?" I thought he was playing the fool, so I said, "That's President Roosevelt. He's kind of a big deal around here." The guy went back to his friend and was like "It's Roosevelt!". No kidding.




One section of the memorial was all depression-era sad timey.







This was the most disheartening statue ever.










This guy was taking glamour shots next to a pool (no wading).







2 cute! Next to the fountain.








They went crazy and had magnolia trees here instead of just cherry blossoms.






I have to say, the Jefferson Memorial was kind of boring. I have no idea why it was so packed. I did like that there were not one but two gift stores that we were able to cram into a tiny elevator to visit.







Yesterday was also the Kite Day or Kite Fest and it couldn't have been a better day, wind-wise. There were a ton!