MLK Weekend- Lots of good news!

This is a marathon post, I hope you can hang! This is what happens when I go for 3 days without blogging.

Good news #1: The weekend started off with an early morning Skype call from Karah on Saturday. SHE'S HAVING A BABY!!! I'm going to be an aunt!!!! She's due mid-September :) :) :) She goes for her first doctor's appointment this week, so hopefully I'll have some sonograms to share of baby Stracener. I'm soooooo excited for them! Zeke's a little freaked out that his little sister is having a baby, but he's excited for them too. They've been married for 5 years... I guess that's a good time to start! That's how long Mark and Michelle waited, too. If Zeke and I wait 5 years to start trying, we won't have kids until 2016. I'll be 32 and Zeke will be 35. Weird.

Good news #2: We have friends! We went out to Clarendon Saturday night and met up with Zeke's cousin Simpson, her boyfriend Zack, Lisa, and her husband Dustin. We had such a good time! We definitely took for granted being able to just call someone to meet you for a beer when we were in Houston. Several times, Zeke and I are out, just the 2 of us, and we will start laughing because we feel like losers. Everyone else at the bars or restaurants have groups of people, not just the two of them staring at each other. We start to call someone to meet us... but we don't have anyone to call. So we were pretty excited to have a "posse" for once. Here are a few of my favorite pics from the night...

Zeke's first drink. Yeah.... that's all vodka. The redbull can is sitting behind the drink, untouched.

Patron and SoCo Lime. Great for the soul.

Taught Lisa the "nerdy thumbs up" pose. She likes it, see!

Since DC doesn't have Whataburger, everyone gets late night Chili.  This was the Cincinnati Chili from Hard Times Cafe. It had cinnamon in it. Tigers would hate it. (Ha)

So the next day was Sunday. I woke up with a pretty mean headache. Discovering Magic Hat was the best and worst thing that's happened to me since moving here. I don't have anything cool to say about Sunday except that I didn't leave the apartment, Zeke walked across the street to get me some Aleve and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I didn't shower, and we ordered a pizza. I sat on the couch and looked up honeymoon packages for about 6 hours straight. No joke. Which leads me to my next point...

Good News #3: We booked our honeymoon! Sandals St. Lucia, here we come!!! You would think that picking a honeymoon destination would be easy, but it's far from. There are so many freaking options. We decided to go with a Sandals, because we have not heard one negative thing about them. We've traveled our fair share, and you never know what you're getting yourself into. But once you narrow it down to Sandals, there are 3 in St. Lucia and one in Antigua... each one is just as beautiful! And then when you find one you like, there are 3 different levels- Luxury (which is actually ironocally the bottom level), Concierge, and Butler. Everyone said if you can splurge for the Butler package, do it. After reading what all comes with the Butler, we were SOLD! Check this out....

http://www.sandals.com/difference/butler.cfm

We're sooooooo excited and can't wait!! We booked a Beachfront Walkout room, and every morning, they serve us breakfast on the patio with a bottle of champagne! We also get out own dedicated Butler for the whole week to bring us drinks and food from any of the 3 resorts on the island, whenever we want it. I won't abuse that at all, promise ;) Lobster, anyone?

And last but not least, we went to visit the Lincoln Memorial to pay tribute to MLK and see the spot where he gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. Here are some pics... enjoy!

Read closely, it's the exact spot where he stood to make the speech.

From the steps of the Memorial.

The 3rd square is the one he gave the speech on. 

Life is GOOD for the squirrels here. Look how fat he is! I was obsessed!

Korean War Memorial. Statues of soldiers walking through the jungles.

Each of their faces is different and meant to signify a different battle. It's kind of eerie. 

We went to the grocery store afterwards and I used my nifty grocery buggy for the first time! This is in our parking garage. When they finish the new store across the street, we FINALLY won't have to drive anymore! Which is why I got the buggy in the first place.