A Capitol Fourth: Year Two

Yes, I really am that lucky.  Now I’ve been in the hands-down best city to celebrate the 4th of July two years in a row.  This year was totally different from last year, but equally awesome.

For starters, Annie came and spent the weekend at my place.  Unfortunately she had to leave just before the fireworks so she could make it to work on Tuesday, but we packed a ton of adventures into all of the time leading up to it!

Exhibit A: This time we explored Old Town Alexandria, the cute city where I live.

We wandered the historic streets…

… and supported a cute independent children’s bookstore…

… and ate ice cream…

… and frolicked on the waterfront.

Exhibit B: We made taco soup from scratch. And 4th themed cupcakes from a box (thanks mom!)

Note the dancing robot timer, recently purchased in NYC after years of desire.

Exhibit C: We attempted to go to the rehearsal for the Capitol Fourth concert… which evolved into something else exciting.

This is us staking out a spot on the capitol lawn.

This is us ten minutes later taking refuge in the American Indian Museum. (Photo stolen from the wonderful Bianca)

This is us being sad that we don’t get to see Steve Martin, Josh Groban, the teacher from Glee and others for free.

But then this is us going on (slightly damp) adventures under a beautifully colored sky.

Annie even made friends with a lightning bug.

And everything looked wondrous.

So we didn’t get home till late.

Exhibit D: We went to the 4th of July parade downtown.

We also got distracted by pretty flowers and Potbelly sandwiches.

Exhibit E: The 4th of July fireworks, naturally.

This year for the big night I hiked over to the Iwo Jima memorial in Rosslyn with some friends who are current Washington Seminar interns, after getting some delicious Ray’s Hell Burger.

From the memorial you can see the Lincoln, Washington Monument and Capitol building all lined up. Very American.

Soon the sky lit up with pretty colors.

And some of the fireworks looked huge enough to be the size of the entire mall.  They made the monuments look tiny!

(I think my favorite fireworks pictures are still the ones from last year when I brought my big lens, though. So you should give them another look!)

The metro after was a mess.  It took me over an hour just to get through the gate and to a train, but it was totally worth it!

Here’s an album if you want to see all of the good and bad pictures (code for: this is for you, mom).

A Capitol 4th Year Two VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

*song = Tightrope by Janelle Monae. Also one of the coolest music videos, I promise.

A Capitol Fourth

Let me just say that the Fourth of July in DC is incredible.

I took so many pictures it took a capitol fifth and sixth to get them edited so I could post them. So please look at this album to see what our entire fourth of July was like in DC! I promise there is some good stuff in there. At least I think it’s good stuff, but I could be biased so I’ll leave the final verdict up to all of you.

View Full Album

Now for the narrative.

We started the day out with the parade (well, after church of course. Where David Archuleta happened to be sitting a couple of rows behind us), then had a makeshift barbecue (with a George Forman grill) in the Barlow where we live before heading to the capitol to stake out a spot for the A Capitol Fourth show (on PBS) and fireworks. We actually went to the dress rehearsal for A Capitol Fourth the night before, so we already knew what was going to happen but it was definitely worth going back for the real thing. It was the 30th anniversary of the show, and performers included Gladys Knight, David Archuleta, Reba, John Schneider, the Marine Band, Lang Lang, the National Symphony Orchestra (they played songs like the 1812 Overture with the fireworks)… Fantastic. We got there at 4 (the program didn’t start until 8) and it was ridiculously hot but I would do it again. We got the perfect spot sitting on the steps of the Capitol building near the top. I could see the stage and even better the Washington Monument, where they set off the fireworks. Luckily we had enough people that we could take shifts of who could take refuge in the shade so we didn’t all die before it started.

Here are some choice pictures from the parade and waiting:

Parade. (My mom requested I post more pictures I’m actually in)

Tasty Barlow BBQ complete with flag cake

90% of the gang. They weren’t all paying attention… Not my fault.

The view.

I had to try to take a picture of this balloon. It was required.

Assorted.

And the whole thing just looked perfect in the sunset. Look at this lighting! I didn’t even edit it. SO beautiful. I might be a little obsessed with the way the world looked at this moment. You could take a picture of anything and it would look good. See?

I could seriously put a million fireworks pictures on here. Way too much fun. I’ll limit myself to posting like… twenty. What is really fun is flipping through them really fast on my computer, because then it looks like the show is going on again. It was seriously so beautiful. Hopefully I captured at least a little bit of it for you to see. I didn’t even play with the colors or lighting or anything in Photoshop. I apologize for any shakiness. My tripod is conveniently in storage in Utah. Wasn’t quite able to get to it for this weekend…