It has been so nice having mom and Blake in town, and after our week long adventure they are heading back to Gulfport in the morning. I have made sure that we have eaten at all my favorite places and even tried new ones that I couldn't wait to go to. The first night they were in D.C. I met up with them after lunch and the crew went to Ted's Bulletin. This is a new favorite in the Eastern Market area! The menus look like newspapers, and their milkshakes are amazing! I got a banana foster flavored one and was stuffed from just eating that.

The next morning we got up early and got to see the White House. I was so happy that the office let me go on the tour with them, and it was so cool to finally get to go. My favorite part was the flowers and loved seeing all the old photos from all the past presidents. After the tour I headed back to work and later in the day Mom and Blake came up to the office for a capitol tour. Rob did such a great job on his rookie tour and Mom enjoyed getting to meet so more of the interns. It was a lot of fun! After a long day from waking up early, we headed to Georgetown for the evening to visit Serendipity! It is actually the same one from NYC and there is no wait. The food was wonderful, and we finished our meal with a frozen hot chocolate with peanut butter with peanut butter cups on top! 

Today was one of the best experience I have ever had in D.C. I got to go to the top of the capitol on a dome tour thanks to Congressman Harper. Fenly invited me to go on the tour along with her roommate Mary Love Fair from Jackson. We climbed 304 stairs and I'm not going to lie it was one of the scariest things I have ever done. I now have such a better understanding and appreciation for the architecture and I got to see the best view of D.C. from the top!

We ended the day eating at Matchbox and said goodbye to Mom and Blake. This week flew by, and we are getting ready for hopefully a Nationals game tomorrow night, or it will be another night of fun adventures!  

What a wild ride this weekend has been! I think we almost covered the entire island of Manhattan and even made our way up to the Bronx for a tour of Yankee’s Stadium. While my dad and Olivia were in Russia this week on a mission trip, my mom, brother and I headed to NYC!

Friday:

So after my half day of work on Friday I boarded the train in Union Station and made my way to Penn Station in NYC. Since this was the first time I have rode on a train since I was 10, I soon found out that there are no actual seating assignments after I wondered from train to train. I met Mom and Blake at the train station, checked into the hotel and headed to John’s Pizza. It was wonderful and a great way to start the trip. We then attempted to go to the Empire State Building, but once we got to the elevators they told us there was zero visibility so we decided to just go back another night.

John's Pizza

Yummy

Times Square

Saturday:

With the early start we were about to really conquer the south end of Manhattan. We decided to head to South Street Seaport to go in line at TKTS to get a half price show for that night. While we were in line (2^nd group there) we ran into our good friend Dusty Ballard who lives in NYC. It is always good to run into him, and he told us the perfect show to go see. We ended up picking Peter and the Star catcher, which was fabulous. It is the prequel to Peter Pan. After getting our tickets we grabbed some lunch and headed to Chinatown. After being hackled for a few hours and getting a few good finds, we quickly headed back to our hotel to change and get ready for the show! We had dinner at a Italian place called Trattoria Dell’Arte. My mom and I split 100 layer lasagna and Blake of course ate an entire pizza. After seeing the show we found a cute cupcake place that had mini cupcakes. It was the perfect size and I got to try cinnamon, cookie dough and tie die (is anyone surprised). After a long day we called it a night and fell quickly asleep.

9/11 Memorial

After the show

Mellisa's Cupcakes

Sunday:

We had another day packed with excitement. We headed straight for the Natural History Museum and along the way we ran into a place called the Shack Shack. I love how hamburgers are always so fresh up here! After spending hours in the Museum, we headed across the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I feel in love! I got the see my two favorite artist Monet and Degas. I spent a lot of time taking pictures of the Degas ballerinas and loved just being surrounded by such beautiful work. After the two museums we headed south towards FAO Swartz and Avenue of the Americans. I think this was one of Blake’s favorite parts because I think we stayed in Niketown for about 3 hours. After shopping we ate Subway quickly and headed to the line to see the Empire State Building. It was worth the wait and was absolutely spectacular. There is nothing like it, and it was great to see everything after touring around the town. Later that night we dropped my mom off and me and Blake explored Time Square by getting my favorite Jamba Juice and visiting Toys R US.

Central Park

FAO Schwarz

Empire State Building

Monday:

Happy Memorial Day! We started the morning at Sarabeth’s for brunch and indulged in apple cinnamon French toast and pumpkin waffles. Our table looked out on Central Park. After enjoying our wonderful meal we headed to Central Park to go bike riding. It was quite an adventure and we even went off road a little bit. We got to see strawberry fields and all the beautiful lakes and statues. After our bike ride, we headed to the Bronx to see Yankee Stadium. With the Appel’s being huge Yankees fans it was so awesome being in the stadium. I highly recommend going to see it if you can. We got to see the locker rooms, museum, and sit in the dugout. After leaving the Bronx we did my absolutely favorite thing, we visited THE HIGH LINE! It is an old train track that just a few years ago two guys turned into a walk way above Chelsea. Such a cool place and there is a market that is attached. This place just screamed everything Urban Outfitters ever tries to portray and of course there was an Anthropology inside! We finished up the day at a wonderful Mexican restaurant called Dos Caminos and once again had wonderful food! Anyone visiting the city should try some of these places out! After eating we grabbed our bags and headed to the train station.

Sarabeth's

Yankee's Tour

The High Line

This weekend was an absolutely wonderful trip, and it went by so fast! I am exhausted and will be drinking a lot of caffeine tomorrow, but was so worth it. We are heading back to D.C. now and I am excited for my mom and brother to see where I call home for 6 weeks.

I cannot believe that my first work week is almost over. Being in DC has already been so much better than anything I could every image and this internship is so wonderful. With that being said even after only being up here for such a short time, I know that I am doing something that I absolutely love. I love that the things I am studying are actually being put to go use, and I'm going into an industry that makes me excited to come to work everyday. The best part of interning in Senator Wicker's office is getting to see all the different job possibilities within the office, and to tell you the truth I think I would be happy doing any of them. (Well we will see if that changes as the Summer goes on).

Well after all the sentimental stuff I can tell ya'll a little about me week! Everyday at 1o'clock half of the interns get off for lunch. Normally we have been packing our sandwiches and sitting in the cafeteria, but today we ventured over to Union Station. Even though I had my Easy Mac in hand, it was such a beautiful day, and I am continually thankful for the opportunity to be up here. Last night was one of my favorite nights after work. All of the Mississippi State crew and our new roommate Kathleen went to a place call Tortilla Coast. Awesome mexican food, and I think we stayed there for like 3 hours. It eventually lead to creating a Groupme that has been blowing up our phones all day. We have such a great group of people up here and the Wicker's interns are awesome! We have so much fun in the office, and we are looking forward to Maroon Friday tomorrow. I think it might be better that there is no interns from Ole Miss because I think they would be a little annoyed with us by now.

Tomorrow I am only working until 12 so I can head to New York to meet my Mom and brother. It is such a crazy time because I feel like everyone is all around the world. This has been an exciting week though. My dad and sister are in Russia, John and his family are leaving for Seattle tomorrow, Katie St. John is an aunt now, Allison McCarver in in New York and Lindsay starts her internship next week! With that being said its an exciting time and everything is great from DC!

Hail State!

All the girls!

So we are finally setting into the city and so much has happened since my last post. On Saturday night after our adventure to finding our building and meeting up with Fenly, we got ready for a night out on the town. We visited H Street and saw a whole new side of DC. It was the very underground local type of place. We first went to Sticky Rice, which was a Japanese place with tater tots as the special on the menu. Very cool place, and we finished off the night at Little Miss Wiskeys where we danced the night away (I was missing my dance partner hint hint). Afterward Jane and I convinced a guy to let us ride on his two-seater bike. All we had to say is that we were from Mississippi and that was enough for convincing.

            

On Sunday we went to brunch at a restaurant called 6 Engine. I think brunch is my new favorite, and I am glad that the rest of DC fells the same way. After eating with Mary Alice, Anne Wallace and Erin, we then walked around the monuments for about an hour to just see the city. The reason we left early was so I could meet up with Fenly and go to church. Well as great as that sounds, I got lost. Instead of putting NW in my NE and guess what I was about 30 minutes away. I decided to just walk back to the apartment, call it a night and get ready for my big first day of work!

            

Today was absolutely wonderful. This morning after we attemped to get a taxi since it was raining, we ended up walking. It ended up not being too bad, and I think we were all walking fast than normal since we were excited to get in the office. After checking in the building, we went to the 5^th floor and entered the conference room in Senator Wickers office. After meeting everyone I found out that 7 out of the 10 interns are from Mississippi State University! Go Dawgs! I was so proud to call State my home and fells like Starkville in the big city. After getting through all the rules and basic information, we went to get our ID made and had a basic tour of were everything is in the Senate and House building. We got our assignments and a guy named Chris and me are the Chief of Staff interns for Mrs. Michelle Barlow Richardson. I am so excited, and we will get to do a little bit of everything! While we were sitting at our desks Senator Wicker went to speak with Michelle and came by where we were working and introduced himself. It’s great working for such a wonderful leader from the state of MS, and I am excited to see the rest of our work days. I feel like every day will be different, and it's awesome getting to see an office at work.

After our first day of work a few of us went to eat dinner right off the hill at a place called Bullfeathers. I was so exhaused on the way home from work that I could not even stay up to watch the Bachelor (big deal at the Delta Gamma house). These 6 weeks are going to go by fast, but I do miss everyone at home. 

At Sticky Rice! Fun night out on H Street

Trying exotic saki drinks

Us being adventureous

Sunday Brunch

Exploring

MS girls!

Beautiful day in the city!

                      I'll be back later this week before my adventure to New York this weekend!

After a wonderful week with my family and John, it was time to say goodbye and head up east! With my awesome gift that only John Gazzini could make, I opened my app on my iphone he created when the airplane reached 10,000 feet. After sitting on the plane waiting to get off and Mary Alice saying we were boarding our next flight, I sprinted through the Atlanta airport just in time to make my flight to DC. When all the craziness of switching flights and finally arriving, I was so happy to finally get to our home for the next 6 weeks. I could not be more happy about our apartment, and I think we are going to have a fun but interesting time with our roommates and friends!

Our first night we met up with Fenly and Jane and went to my favorite mexican restaurant, Lauriol Plaza. After our hour wait and one strawberry mango margarita, we finally sat down to indulge in yummy warm salsa and cheese dip. It was incredible, and I will be taking my mom and brother there next week when they come visit! After a long day of traveling and and a full stomach we meet our roommate and me, Mary Alice and Erin made our beds in the cave (Our room has no windows).

The next morning after sleeping in, we decided to check out the grocery store. You would think that was not a big deal, but I can tell you otherwise. First you have to bring your own bags, or it cost you money. Then the best part is carrying everything you got a half a mile. Its not too bad, but I do need to get use to walking everywhere. Later that night we experienced Mr. Smith's in Georgetown and some of the surround bars. Mary Alice, Anne Wallace, Erin, Calissa, Rob and one of his friends enjoying seeing the sights and just hanging out. It was tons of fun but quickly realized the only way to drink in the town is during happy hour. It was quite an adventure walking around and trying to figure out the city. It was lots of fun, and I am looking forward to more nights in the city.

This morning was my favorite thus far. I met up with Fenly and Price in Eastern Market and enjoyed brunch at a cute place that had delicious waffles. After catching up with Fen and Price, we walked around to see all the vendors and even found a cute pair of earrings. My favorite part was the walk back. I have quickly learned that a mile is no big deal to walk, so with chaco on I was ready for my mile and a half walk. From our apartment to Eastern Market you can see the back of the Library of Congress and the Capitol building. It was a pictures walk and I enjoyed seeing people enjoying their Saturday afternoons playing the guitar and just hanging out.

Mary Alice, Erin and myself are about to go find our buildings for work on Monday. I cannot believe it is almost here, and we are enjoying our few days of relaxing and seeing the beautiful city that we call home for the next month!

Our Living Room!

Moving in! Looks much better now!

First night at mexican! Last nigh out in a teeshirt!

Brunch in Eastern Market

Eastern Market

My beautiful walk today!

So it is finally time. It is finally time to live my dream of living in the big city and see day in and out the exciting world of Washington D.C. I have started packing my bags, and I am looking forward to the opportunities that await me and the memories to be made.

It all started the summer after my freshman year of high school when I visited D.C. while attending the National Young Leaders Conference and meeting with Congressman Gene Taylor. I knew from that very moment that I would some how find my way to intern on capitol hill. After visiting for the Obama Inauguration and two other times with the Stennis Montgomery Association, I knew that I would finally make my dream a reality.

This summer I will be interning for Senator Roger Wicker for 6 weeks, and I will be moving this Thursday! I am excited to be living with one of good friends Mary Alice Howard and cannot wait to be up there with Fenly, Jane, Hudson, Erin, Anne Wallace plus the rest of the Mississippi crew.

I'll be blogging through my adventures so let the fun begin! I cannot wait to see what this summer has in store!

Here's some picture from my previous trips!

Getting to see the White House for the first time!

Being in the action during the Obama Inauguration 

SMA Trip with my favorite Cherry Blossoms

Me, Lindsay, Allison and Kathleen

See ya'll in 6 weeks!