Be Mine...D.C. '09

We celebrated Valentines Day with a weekend on Capitol Hill this year! We started our trip with a stop in Old Town Alexandria for dinner Friday night at the Fontaine Creperie. We had savory main course crepes followed by the most amazing Strawberry Nutella dessert crepe!

A Saturday morning view of the D.C. temple...

I was most excited about browsing the Eastern Market! It's a year-round farmers/flower/artisan/meat and seafood market located (luckily) within walking distance of the Capitol. We tried the famous Market Lunch's crab cake sandwich, which exceeded all expectations! The most phenomenal crab cakes in the world!!! The line is long and the seating limited, so we devoured them on the curb, but oh my goodness I'd put up with anything to have another one!

After crab cakes and browsing we trekked back to the Capitol. They recently open a new Capitol visitors center and you can make online reservations for a guided tour.

Dustin outside the Capitol...

Inside on our guided tour...

(Note the obvious red lines my camera was contributing to our photos.)

Library of Congress outside...

And in...(It is my favorite building in D.C.! So beautiful and ornate. And I love books. If only it was allowed, I could spend hours perusing those shelves!)

The Supreme Court...(We didn't make it inside.)

Goofing off inside the hotel room... (Why is taking pictures through mirrors so irresistible, even though you know they won't turn out?!?)

Saturday night (Valentines Day) we dined at Mar de Plata (Spanish cuisine). Dustin ordered traditional Spanish paella and I had shrimp and scallops over a lobster sauce risotto. (We decided I have a major seafood obsession!)

The couple next to us was taking pictures of their food and, being slightly embarrassed, told us they were very "into" food. I laughed and thought, "you have no idea!". And of course as soon as our entrees arrived we pulled out our camera! (Our vacation planning now revolves around what and where we will be dining!)

After dinner Dustin surprised me (which I give him credit for-it's hard to do!) with a brand new digital camera! You have probably noticed by now that the quality of my photos is not stellar. (I can't even remember when I got my current camera- somewhere around 10th grade sounds about right.) I'm ecstatic- especially to take recipe blog photos- and am hoping that now our food won't always be cold because it was taking me 20 minutes to take a decent picture of it!

We owe our fabulous weekend to my Dad who generously shared his Hyatt points and made our trip possible! (Although he didn't warn us about the nightmare that is parking downtown!)