We did a lot of walking, saw a lot of noteworthy sites,
used local transportation,
(Special thanks to our chauffeur - the cannolis weren't nearly enough to show our appreciation!)
Lou and I took advantage of a sunny Saturday (and the 65 degree temp) to road trip down to Charlottesville for the day. It is one of my favorite places I have ever been. UVA, the school Lou attended for grad school, is in the heart of the town. The main campus was designed by Thomas Jefferson, whose house, Monticello, is on a hill overlooking the grounds and is amazing. Charlottesville is located 2 hours south of DC at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and has tons of boutiques, great restaurants and vineyards in the area. So began our first stop on our drive - Horton 
Vineyards.
actually gave us a tour of the cellar and allowed us to do a vertical port tasting. Basically, a vertical tasting is where you taste every year that a certain wine or port was produced - in this case 1995-2002 - to compare the differences. On our tour, we actually got to taste several wine varieties that are still aging straight from the barrel. Our tour guide, who had imbibed much of the fruits of his labor, actually allowed us to turn the spouts on the big vats of wine and sample.
Okay, is wasn't quite that nice before hand (the before pic was from the 2006 Gold Cup, where Borgie won DC's best dressed), but the weather got nasty. We can't say much because Minneapolis got as much as 18 inches yesterday, but we have gone soft in DC!!
After a frigid but pleasant stroll (I am not complaining about weather as you all in Minnesota are suffering now), we took 3 hours to drive home, as it began snowing and when it snows in the DC area, gridlock is guarenteed!
This past Thursday Chris "general wargakis aka Shadow" came to town and we had some good South American cuisine at Gua Rupa, and then hit the Irish pub Rira for a few drinks before heading home. As usual, when in DC do as the Irish! Slainte!!
We do get a gold-star however for going to church at the Basilica all by ourselves.
We also got together with some Johnnie and Bennie friends.
After holiday festivities in Minneapolis we drove up to EGF to celebrate with my family and to RELAX. We slept in, sat in the hot tub, played cards, and completed a few wedding tasks. It's official. Lou is a part of the family (as discerned from the "new" family holiday decoration below).
Luckily we were playing with fake cash or it would've been a pretty depressing night. We are experts now and are thinking about quiting our jobs and hitting the online pocker circuit, or at least playing with Latrell "I need to feed my family" Sprewell next time we see him again in Vegas.
James, Lou & Steve.
Meaghan & Ryan were in town, so we left festivities early to meet up with them in Georgetown (luckily or Erin & Marissa would've probably gone for round2 at the serious chocolate fountain).
We then checked into our B&B, the Red Fox Inn, established in 1770-ish, where George Washington visited while surveying and the Kennedy's stayed their on numerous occasions. The building also served as a hospital during the Civil War. Pretty cool old building (behind us below)!
We saw a silly christmas parade which consisted mostly of rich estate owners dressing their poor dogs in raindeer costumes pulling sleighs and an occasional alpaca...
It was actually not that bad, but it had its moments. We went to dinner at a great country french restaurant called the French Hound. Erin tried her first escargot!! The next morning we had breakfast and hit the road to do some wine touring. We went to an awesome vineyard called Linden and had a private tasting of past vintages in their cellar. The views were awesome and the wine was just as nice. $100 later we hit the road, capping off an amazing weekend!
