Zavala's Take DC: The First Night (+ a Failed Camping Trip)

As I mentioned before, my family came to visit me in DC for graduation! They stayed for a week and a half, and I'm pretty sure I wore them out. :) When we weren't busy with school/graduation things, I made sure they got in some very full days of DC sight-seeing.

But first! A bit about a failed camping trip. Since I'd spent the week before my family's arrival stressin' about finals, I put it into my mind that I wanted to celebrate that Friday, and that I wanted to celebrate with s'mores. Recently, my pal Nils had suggested we have a BBQ. I suggested we take it up a notch with a... BONFIRE! He took it up several notches by suggesting an overnight CAMPING TRIP! And even though I would've had to get up at the crack of dawn to go serve at the temple the next morning, I was down. Because I'm all about carpe-ing the diem, friends. Unfortunately, our carefully orchestrated plan failed due to Mother Nature's mood swings. The second we lit our beautiful bonfire, the skies decided to dump on us, and we quickly ran for cover! A bunch of us ended up back at my house, playing Catch Phrase and making s'mores over my gas stove. No rain was going to stop me from my s'mores celebration, dangitt!

Saturday morning, I woke up and went to serve at the temple.

When my shift ended at 1pm, I spent a few frantic hours making last-minute purchases, finishing laundry, and cleaning my house to prepare for my family's arrival. I left in a rush and was super late to get my family thanks to a crazy storm while I was on the Beltway. The most bizarre thing about the storm is that while it was basically FLOODING from the sky in Montgomery County, the District and Virginia had sunshine and blue skies. You can see in this photo that the difference could not have been more pronounced.

So crazy!!

I was excited to see everyone (Mom, Dad, and my two youngest brothers) and to be honest, I was also a little anxious for what lay in store for us over the next eleven days. I took the scenic route home and showed them "my town." We drove past the monuments, the Capitol, the White House, my office, my old 'hood in Dupont Circle, etc. etc. I asked them what they wanted to do. I told them we could go sight-seeing right then OR we could go drop off the luggage at home and eat pupusas!

And OF COURSE, being the good Salvadorian family that we are, we went for the pupusas! In case you're looking for a good pupusa (best. food. EVERRR!) in DC, try Doña Azucena. Best pupusas in the DC area! They have a couple of locations, but the one closest to me is in Silver Spring. Utah doesn't have many Salvadorian restaurants, so having a pupuseria so close to my house was a real treat for the fam. We may have gone a li'l crazy and even ordered some extra food and tamales to take home for Sunday breakfast. :)

Since they'd all been up since the crack of dawn (Utah time), we took it easy the rest of the night. It really made me laugh that they chose pupusas as the FIRST thing they did after arriving in DC, but pupusas are my FAVORITE food (literally. not hyperbolically.), so no complaints from me! :)

I'm pretty sure my brother would die if he saw this. Good thing he doesn't read my blog! ;)

Photo updates of the rest of our touristing coming soon to a screen near you!