Weekend fun out and not so fun in

We didn’t do too much on Friday, just relaxed and watched TV (Jill made Fettucine Alfredo for dinner). Saturday was a short period of house stuff, then an early dinner at Ted’s with Josh and Akaemi (Jill and I both had burgers), then on to the Barns at Wolf Trap to see Julie Murphy Wells be a sophisticated lady again (I enjoyed the Wicked songs the most). More house shenanigans when we got back, late to bed.

Sunday we didn’t have too long either, though I did manage to finish installing the new bathroom hardware. Then we were off to DC, first for dinner at Birch & Barley (the restaurant under very beer friendly ChurchKey). I’d been wanting to go since they opened, but this was the first chance we had to go. They do an all day brunch on Sundays, and I was ready. Jill had the chicken and waffles, and I had the corned beef hash, along with a homemade sausage patty. I had a beer brewed with coffee to start, then a very smoky one, both paired nicely.

We couldn’t resist the pecan bun and donuts. People had raved over the lemon poppy seed donut, but the real find was the toffee and bacon donut. It also paired nicely with the beer find of the evening, Paulus. They rolled us out the door after that, then we headed downtown. It was too early for the show and too late for Starbucks, so Jill got a coffee at McDonald’s, then we decided to go into Chef Geoff’s and enjoyed some Magic Hat (the fabulous new Vinyl for me, #9 for Jill).

By the time we finished it was time to head into the Warner Theatre to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It was their first tour outside the Christmas season, playing Beethoven’s Last Night (seemed a bit odd to me since they’d just released another non seasonal album) on a tour of smaller theaters to a friendly audience made up of just fan club members. Which was a problem for me, as they were will call tix, and I couldn’t find any emails that I’d bought them. Ordinarily I’d think it was an oversight, but they went on sale when we were on vacation and I couldn’t remember buying any. So I bought another pair on Friday, and sure enough, there were two pairs for me, and no time to get rid of them, so I’m eating them.

Luckily they were much better tickets and it was a great performance, so it’s not that bad. Lots of smoke and lasers, and a merged TSO East and West. I also was happy to see Jeff Scott Soto for the first time. After the show we waited a while for Metro (the nuclear summit probably was to blame), then headed home. But that wasn’t the end of the night, we had someone coming to take pictures in the morning for the house listing, and I was up past 3AM getting things in order. I must say, the house looks pretty nice right now.