First Date

I started the day by going to Alan's house to go to the Discovery Camp meeting. The people that were there were Keisha, Chris, Alan, Jon, Aya, Matt, Mark, Faye, and Marilyn. They talked about the speakers, sharers, Friday night plans, fasting secular music, taking up this one prayer that I can't remember the name of, and a bunch of other things. Nikki came pretty late because her phone died overnight, so she wasn't woken up on time. Anyway, she and I left at 3 o'clock. We went to St. Columba to try and catch confession at 3:30. Unfortunately, there was this old man that went in before us. Dude was in there for 25 minutes already and still wasn't out. By that time, we had to go or else we would've been late to our pre-dinner thing. So, we left without going to confession. Wack!

Finally, we got on 210, then 295, then finally into downtown. We struggled finding parking, until I finally found this parking on the corner of 11th and Pennsylvania. We took a while to walk to our destination because Nikki's toe was hurting from dance. So, we had to walk really slowly. A 5 minute walk took us about 15 to 20 minutes haha. It was cool though. We had to get to the Smithsonian by 4:45 to pick up our tickets to the butterfly pavilion. We got there at 4:40 thankfully. Nikki has always like butterflies and she gets giddy every time she sees one around. So, I thought it was a great idea to bring her here. She thought that it was a one time event and was gone already. Once I told her what we were doing, she got super happy and giddy. She told me she had to try really hard to contain her excitement haha. I was so proud of what I picked to do. It was $135 cheaper than getting a stupid horse carriage ride. That would've been a bad move since it was raining. Oh yeah, before we went into the Smithsonian, we saw this huge rainbow on the left which made it that much more romantic. But anyway, it was hot as hell in the little butterfly tunnel, but the butterflies were so beautiful that the heat was worth it.

Once we got out of the butterfly pavilion, we found our way on 12th street again and went up towards Pennsylvania. Oh yeah, my camera ran out of battery so I couldn't take anymore pictures at dinner. Wack! At this point, she still had no idea where we were eating. Once we were in front of the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, I was like "Okay, we're here." She turned to me and was so happy again. Yay! We went in there and had about a 10 minute wait before our reservation at 6 PM. In the hallway, some guy was walking around with finger food. He offered us this cracker with raw salmon on top. It was so good! I was amazed that they just gave away great food like that. So anyway, we finally got to our table. I loved it when the dude said "Mr. Rio, please follow me." I felt legit haha. Oh yeah, our waiter was Filipino. That was pretty cool.

Here's what we ended up ordering:

appetizer - Sauteed Frog Legs Meuniere
salad - Mixed Romaine Caesar Salad (for two)
entrees - Grilled Mediterranean Sea Bass (Nikki's)
- Pan Seared Filet Mignon (mine)
dessert - Dark Chocolate Fondant

We got some free food, too. They gave us this great raw tuna thing in a cup. It was similar to the tuna we had at George's in San Diego. Then we got bread of course with this bomb ass butter and these tasty olives. Then at the end, we got some more free sweets/chocolate.

So yeaaaaaah, I'm completely broke now after this dinner. It's cool though. It was absolutely worth every penny. Anyway, we finally walked out of the hotel in the rain. Thankfully I brought my umbrella. We walked around the courtyard and that's when I finally asked her : ) There's no words needed to talk about that. I left her at the hotel so that I could walk my pace to the parking lot and finally picked her up once I got my car from the parking garage.

Here are some pictures.


On the way there, 295 NB.


"Hmmm, I wonder where we're off to."


Me with butterflies in my stomach, nervous as hell.


On Pennsylvania Ave I think. Is that Capitol Hill up there? I'm not even sure haha. All of these monuments' names escape me.


In line for the butterfly pavilion.


I guess they love grapefruit.








This was the giant butterfly I think.


Owl butterfly.


This one was chillin' on Nikki's leg for about 15 minutes.




Niks with the butterfly guide.








Back at Nikki's house. Alan has better pictures of Nikki and I. I just posted myself just because this is my blog damn it! Haha.

Oh yeah, of course I had to mess around with Photoshop. Here's my one attempt.