cherry blossoms in washington dc

Last Christmas, while we were visiting family, I came up with an small bucket list of things we HAD to do in 2013 since it’s our last year in New Jersey (unless something insanely wild happens, but I’m putting it out into the universe that we will be somewhere else next summer). A few of items included visiting DC during the cherry blossoms bloom season, Maine in the fall, and NYC to see a few more Broadway musicals/plays.

We are so very fortunate to have semi-flexible schedules, living within 3ish hours of Washington DC, and the ability to switch plans at the drop of a hat. Who would have guessed that 2013 would see some crazy weather patterns (frosts still going into late March, rain throughout the entire freaking summer…). Originally we made plans to go down to DC during Easter weekend. The park rangers were calling for it to be peak bloom time for the cherry blossoms, but then a frost and colder temperatures hit. The weather ended up delaying peak bloom by two weeks.
I rearranged the hotel and a few photo sessions, to make it down to DC on April 12th. The weather was 100% in our favor that weekend, clear skies, temperatures in the mid to high 60s, and trees in bloom!!!

The summer after we got engaged, we made the trek to DC for the World War II Memorial opening celebration, as my future brother-in-law, Taylor, and the Elmore City-Pernell Marching Band were honored to march in the memorial day parade. It was a lovely time, we covered quite a bit, seeing all the monuments and a few museums, and who knows what else.

Since moving to the east coast, I’ve driven down to DC a handful of times, either on my own or with friends. This was the first time for us, as a married couple and east coasters, to visit DC.

Seeing the Iwo Jima Monument at night was incredibly powerful (despite the large bus full of high school kids running amuck!!)