Escape to DC
This weekend 
helloheather and I headed to Washington DC for torapines' wedding.
I was able to leave work earlier than I had originally thought and so I wanted to try and go standby on the 3:45 pm flight to IAD instead of the 6:00 flight. Despite United customer service representatives continually telling me (on the phone) there was no way in heck I was getting on an earlier flight by way of standby, I was easily able to do so. By chance I happened to land about 5 minutes behind Aaron, Serena, and Charlotte who had spent the whole day flying from Madison after experiencing delay after delay. 
Saturday was warm and sunny with helloheather leaving me to do the bridesmaid thing at 11 am. The wedding went quite well, despite some of the usual last-minute panic of getting stuff done. The wedding and reception took place at the soon-to-be-official Mr. and Mrs. Pines' home which was a good choice for the small crowd. The weather was fantastic, the food (all from different local restaurants) delicious, and (hopefully) the photography fruitful. We spent time with friends we don't get to see very often and much in the ways of parenthood and babies was discussed.
As it turns out it was also our friend Aaron's 30th birthday on Saturday (April 1st), so a slice of wedding cake served as birthday cake (with candle, of course).
Sunday, as some left for earlier flights, a bunch of us headed into downtown DC for the viewing of the cherry blossoms. Madness of people (expected) and beauty (unexpected). I didn't realize how many cherry trees there actually are around The Mall and monuments, along the Potomac, and pretty much everywhere 
Another fantastic weather day and lots of pictures. I'm really glad we were able to go and extra glad to have Mr. and Mrs. Pines act as drivers/guides along with Eric and Paul providing commentary and companionship.
Our flight back to Chicago was scheduled for 8:00 pm Eastern, but due to weather there we were expecting delays. We didn't board the plane until 8:30 but then, after pushing back from the gate, we were told there was a ground stoppage at ORD and that we wouldn't take off for at least an hour and twenty minutes. It turns out it was a bit longer than that. We ended up sitting on the runway for 3 hours at Dulles. No food was available (thank goodness helloheather and I were able to eat a small meal in the airport) and they did serve some water. Finally, in order to avoid the more violent parts of the storm, we took a longer route to Chicago. Actual touchdown was at 11:59 pm Central and we arrived home at 1:30 am. It was a very long and rather stressful bit of traveling.
helloheather started looking through the photos last night and found a couple highlights. Hopefully we'll be able to get an album uploaded this week.