Miami

Last week I spent most of the week in Miami for work.  I was really busy and didn't have much free time but I did manage one early morning swim in the amazing, huge hotel pool and a boat trip one evening so I felt like I did get to see something.

The boat trip took us around some of Miami's small islands including Star Island where lots of the celebs live.  We saw Ricky Martin's house, Will Smith's, Gloria Estefan and loads more.

Presidents' Day Skiing

Today was Presidents' Day so that meant another public holiday for us.  We decided to drive up to one of the local ski resorts just over an hour's drive away over the Pennsylvania border.  The last time that we went skiing we both felt like we were really starting to make some progress but that was 2 years ago so we were both feeling a bit nervous about whether we'd pick it up again.

I was literally shaking all the way down our first run but then we had a lesson and straight away I started to feel more confident.  I'm still not back to where I was 2 years ago but it was good to give it another go and we got to try out our ski helmets that we bought last year but hadn't managed to use.  It's just a shame that we probably won't ski again now for another year.  I don't think the resorts will be open for much longer, we've hardly had any snow this year, the stuff on the slopes is all from snow makers and it was starting to really melt in places.

Meatballs

Chris has been going on about a new restaurant in DC called Meatballs, every time that he's downtown for something he goes in there.  As the name suggests, it just serves meatballs.  You can choose the type of meat, then how you want them e.g. with spaghetti, in a sub roll, in a salad, etc, then what sauce you'd like on them.  We were downtown on Monday night to watch an ice hockey game so I finally got to try it out. It's a really simple concept but is very good!

By the way, the hockey game was terrible. The Caps were 1-5 down when we and most of the crowd decided to leave early. They managed to pull it back to 3-5 but it was still another loss. One of my favourite parts of Caps games is 'Mites on Ice' in the first intermission. Some of the kids in this week's game were so tiny, one in particular was so adorable and kept on falling over. He got man of the match!

Newseum

Last weekend we ticked another item off our 'things to do in DC' list by visiting the Newseum.  It's not part of the Smithsonian Institute which means you have to pay an entry fee but it's definitely worth it.

One of the current exhibitions was sports photographs by Neil Leifer, even if you haven't heard of his name before you'd definitely recognise some of his photos especially his iconic image of Mohammed Ali.

There is a rooftop terrace with a great view of the Capitol building but it was such a cold day we didn't hang out there for very long.

One of the most moving exhibitions was the 9/11 gallery. Part of the communications mask from one of the towers was on display along with lots of photos. It was all really sad but the one bit that really got me was a display from a photojournalist covering the events.  He got closer and closer to the towers and was killed when the north tower collapsed.  His camera was later found and the photos developed. They had a video clip from his wife saying that it's not often that you get to see photos chronicling the final 90 minutes of someone's life.  Luckily they had a box of tissues out ready for visitors.

After seeing that display we were glad to look at a more light hearted exhibition on First Dogs.  My favourite was a picture of George Bush Sr's spaniel puppies.  It's quite possibly the cutest photo that I've ever seen!  He gave one of these puppies to George W Bush making him the only dog to live in the White House twice.

After the Newseum we stopped off for lunch at Ping Pong and found out that Sunday brunch is all you can eat for $25! The service was appalling, we ended up sitting for about 40 minutes between dishes but they knocked a big chunk off our bill after we complained so we were happy with that!

Before going home we treated ourselves to Crumbs cupcakes, mmmmm!