Washington D.C. and NYC trip!!

Do you guys follow @flightsfromhome.slc on Instagram?? If the answer is no, then that's the wrong answer. Do it now. They post great deals on flights! So when I found a cheap flight to D.C. I knew it had to be bought. About five minutes later Kelsie and I were the proud owners of plane tickets for our first trip to D.C. We PACKED that week with everything we could think of including a quick trip to New York. We ate some food, saw some shows, walked a lot and slept a little. Very little. Grab a diet coke and follow us along our journey!! 

Day 0: We both worked several 12 hour shifts in a row the days leading up to the trip. We took a red eye so we left work, grabbed our backpacks and headed to the airport. 

Day 1: We landed in our fine nation's capitol around 10am. The nice thing about D.C. is that the metro comes right into the airport. So we bought a metro pass for the week and took the metro to our hotel. We stayed at the Silver Springs Double Tree Inn. It was nice and easily accessible but it wasn't my favorite hotel. We checked in, got some diet coke and headed back into the city!

We started out with a few museums. The museums are incredible but I'm not one to spend too much time in a museum because I get antsy. The Spy Museum however was the exception! It's the only museum in D.C. that you have to pay for but it's well worth it. 

 We got to crawl around in air ducts and crack codes...that's my kind of museum.

We stopped and got shakes and fries at Shake Shack because...Shake Shack. Am I the only one who thinks Shake Shack is just slightly overrated?? And then for the highlight of the night....ED SHEERAN CONCERT. We found out AFTER we bought our plane tickets that Ed would be there in concert. That's what we call destiny. The adrenaline at that point was running low and I fell asleep waiting for the concert to start...but as soon as he started playing Castle on a Hill I was all hands on deck. 

Sing it Ed

Day 2: The next morning we woke up, found diet coke, and headed to Georgetown. I LOVED it there. So pretty. So magical. We wandered around until we stumbled upon Georgetown cupcakes. I'm not one to say no to cupcakes for breakfast so we stopped in and didn't even wait in line!

We had read about all these great places to eat at in Georgetown on the water and couldn't find a thing. So the cupcake held us over while we wandered until we found Farmers Fishers Bakers. It was such a happy accident. We ate grilled cheese cheeseburgers. Guys. That's a cheeseburger with two grilled cheese sandwiches instead of a bun.

As we kept walking along the river we found a place renting kayaks so we went out on the Potomac for a while. Definitely one of my favorite things we did! 

Then we walked to Arlington Cemetery. Since it was our first day we didn't quite take advantage of the metro like we should have. It was a long trek to Arlington. And it was HOT. Like in the 90's...and we packed for cold fall weather. It was a trek, guys. Arlington was well worth it however. We learned our lesson after that though and took the metro to get us a little closer to the Holocaust museum before we started walking. Don't go to D.C. without going to the Holocaust museum!

Again forgetting to take advantage of the metro we walked to We the Pizza before we headed back to see the White House and then the national mall to see the monuments at night. This was probably my favorite part of the D.C. portion of our trip. The monuments are so beautiful and impressive at night.

A lot of diet coke was needed to get through that great but long day. We made it back that night sunburned, blistered and swollen but it was worth it! 

Day 3: Another stop on our food list was Astro Doughnuts so we stopped there the next morning after our now daily 7/11 stop for diet coke. We weren't huge fans...which was disappointing because doughnuts should never let you down. 

We went to the American History Museum after our sad doughnut experience. So many cool things to see! My favorite was Betsy Ross's US flag. A close second was the hat and whip from Indiana Jones. 

Next on the agenda was a segway tour which definitely did NOT let us down! I should start by admitting that I overestimated the difficulty of riding a segway. When the guide taught us how to ride it he made us all do a few little circles on the sidewalks basically to prove that we weren't a liability to take out on the roads. I was surprised (and concerned) that the two of us made the cut. But eventually we got the hang of it and it was FUN! And nice to get around faster and without walking for a minute. I fully recommend being the tacky, stereotypical tourist and going on a segway tour. You won't regret it. Unless you wreck, then you might.

After that we went to the Natural History Museum. I touched everything it said not to touch and Kelsie held a weird bug (which she was allowed to touch). Then we walked around for a long time looking for the escalators because we were too tired to walk up the stairs. When we were too tired to keep walking through the museum we went in search for food. We went to Founding Farmers which was the longest time we waited for anything during the whole trip. It was good...but not that good! Well the beignets were maybe that good.

We weren't able to finish them and we thought about those poor wasted beignets the rest of the trip. 

Day 4: We took a BUS to New York. We were a little nervous but it was nice! It was a nice, new bus and it had a bathroom and everything in it. The toilet seat was really hot which was odd...but we moved past it. And it wasn't packed. When we got there we hit the subway and went out to our hotel in Brooklyn. Again, we dropped off our bags, found diet coke and headed back into Manhattan. Our hotel was in Brooklyn Heights and I wouldn't stay there again. I like staying in Brooklyn because it's so much cheaper than Manhattan and it's a quick trip in on the Subway. But Brooklyn Heights was much further than where I've stayed previously and took us quite a while to get back into the city. 

Guys, I love NYC. I love it! The lights, the awful smell, the street performers, Central Park, the shows...I love it all! We spent some time wandering around Time Square and bought tickets to Anastasia for that night. I like to buy my Broadway tickets at the TKTS booth in Time Square. They have discounted tickets that are still great seats and you can buy them last minute. Just keep in mind they don't sell tickets to the really big shows like Lion King and Wicked. Those you have to get at the box offices. While we were waiting for the show to start we went to Carlo's Bakery (from the Cake Boss show on TLC). Again, no line! 

For a second we thought it would be fun to buy fancy outfits to go to the show in that night...but after shopping around for a bit we were reminded that we really aren't that fancy and just headed to the show. Anastasia was good! I was a little disappointed because it lacked the evil Rasputin and his little bat friend but I got past it.

How great is Times Square?? And how rough do we look??

Day 5: If you're starting to wonder if this post is ever going to end, don't worry I am too. Good grief. But we started Saturday out with the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. A must see for sure. Once you're at Ground Zero it's a short walk to Battery Park where you have a good view of the Statue of Liberty and excellent people watching. We bought tickets there for a hop on hop off ferry. Owning the tourist thing again. I like these ferries because they take you down to Brooklyn, up past the Statue of Liberty and then they can drop you off back at Times Square. 

This terrible picture must be shared. Look at those bags under our eyes! STILL GOING STRONG.

When we got off the ferry at Times Square we walked to Ellen's Stardust Diner. I LOVE THIS PLACE. The waiters sing and dance while they serve you and what is more New York than that?

We walked to 5th Avenue and saw all the stores and wondered who actually shops at them, watched the Rockettes practice for a while and ate some cheesecake at Magnolia Bakery while we were waiting for it to get dark. Once it was dark we went to the Top of the Rock (the top of the Rockefeller building) and got to see all of NYC at night. Another one of my favorite New York activities. 

 Studies show that those who eat ridiculous amounts of cheesecake while in NYC live longer.

On top of the world. While we were up here a guy asked us if we'd like to go back to his hotel room with him to take pictures. We politely declined.

Day 6: Sunday fun day! We got up early to go to church in the Manhattan temple. Then we got some bagels for breakfast at Europan and ate them in Central Park. Central Park is another magical place! My only complaint is that it is really dang hard to get a Diet Coke in that place. We killed some time in the park while waiting for the highlight of the day...WICKED. I had seen Wicked once before in London and it wasn't super impressive. But this cast was INCREDIBLE. We could've sat and watched it again. And I have a very short attention span. 

By this time we were literally dying of hunger so we headed to Brooklyn to get some Grimaldi's pizza. Grimaldi's is right next to a Shake Shack and they're right on the pier under the Brooklyn Bridge. Basically it's a great place to be when the sun is going down. 

How dreamy is this city??

I could sit on that pier for hours watching those lights and listening to the water. We walked the Brooklyn Bridge (another must) back into Manhattan and headed home. (Yes, we walked back to Manhattan to take the subway back to Brooklyn. It's for the experience guys.)

Day 7: We didn't have much time that morning because we had to catch the bus back to D.C. So we had some brunch at Pegasus in Brooklyn and then took the subway back into Manhattan. Where we ate some more...cheesecake...at Junior's. We were told on our ferry tour that it's the only place Obama eats cheesecake. So how can you pass that up. Fast forward a long bus ride (I swear it was like 10 times longer than the way there) and we checked into our D.C. hotel so that we could leave early the next morning. 

Peaches and cream french toast...it was tasty.

Day 8: We picked our hotel because it had a shuttle to the airport. But when we checked in we found out it didn't start running until 6 am and our flight left at 7. The metro starts running at 5 so we figured if we were there in time to get on the very first train we would have time to get through security and everything. After waiting for the gates to open and then waiting for the first train to finally come and THEN watching a couple of trains just fly past us without stopping we decided it was maybe time for Plan B. So we ran back up the escalator and to the street where we called an uber. He was there in minutes and had us at the airport in less than 10! We made it...but it was close. 

When we landed in Salt Lake it was FREEZING. After being sunburned and sweating for a week it was especially sad. GIVE ME ALL THE SUN. When we got home life was back to normal and work quickly took over our lives once again. Making me even more glad we went. When you're asking yourself if you should blow off real life and go on a trip, the answer is yes. The answer is always yes. 

You better Belize it

LET'S TALK BELIZE!! If you're looking for a place to sit by the water in the sun and drink cold fruity drinks then Belize is the place to do it. If you want to drink Diet Coke though, it's not the place to do it because it is nowhere to be found over there.And I tried, I tried hard. We flew into Belize City and took a taxi to the dock for the Belize Water Taxi. It was about an hour and a half boat ride to San Pedro island where we stayed. And this was our view when the boat docked!!

Our resort sent someone to pick us up and bring us back to check in. We stayed at Belizean Shores Resort and it worked perfectly for us. The staff was so nice, they had a great pool, made excellent virgin pina coladas and helped us set up some excursions. Since Belize is bordered by reefs they don't have your typical beaches. But most of the resorts (like ours) have their own little man made beaches so you can still have somewhere to lay out and watch the ocean.

Our first excursion was snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley. I've snorkeled in a few different countries and nothing has even compared to Belize snorkeling! The guides were incredible. We saw starfish, eels, stingrays, sharks and of course plenty of fish. The sharks were nurse sharks which apparently are nice. They told us the stingrays wouldn't bother us either but Steve Irwin probably would've told us differently. We risked it anyways.

Kortni Jeane has the BEST swimsuits! So cute and comfy.

One of our favorite places was this cute little food truck spot we found out by our resort. The first time we went we walked thinking it was "so close". It wasn't. So the next time we went in a golf cart. Everyone on the island gets around on golf carts! So we got to learn how to drive golf carts and I only almost killed one person. Anyways, we found the best tacos! And they even had TOSTONES. My very favorite Nicaraguan treat. There were a bunch of food trucks and picnic tables and then around the back they had swings, places to eat on the water, corn hole, giant Jenga and other games. One night they had live music and a corn hole tournament.

I might never be satisfied with another taco after this place.

They say there are crocodiles in this water...

We wanted to go to Tikal while we were there but everyone told us it was better to do it in a couple of days. If I were to do it again I would stay in the mainland for a day or two, maybe in San Ignacio. So we found a tour group called Mundo Maya and did a day trip. We went to some Mayan ruins called Xunantunich and went cave tubing and zip lining. 

Cave tubing was incredible! They tied all the tubes together and a little Belizean guy dragged us along, paddling with his shoes in his hands. There were all kinds of waterfalls and cool formations. 

After the tubing and zip lining we took a terrifying drive to the Xunantunich ruins with our trusty diver and tour guide, Carlos. I sat between the two front seats half on a cooler and half on Kelsie. Carlos assured me though that he always drives like his daughter is in the front seat. But we made it alive and the ruins were AMAZING. I wanted to stay and wander around all day.

 So funny story, I lost my hair tie every day. Which explains the hair you see above.

 I have a thing for green.

There he is...Carlos, our fearless tour guide and driver.

We spent a day on Caye Caulker, an island just south of San Pedro where we were staying. There's not much to do there except for drink at a bar called The Split. We drank our millionth virgin Pina Colada and then there wasn't much else to do. We rented bikes thinking we'd go out and see more of the island and then it took about ten minutes to see the rest of it and the rest of it wasn't much. We were originally going to stay there the whole time but decided not to after a very wise friend told us there wasn't much to do there. Thank goodness.

 The Split

The Split's Pina Colada. I've never gotten so many confused looks for ordering virgin drinks.

Oh so one day we went and got massages on the reef. Our view was incredible. But unfortunately for the rest of San Pedro they just get to see a lot of American tourist's bare butts all the time. But check out this VIEW.

So those are the highlights of the trip....but the best way to sum up any good trip are the quality selfies....

 Our first morning in Belize...we sat on these chairs on the beach until some guy rode by on a bike selling burritos. We ate said burritos in the sun, watching the ocean, and realized we could stay there for the rest of our lives.

 Right after our first snorkeling and on our way to shark ray alley.

 The cooler front seat situation. My butt was numb for hours.

 If only this picture could capture the WIND on our boat ride back to San Pedro.

At this moment we had just listened to some girls talk about how hard modeling is. But we clearly wouldn't know.

This hammock goes out over the water where there crocodiles apparently are. It's also where the models pose when they talk about how hard modeling is and how much they like salad. We ate our tacos in front of them. Poor salad eating girls.

Here we are on our way to church in San Pedro. We tried so hard to look nice...ish. The branch in San Pedro was great.

On our last day we got up early to take our golf cart into town to catch the early boat into the main land where we took a taxi to the airport. In the airport we spent the last of our Belizean currency on all the snacks we could find. Three long flights later on very sunburned butts we were home. Coming back to real life is painful. So is not seeing the beach every day. And so are sunburns. But Belize was worth it.