For the second year, my friend Danielle and I made a trip to Washington DC for the Nothing But Nets Leadership Summit with the UN Foundation and JCI USA. This advocacy summit’s goal is to raise awareness and support for the Nothing But Nets campaign and their work to eliminate malaria.
We started our trip bright and early at 5am on Saturday, March 17. We drove through the day, stopping for coffee, lunch, and potty breaks along the way. We made it into DC around 4:30pm.
My friend Danielle is an Air Force and Army veteran who lived in the DC area for several years, and she took us to all the fun shopping spots. We spent Saturday evening at an outlet mall, grabbing dinner at Cadillac Ranch, and wandering around National Harbor.
HEAVEN!
Sunday morning, we decided to get in some sight-seeing and wandered our way down to a breakfast joint that was entirely too busy to justify waiting. Coincidently, it was the Lincoln Waffle House and yours truly did not put two and two together to realize that it was right across the street from the Ford Theatre where Lincoln was shot.
This is the house where Lincoln was taken after being shot, and where he died. It was under restoration/reno and was closed to the public.
While at the Summit, we met up with Gabi, the sister of our good friend Beka. Gabi was there as a liaison from Redford Jaycees, to learn more about the NBN campaign and how we can locally support the work being done.
We made our way down to the Smithsonian, and inadvertently crashed a 5K, so naturally, we had to capture the moment.
Natural History Museums are my JAM. I actually studied Biology for two years in college with the intention of becoming a Science Teacher, but life had other plans. I still geek out over all the amazing things that the Earth holds, and the Smithsonian did not disappoint.
Total color inspiration with all these rocks and minerals!
The middle stone reminded me of the tesseract.
Sunday night was the opening ceremony and welcome reception, and I got to wear my new dress! This is Simplicity 8590, in View D.
I whipped up the week prior to leaving. It was a super simple dress – a front, back, and sleeves. I added a neckband and armbands to the sleeve. I used a floral liverpool knit I got from fields fabric for $3.77/yd, and my blazer is from Torrid.
