6. Ride a tandem bike

I just wanted to post some video footage of me riding a tandem bike with Taylor.

Here is the video of us BEFORE we knew what we were doing :p

and here is the video of us AFTER we figured it out!

35. Watch a movie at home once a week for a month (0/4)

I have been completely slacking on this one and haven't watched a movie at home since the first time. So - I'm going to reset it and try it again next month. Bleh.

29. Have a dinner-and-a-movie date with Taylor once a week for a month (2/4)

Thanks to some awesome birthday presents, Taylor and I were able to do dinner-and-a-movie night for FREE tonight! :) Our good friends Janelle & Mark got us movie passes and then Natalie & Curt got us a Chili's gift card, so we headed to MacArthur Mall to see I Love You, Man and eat dinner at Chili's... The movie was quite hilarious ("I slappa the bass!"), and dinner was delicious... Thanks to great friends, 2 down, 2 to go! :)

36. Get a laptop

Working for LTS definitely had some perks - I was able to build my own super-powered desktop PC which I still use and love. It's like my picture & music server with over 600GB of hard drive space (sorry - the geek in me is about to come out :p)... I was even lucky enough to get a laptop... but it was slightly used and after a couple of months using it, it burned out on me. I vowed at that time to get a replacement because my desktop was SO huge and it held so much priceless data for me that I didn't want to use it for my regular internet browsing. I just wanted it to be THERE. But I didn't want to spend $700-$1000 on a laptop that I just used to surf the web and update my blog and I waited and waited and waited for some awesome sale, but that never came!

One day at work, my team was assigned to setting up some Dell Mini Netbooks for our admissions staff, and I instantly fell in love with them at first site! They're cute & small and are exactly what I needed - an internet laptop! Plus you can get them in all kinds of colors, and a built-in webcam for Skype-ing... So I did some research on the Dell Minis and the BF and I decided to buy one for the each of us!

Taylor settled on a Mini with a blue sticker design
and I of course, had to get a PINK one!

with a matching pink wireless mouse

I'm quite happy with my purchase. The keyboard takes a little getting used to, but it's definitely nice to be able to be completely lazy once in a while and sit in front of the TV with my laptop :)

29. Have a dinner-and-a-movie date with Taylor once a week for a month (1/4)

I'm a stickler when it comes to movies... As I've mentioned before, if it's not Harry Potter or Twilight, I usually wait a LONG time before I see the latest releases. However, if they're FREE, then I am all about it! :p

I am a member of Pilotonline.com, and they offer advanced screening passes to newly released movies before they're actually released to the public. Lucky me, I won passes to see the new Seth Rogen film, Observe and Report.

We decided to have dinner at Lynnhaven Mall before we saw the movie. Granted, it was Chick Fil-A, but Chick Fil-A is DELICIOUS! Then we got to enjoy the movie, which was hilarious! Seth Rogen hasn't disappointed me yet!

I'm hoping we'll be able to do this at least once a week for this month... 1 down, 3 to go! :)

6. Ride a Tandem Bike and 65. Go to the Smithsonian Museums in DC

So I was super excited that my sister and her BF wanted to plan a little family trip up to DC... Not only were we going to see 2 of the Smithsonian Museums, we were going to rent bikes to ride around the National Mall area! At that point, I thought it would only be right to rent a tandem bike! Not only were they super cool, I got the BF to do all the pedaling while I just sat back & enjoyed the scenery! :p

Here's a pic of Taylor and I getting ready to ride off on our bikes

Let me just say, once you figure out how to actually GO on these things, it is really a lot of fun! The BF and I definitely had a routine set up and it was smooth sailing from there. The weather on Sunday was absolutely fantastic, so riding bikes through National Mall was perfect! We did have issues finding bike racks (can you believe that?), but once that got settled, all was ok.

So we set off to the National Mall area to check out the museums. The BF is SO into History, so our first stop was the National Museum of American History.


He had such a field day in there, constantly blessing my sister & I with little facts about famous American wars & their heroes, etc. He knows so much and I love it! I think he took more pictures in this museum than I did - but here are a few:

Taylor and Abraham Lincoln

Here's my sis with a piece of the Berlin Wall

and here's Taylor with the Medal of Honor

We also went to the Museum of Natural History, but I'll stop with the pictures... I took over 150 pics this weekend and the purpose of photo albums is to share them all at once! Click HERE for more pictures.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. I had such a great time and I highly recommend renting bikes! I will definitely use the Tandem bike again! :)