We wanted to get an early start today, so we decided to meet for breakfast at 8am. After breakfast, we went down to the parking garage and started the task of packing up the van.
We finally got rolling around 9:30am. The drive was long and uneventful (as usual). We had dinner at Balloons in Ellicotville, New York and got home at 9:30pm.
We decided to meet downstairs for breakfast at 9am. This would let us sleep in just a little bit. Since it was such a beautiful sunny day, we just sat around the table and chairs around the pool and relaxed.
We dropped Liz off at her apartment to get ready for the commencement ceremony and the rest of Maloneys went shopping at Crate & Barrel. We then met at Bender Arena and proceeded to get to our seats.
It was a beautiful ceremony that included a pipe band. All of a sudden, in a blink of an eye, Liz was on the stage accepting her diploma. Liz graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration cum laude (which means a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 - 3.69).
After the ceremony, there was a reception at the Woods-Brown Amphitheater. While walking to the cars, we stopped to take many pictures of Liz around the campus.
Liz and her very good friend Heather organized dinner for the two families (16 people in total) at Maggiano’s Little Italy. This place was awesome and it was the best Italian meal that I have ever had. The meal was served family style (Heather and Liz picked out all of the courses) and the service was impeccable (this means that our waiter was cute).
After a few hours of eating, we went back to Liz’s apartment and picked up the last of her things that are coming back to Canada. We said our goodbyes and made our way back to our hotel.
We got up somewhat early and headed over to the Shady Grove Metro station. Since we had such a great time photographing the cherry blossoms with Washington Photo Safari, we decided to take their Monuments and Memorials course. What is really nice about this course is that there is at most 8 students and you receive lots of one-on-one attention. Normally the course is taught by David Luria but since he was in New York city, our instructor was Stewart Davis.
We met Stewart and the rest of the class at Lafayette Park. Before heading to the various monuments and memorials, we received alot of great advice from Stewart. He said that he has probably over 1,000,000 tips and that we would probably hear about 100,000 of them during the trip. We then proceeded to spend the next 4 hours photographing many of the sites in Washington, D.C. We went to the White House, the Albert Einstein Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial and then ended the morning at Union Station where we ended up having lunch.
All I can say is that we had an awesome time. We learned a lot and laughed a lot. The following are some of Stewart’s pearls of wisdom when it comes to photography:
#1 - the best photography book in the world is your camera’s manual
#2 - get close
#109 - spend your money on the lens, not the camera body
#534 - buy a camera you will carry with you every day
#612 - the best light meter is the one in your camera
#813 - you are one lens away from happiness
#825 - the best camera is the one you have right now
#931 - yellow is the new green!
After lunch we grabbed the Metro and headed back to the car. We decided that we would spend the rest of the afternoon shopping at Tysons Corner Center. After lots more walking and shopping, we met up with the rest of the Maloney family (Ross, Susie, Greg, Erika and Liz) at the Olive Garden and enjoyed a lovely dinner. We ended our day by checking into our hotel, the Residence Inn Fairfax Merrifield ($98 USD) in Falls Church, Virginia.
It seems like only yesterday that Karen’s niece Liz left home for American University in Washington, D.C.. After four long years and lots of volleyball, she’s graduating. We’ve decided to make one last trip to Washington.
We decided to take a couple of days off to make it an extra long weekend. We got Karen’s car packed up and were on our way by 9:30am. We crossed at the Peace Bridge and then let “Jack” navigate us on a lovely drive to Hagerstown, Maryland.
We got to Hagerstown around 5:45pm and we then proceeded to spend a couple of hours at the Prime Outlets Hagerstown. We always manage to find a few bargains here. While in Harry And David, we asked the staff to recommend a place for dinner. They suggested Fratelli Pizzeria & Grill. We made our way over there and enjoyed a great Italian dinner.
Our destination for tonight was the Red Roof Inn Washington DC Rockville ($84.09 CAD). This hotel is very close to a Metro station. Karen and I are taking another photography course with Washington Photo Safari tomorrow morning. This way we can leave the car at the station and take the Metro into Washington.