Hi friends! I’m glad many of you enjoyed Alex’s guest post yesterday on the health benefits of meditation and why you should give it a shot. I wrote a guest post for her last week, entitled 3 Tips to Fall in Love with Exercise. If you missed it, give it a look! 🙂
And now, my weekend recap! I needed a little longer than usual to write this one because it was quite action-packed. On Friday night, Matt and I took advantage of the reprieve from rainy weather and had an al fresco pizza date night at Faccia Luna in Clarendon. 🙂
Our pizza had pepperoni, lots of veggies, and arugula, and I started with the beet salad and a glass of Prosecco (x2). Nothing better than Prosecco on a really nice night! 🙂
On Saturday morning, we had a fun treat: a run with my long lost running buddy Mary and her husband Anthony!
Mary and Anthony were in town for a wedding and stayed at our place on Saturday night – without us, sadly, because we had a fun adventure for later that afternoon – more on that in a minute. We were glad we overlapped briefly in the morning so we could catch up, though!
It was pretty warm out there on Saturday and we did a hilly route but the beautiful bright green spring foliage and chatter kept us company. 5 miles, done!
After our run, Matt and I cleaned up, threw some clothes in a bag, stopped by Sweetgreen for big salads… and hit the road!
Our destination: The fabulous Inn at Little Washington!
We arrived in time for afternoon tea, which is included in the room rate if you are staying overnight. My parents and Matt’s parents arrived only a few minutes after we did – perfect timing! Last year we spent Mother’s Day weekend at The Inn with both sets of parents and everyone thought it would be fun to go again this spring. It’s such a beautiful place!
I especially love their llamas. 🙂
Besides having incredible customer service, the big highlight at The Inn at Little Washington is the food! The Inn is about an hour and a half outside DC in the tiny town of Washington, Virginia – and yet it often appears at the top of the DC area’s best restaurants lists. It’s so good that everyone says it’s worth the drive. I agree. 🙂 Such a treat to get to dine there again – thank you to my family for hosting us!
All dolled up and ready for dinner – I busted out one of my old favorite dresses for the occasion.
Dinner was, as always, phenomenal. We were all excited to see that they still do their famous freshly shaved truffle popcorn, brought over when you sit down! SO GOOD.
Then, to start, we were brought some mini, bite-sized appetizers. Everything was wonderful, but the potato chip looking thing in the back of the bottom photo in the collage was my favorite – I remembered it from last time! Super savory – there’s a pimento cheese filling that’s incredible (and I didn’t even think I liked pimento cheese)!
For my dinner, I mixed and matched from the different set menus (there’s a classic, seasonal, and vegetarian menu offered – love that you can mix and match). Plus wine pairings, of course!
Clockwise from top left in the collage below:
- “Tin of sin” – caviar with peekytoe crab and cucumber rillette
- “Beet trinity” – beet tartare, golden beet carpaccio, and beet sorbet with ribbons of crispy kale and a black truffle crostini
- Grilled black kingfish with shallot confiture and red wine reduction (this was especially phenomenal – the sauce was amazing)
- Parsley-crusted loin of lamb with green lentils
All the plates are little tastes rather than a full meal, so while you’re definitely full you aren’t stuffed, which is nice. For dessert, I could NOT decide what I wanted (too many good options!) but eventually went for the chocolate mint fantasy – beautiful presentation and delicious, too. 🙂
What a fabulous meal and a fun night! We all slept hard as you can imagine. 🙂
I was randomly wide awake on Sunday morning at 8 and we weren’t meeting for breakfast until 9:30, so I headed out for a little solo fresh air because it was a beautiful morning! I did a nice walk/run for about 30 minutes and enjoyed the weather and the country sights.
Then it was time for breakfast! An assortment of juices and a yogurt berry parfait with homemade granola is included with the room, and you can order additional items if you like, too.
Their parfaits are so good – the yogurt is really thick and creamy! I wonder if it is homemade – must ask if we go again!
I also had a mini scrambled eggs and smoked salmon dish – perfect size! The copper scrambled egg pot was tiny and adorable. 🙂
We were sad our time at The Inn went so quickly – such a nice trip!
After saying farewell to our families, Matt and I wanted to get in some fresh air. One of our favorite hikes, called Little Devil Stairs, is only a 15 minute drive from The Inn – it’s a really fun hike along/over falls with rock scrambling and stream crossings. We love it – couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do it again!
2 minutes into the hike I dunked my entire foot in the water. Lol! Fail. Thankfully my Brooks trail running/hiking shoes (the PureGrit) drain well. 🙂
Everything was so GREEN out there!
We had a great time tromping around outside and were sad when we finished! After the first 2 miles of uphill rock scrambling along the stream, you come back down a fire road for about 3.5 miles. We decided to jog the first 2 miles of it before it got really steep – it was actually really fun because there were things to jump over and it was all slightly downhill so it felt nice and easy.
Such a fun end to a great weekend! We came home in time to make a Blue Apron meal and to watch Game of Thrones. 🙂
Are you a fan of trail running? I always really enjoy it but don’t do it nearly enough!
What’s the best restaurant you’ve ever been to?
