You keep sticking around, while I'm acting a clown...

**Washington, D.C. Backstreet Reunion**

Washington, D.C.

June 7, 2012 - June 11, 2012

Believe it or not, I do go on trips in which the Backstreet Boys or the University of Kentucky are not directly involved.  I know, shocker right!  After the 2011 Backstreet Boys Cruise, there were no Backstreet plans in the works for 2012 (they did add stuff in the summer and in December but we did not know about that stuff until later).  Me and my group of friends were sad because we did not think we were going to be able to see each other in 2012.  We fixed that by planning a girl's weekend in Washington D.C. in June, where one of the girls resides (or as Nick likes to say, resigns).  There were no Backstreet events that we would be attending.  We were going to just have a good time by being together.  Now, I'm not saying that Backstreet was not discussed because it was...A LOT.  However, it would be the first time we were all together in which we wouldn't actually be seeing the Backstreet Boys.  We were just a "normal" group of girls getting together to have a girl's weekend, a weekend of laughter and companionship.

I needed this girl's weekend badly.  Even though I had just been to see the UK Baseball team play in their Regionals the weekend before (and the girls heard plenty of my new love of Corey Littrell), work had not been going well.  A few short months before, I had been working 60 hours a week at a job that I really had not cared for.  I had been having a lot of issues with my back from the stress and my depression was getting very bad.  This trip was planned to happen after school let out, before I would have to start in the summer program just a few short days later.  I knew that the stress free environment of being with my girls would help me relax so that I could start the summer session of work off right.  School ended on Wednesday, June 6th and I flew out on Thursday, June 7th...I was wasting no time to get out of this place.

Beautiful sites to start the weekend

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - I could tell that the weekend was going to be great even before I landed in DC thanks to the gorgeous view outside my airplane window of the clouds.  Laura picked me up from the airport after she got off work, we grabbed a bite to eat, and went to her parent's house (where we were lucky enough to be staying for the weekend).  The other girls had to work that day so we had to wait around for them to make their road trip from Jersey.  Once they got there at around 11:30pm thanks to some traffic, it was as if we had all never been apart.  I guess when you exchange e-mails everyday (sometimes upwards of 100), it is as if you were never apart.  We spent the evening watching Backstreet Boys videos the old school way...on VHS.  I think that you can guarantee that every current Backstreet Boys fan still has a VCR in their home to watch these old school appearances.  We saw about a million performances of "Quit Playing Games" and discussed how the guys' looks have evolved over the years...except for Brian (although there was a discussion at some point about his "long" hair...you know that like one inch longer it was during the Black and Blue era).  The funniest thing we watched had to have been commercial break intros on Fox Kids that the guys had filmed at a theme park.  We could not stop laughing and had to even watch some of the segments over again (and then watch the whole thing over again the next night when Cort was with us).  We finally went to bed at around 3am.  It truly was like high school all over again and I loved every second of it.

Me and Anne Marie at the Air and Space Museum

Friday, June 8, 2012 - After a late night, we got up the next morning and made our way to the train to go into the city.  The plan for the day was to hit up some of the Smithsonian museums since Cort wasn't with us.  Our first stop was the Air and Space Museum.  It was cool seeing all of the old planes but the space portions were my favorite.  We played a trivia game and none of us were very good at it.  We also did a survey to see what occupation we would have on the space shuttle.  I don't remember mine for sure but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of an educator...imagine that. 

Next up was the museum of American History.  I enjoyed this museum because we seemed to have the most fun here.  We got to play with Mr. Potato Heads, Slinkies, and Etch-A-Sketches.  We were transported back to a simpler time as we played with the toys...as if staying up until 3am the night before hadn't made us already feel like we were in high school again.

Fun with toys!

More fun with toys!

Next, we left our marks in the museum.  Patrons were provided with large dry erase boards to create their own comic book style super heroes (Superman's costume was displayed in this area and was obviously the concept behind the interactive display).  We all know the Backstreet Boys do, in fact, have their own comic book thanks to a collaboration with Stan Lee (The Backstreet Project), in which they are superheroes (as Nick so happily reminded us on the cruise that he was a Ninja!).  So, Ash recreated those Backstreet superheroes with our own little twist.  We wanted the public to have as much fun with BSB as we do!  After leaving that trademark, as well as some others, we continued through the museum.  Nothing was going to beat the fun that we had had in that room.

Leaving my Wildcat mark while showing my Backstreet pride with my BSB t-shirt

Keep The Backstreet Pride Alive!

Ash and her Super Backstreet Boys

While we had the most fun playing, the most interesting educational display in the Museum of America History was "The Star-Spangeled Banner" display.  Here, the original flag that inspired our national anthem is displayed.  Due to the fragile condition of the flag, flash photography was not allowed in this particular display and there was special lighting.  I found the facts listed fascinating and I learned some new things that I had not known.  Like the rest of the day, we had to wait for Ash to finish reading every single word on every single plaque before we could move on (#BlameAsh).  We love Ash. 

It was time to call it a day and head to the airport to pick up Cort (I thought it was very awesome that we were able to do that by the train...how convenient).  We headed back to Laura's parents and commenced with our Backstreet sleepover rituals.  You know its not a Backstreet sleepover without Backstreet videos but we decided to add a little more to the party with Backstreet dance class.  Thanks to some previous dancers in our group, the rest of us got some teaching on some of the easier Backstreet dances.  Level One was "Shape of My Heart" and we all got that one pretty easily as it really just entails making a heart shape with your hands.  We were awesome!  Level Two brought us "Bigger" and "I Want It That Way."  We were pretty good at those and even broke them out for the Atlantic City and Bethlehem, PA shows a few weeks ago...after plenty of practice throughout this weekend in DC, as you will later read about and see.  It was another late night for us when we finally went to bed around 4am.  We're rock stars apparently.

Saturday, June 9, 2012 - We got a later start this morning than we had the previous morning...I have no idea why (said sarcastically).  On this day, we were going to hit up all of the important landmarks in DC since our entire group was together now.  We started at the Supreme Court building and then made our way over to the Capitol Building, where we did a tour.

Supreme Court Building

Capitol Building

On our tour in the Capitol Building

Me and my man, Henry Clay, from Kentucky

We then made our way down to the White House, where we just had to admire it from afar.

The closest we were able to get to the White House...its way back there

Thank goodness for the zoom on a camera

It was very hot that day and we decided that we needed to find some shade in which to cool off.  After finding a bench under a tree, we began to get a little ridiculous.  Cort and Ash started doing their fancy dance moves, which then turned into more Backstreet dance class.  There we were, on the sidewalk in front of the White House, dancing to the Backstreet music inside our heads.

What started as just dancing in front of the White House turned into...

Backstreet Dance Class!....Level One - "Shape of My Heart"

Level Two (Part One) - "Bigger"

Level Two (Part Two) - "I Want It That Way"

Then, Backstreet dance class turned into New Kids on the Block dance class, which none of us needed to be trained in since their moves have been around forever and are quite simple.

Then came New Kids on the Block dance class - "The Right Stuff"

More of "The Right Stuff"

We spent a good amount of time under that tree laughing and having a good time before we moved on with our site seeing.  The Washington Monument was next on our list.

Washington Monument

After the Washington Monument we decided to head towards the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials.  However, we were hot and they were a long way off.  So, we admired them from afar and decided that we needed to get inside some air conditioning.

Lincoln Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Just a photo I like of me in a cool tree

It was off to the Museum of Natural History for us to cool off.  The rocks and minerals portion of this museum was my favorite part because there was some really cool stuff there.

We then decided to call it a day in the city and headed back home, where we had dinner.  I can't even begin to describe in words the fun that commenced after dinner.  We went to this place that does private karaoke.  There are these little rooms that you go into and that is where you and your friends do your singing.  We had the room for about an hour and sang nothing but Backstreet Boys!  There were five of us...there are five Backstreet Boys.  I'm sure you can guess what that meant...we each picked a guy and sang his parts...I was Brian.  We incorporated our Backstreet dance class into our singing sessions but there wasn't a lot of room to move around in.  There was alot of jumping around, singing loudly (and poorly), dancing, and photo taking.  The photos got a little silly after awhile as we just started shooting random shot after random shot.  I'm sure I wasn't the only one but I remember being incredibly warm and sweaty from all of the dancing and jumping around.  I wouldn't be surprised if people heard us outside our little room and in the rooms that surrounded us. 

We didn't even really need the words on the tv screen but for those songs that have music videos, the videos were played.  Why wouldn't we look at those handsome men on that TV screen?  As if we weren't having enough fun, the completely wrong words would come up on the screen...words that didn't even make sense.  More laughter would ensue.

Really? Drying out my battery is low???  EPIC FAIL.

And who can tell me what is wrong with this picture???

We were only in the room for a little less than an hour but the time went by way to quickly and it was over before we knew it.  When our hour was up, we still a whole list of Backstreet songs we hadn't even sung yet!  I wished we could have had at least another hour in that room.  It was totally the highlight of the entire weekend!

We headed back to Laura's parents for our last night all together (the Jersey girls were all leaving the next day and I was going to be staying one more night).  I had forgotten my cell phone when we had left that morning and saw that I had a voice mail waiting for me when we returned.  It was my husband and the message was to tell me that he had been laid off...again (for the 4th time in two years).  I was upset and the girls immediately rushed to my side and embraced me with the biggest hugs.  In a way I was grateful that I had forgotten my phone because if I would have received that news during the day, I would not have been able to enjoy myself as I had.  Since this was my husband's fourth layoff in two years, we had become experts at building up an emergency fund and I realized quickly that we were going to be okay.  After the initial sadness, I decided to not let it ruin my last night the whole group would be together.  A few drinks and some laughter later, I had forgotten all about the news.  The Backstreet videos chosen for that evening consisted of our YouTube videos from the 2011 Cruise.  It is at this moment that the word "betterly" entered our vocabulary thanks to Brian during the "In It To Win It" game show.  His team didn't play differently than the other team...they played betterly.  We were also reminded how Nick "was a NINJA!"  Also, there was more talk of Brian's sparkly blue eyes....oh those eyes.

This was actually an early evening for us...2:30am.  We had had a day full of fun and we were totally tuckered out.

Sunday, June 10, 2012 - Sunday was bittersweet because we were together but it was going to be our last day together.  We headed to Georgetown where we were going to visit DC Cupcakes, which is featured on TLC and explore the town.  However, not only was Sunday bittersweet but it was HOT!  There was a very long line outside of the cupcake shop and there was no shade to be found.  We were roasting in the hot sun and decided that we were going to get our cupcakes and go back home!  I hoped the cupcakes were going to be worth melting in the hot sun for....they totally were.  They were the best cupcakes I've ever eaten...but I haven't really eaten cupcakes that didn't come from a box or grocery chain.  I had gotten four cupcakes (two for me and two to take home to my husband).  I ate my two right away...my husband was lucky his made it all the way home because I heavily debated breaking into them at the airport the next day.  After we were done with our delicious cupcakes, the three Jersey girls decided to hit the road.  We said our goodbyes, thinking it was going to be the last time we were going to see each other for the year (several of them later got to go to some other events together and then we all reunited in December for our AC and PA BSB shows). 

After the girls left, Laura and I took it easy and just hung out and talked until we were ready for dinner. We went to go eat and then walked around this small pond, continuing with our chatting away.  It was a pretty early night since Laura would be dropping me off at the airport before she went to work the next morning.

Monday, June 11, 2012 - I was dropped off at the airport in the morning but had plenty of time to kill before my flight left.  I spent some time uploading all of my photos and had some lunch at Chipotle.  It was funny because it seemed as if we had had a type of Mexican food (Tex Mex, Mexican American, etc.) for several different meals throughout the weekend so there was a running joke that DC must be the place to go for Mexican.  I was once again doing that.  The trip home was pretty uneventful and I had one or two days off to catch up on some much needed sleep before I needed to report back to work to get ready for our summer session.  It was truly a great weekend since I got to go to a place I had never been and got to spend time with friends that I love.  It showed me that we didn't need actual Backstreet events in order to have a good time because we could make our own good times.

*Title Credit - "Bigger" - This Is Us - Backstreet Boys