Been a busy day!

With all good intentions of watching a horror movie on Halloween, Stuey fell asleep on the sofa. I dozed off watching Forrest Gump by Washington's reflection pool, in the bedroom, and Katy just dreamt of all the fun things she had seen all day.

Best supermarket ever

Time for bed and bath so back up to our current home. Still in time for happy hour drinks as well as a quick trip to the best supermarket ever discovered. Stu stayed with Katy while I popped out to Whole foods. Great fresh pick your own Chinese dinner. Yum!

And Katy all clean and snuggled up after another fun packed day. She's the bestest!

Trick or treat - big style!

We were just thinking about getting the trolley bus back up to the hotel for happy hour, but it turned out that missing it was the best thing that happened today!

We started walking up the road to find a whole street was closed off. Children, dogs and adults alike were all dressed up to the nines in their Halloween best. Such a great atmosphere! Katy didn't get any candy herself but she got alot if compliments, and loved every minute!! We have some great photos but alot on the main camera. We are going to have to cone back next year when she can actually take part properly!

Halloween hot dogs

Alexandrian's are big dog lovers. All of them were dressed up today too!!

Pumpkin wandering

After brunch we wandered around and down to the waterfront. Past the fire station and an ice-cream parlour for grand-pa!!

Katy was having a great time! She has been a really good girl today.

Halloween shopping

The whole town is buzzing with Halloween spookery this weekend. Houses and shops decorated. And everyone dressed up for the occasion. Katy being no exception!

We had popped into a baby shop the day before and alot of the shops were taking part in kids going in to trick or treat there.

This particular shop also had a photo competition for the best fancy dress. The kids get photographed and their friends and relatives all go in and vote the following week. Well we may not get any votes but we think Katy was a winner anyway! She loved sitting with the pumpkin - posing!!

It didn't cost anything, but we felt obliged to buy something as we had gad so much fun! So a green hat was purchased to finish off her pumpkin outfit! Made her a bit boy like, but her pink bunnies on the front of the pram helped out with the cooing Americans.

Sunday fun!

A good nights sleep is enough to make any little pumpkin excited! But the fact that it is Halloween and she gets to be a proper pumpkin in a costume all day made Katy very happy!

First was a spot of swimming in the pool. This time she even sampled the hot tub (don't worry - not that hot!) after smiling her way around the colder main pool.

Then buffet breakfast! Well we had to get our moneys worth!

Katy may have been ready for trick and treatibg already, but before pumpkin revelry, it was time to do a spot of sight seeing!

Directly opposite the hotel but the other side of the railway and metro lines, (did we tell u that our room is great for train spotting!) is the tall tower of the George Washington Masonic monument. A monument overlooking Alexandria, commemorating George Washington, the first president of the USA and a masonic worshipful master initiated in Fredricksburg in 1752. It's tower is 333ft tall but we didn't get to go up it today. We just pushed Katy to the top of the hill. Still a great view. We could see the Capitol building and Washington's monument back in DC. They seem so far apart! And we walked between them twice!!

I saw a sign that prooves that we shouldn't go running - it's prohibited! (tee hee - ok so just prohibited on the Masonic grounds, but I liked the sign)

After savouring the view, we walked back down king street to hotel monaco. This had been one of our possible staying locations but were we are is very nice.

(following a lady who appeared to have completed the marine Corp marathon that was the main event in DC today.)

Now the reason we were going to hotel monaco? We were off to meet up with a lovely expat call Marcia. On our first day in DC we had found ourselves in Godiva chocolate at union station, (looking for a phone but finding chocolate covered strawberries -yum), when marcia walked in and heard us talking. We got chatting and ended up exchanging numbers and then arranging to do Sunday brunch. She lives in Alexandria so hotel Monaco was the perfect choice.

Our Clam chowder and fish cakes were a bit slow coming but they redeemed themselves with the bottomless memosia cocktails! Katy stuck to her milk! We chatted for ages. But finally time to part company after a lovely lunch.