Sweet warm wishes as we close out the year

Casey and I took a trip to the city on what was a very cold but bright day on Tuesday.
This year's Capitol Christmas tree was given to the people by the state of Arizona. The tree, just visible to the right of the foreground tree, was covered in decorations made by school children from Arizona. I was surprised how well the decorations have held up to the rigors of being outside in the unusually cold weather we have had in the past few weeks.

After walking fast from Union Station to the Capitol and back in an attempt to keep warm we decided to venture on to National Harbor, a newly developed area in Maryland. The main destination there for us was a visit to the first (and currently only) Peeps store. We had fun browsing the shop, trying our hand to see how "hot" we were on the Red Hot Tamales side of the store and choosing just which flavors to fill the bag with from the Mike and Ikes display. Afterwards Casey posed for his photo outside the store - at first I thought this would be a "delete" photo but I like the contrast of Casey bundled up and sitting straight and the girl just inside the store peering out to see what we were doing.
And in case you might wonder how cold it was that day check out this photo of the filling station at the pleasure boat jetty. Yes, that really is ice. And no, I did not venture too close to the edge because that water did not look at all appealing.