Returning to Virginia to help out my parents seemed like a great reason to meet up with my friends at the DC Metro MINI club! Since I accidentally overpaid my dues and am still a member, I posted an invite to Dice Burger on the forum and hoped a few people would show up. It was a “surprise and delight” that so many people could make it!

Love meeting up at Dice Burger. And they love it when the MINIs show up!

When I arrived Craig, Alex, and Melissa were already there. I parked near them and had just finished hugging everyone when Rey and Hillary showed up. Craig’s new girlfriend Sierra joined us and then Haemish and Susan arrived. As we were placing our orders Ali and Mark arrived unexpectedly. We began pulling tables together and it was a good thing since Brandi and her girls arrived soon after we did.

MINIs begin to take the parking lot at Dice Burger

So many changes in the year and a half since I moved, there was a lot to catch up on! Melissa for married and moved very far away! Haemish and Susan got married, bought a house and are having a baby! Hillary moved and Corey is about to return from Okinawa and start his final deployment somewhere in MD!

Ali still flutters so that hasn’t changed!

Being with my old gang was very exciting as well as super productive! I’d recently found out my tie rods are frozen, which prevented anyone from doing an alignment. Alex and Rey explained what tie rods are and why they might be frozen while Brandi sent messages to Corey who explained how to fix them. I told everyone the horror story about my radio going silent for the last two hours of my 12 hour drive. Alex theorized it might be a short and they all cautioned me about after market stereos.

The best part of seeing so many old friends is just seeing so many old friends. Thankful they could help me with all my MINI issues!

Melissa reminded me that the one year anniversary of MTTS2016 is fast approaching.

Soon the Facebook memories will begin to reappear and not long after that we will begin to countdown until #MTTS2018

We also talked about who was going to MINI on the Mack and compared hotels to see how far apart we were (very close!)

This year we will have a smaller crew, but those of us able to attend will totally represent! #MINIontheMack

After dinner we moved out to the parking lot because we love to look at our cars (obviously) and since I’ve been gone so many people have moved farther away and had long drives home (but fun drives because MINI).

Our MINI meet ups always evolve into parking lot parties.

I showed everyone the damage from the hit and run My Precious sustained. Haemish suggested a paintless dent removal might be able to fix some of it. Ali took some pictures to send to a guy she knows. Hillary and I took a few more pictures before we said goodnight and headed home. Definitely adding MINI clubs in general and DC Metro MINIS in particular to today’s gratitude journal!

Thankful to have MINI Cooper Clubs, especially DC Metro MINIs!