Tysons Corner Center Archives - The Pink Chickadee

One of my current favorite quotes is “be the woman that your dog aspires you to be!” If you follow me on Instagram (follow me @_thepinkchickadee!) or know me in real life, then you probably know that I have a 3 year-old Shepherd-Chihuahua mix named Rosie who is my pride and joy in this great thing called life. Papa and I rescued her from a local shelter as she came from Puerto Rico as a result of the hurricanes there. Well, as a proud Dog Mom I *had* to give Rosie the Christmas experience that I think every dog deserves – a visit to meet the one and only Santa Claus!

Luckily, the mall closest to my office – Tysons Corner Center located in Tysons, Virginia – has a few select designated Pet Nights to meet Santa Claus. I ended up looking for opportunities to meet Santa Claus and happened to find an advertisement for Tysons Corner Center’s Pet Nights with Santa on Facebook and as per usual Katie fashion ended up reserving me, Papa, and Rosie a slot for our Christmas 2022 photos! Read more about Tysons Corner Center’s Santa schedule and to reserve your spot here: https://www.tysonscornercenter.com/SantaPhotos

Since it was Pet Night at Tysons Corner Center, Rosie along with ALL the other pets were allowed to enter the mall without any judgement or requests to leave by anyone who works there. Rosie got to walk through the GORGEOUS-ly decked out mall allll the way to Santa’s North Pole where we waited to meet the Big Guy! We got there pretty early and getting the photos done were pretty quick, too. I had a BLAST getting to meet other families with their dogs and kids, alike. Rosie met some friends, too, and especially made a great new friend in Santa (for those of you that have met my Rosie Posie in real life know that she can be hit or miss with meeting new people and she doesn’t like to be picked up either). Well, Santa picked her up and she stroke a “posie” for the camera, too!! Needless to say I was and still am VERY proud of her.

And, the resulting photo for Christmas Card 2022 is, …..

*drum roll please*

Here you go!!!!

Along with taking Christmas photos, I LOVED getting to stroll with my dog aka a dream come true through the mall. Tysons Corner Center has some super fun murals, displays, and *of course* Christmas decorations at every turn. We parked right by the Bloomingdale’s entrance and I was in awe at the beautiful Christmas decor and displays that honored 150 years of the notable designer department store. Along with Bloomingdale’s, Papa and Rosie and I walked through Nordstrom which has my favorite shoe selection in the entire mall – yep, and has been for years aka since high school!! – and got to admire the decorations there, too. I LOVED that Nordstrom played off of the colorful fashion this holiday season, specifically with the color PINK. If you are in the Washington, DC area, a visit to Tysons Corner Center – in walking distance and easy access from the Tysons Metro Station on the Silver Line if coming from the city – should definitely be on your list to get some Christmas shopping done and to take in some holiday cheer.

XOXO – Katie <3

Flashback to July 4, 2018. It is a hot and humid day in Rome, Italy. I am wearing a long sleeve white top, tassel earrings, and pink capri pants with lobsters printed on them (courtesy of Crown & Ivy sold at Belk!). The subway is crammed to the max like none of us have ever seen before in our lives. I clutch my then-brand-new pink Italian leather crossbody to my chest. I am walking with my classmates and professors on our group outing to The Vatican (which is a WHOLE other country!!). We, then, get to The Vatican. We get to our tour and, low and behold, it is just as crammed and hot and sweaty and humid as the subway was in Rome. Every single tourist and their sister and brother and Aunt and Uncle times 200 is there. While I feel extremely blessed to have seen The Vatican and the iconic paintings within the Sistine Chapel, I felt miserable and disappointed at the hot and humid environment packed to the rim full of people. So, when I heard that an interactive exhibit of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings was coming to the Tysons Corner Center Mall in Tysons, Virginia, I knew I needed to book a ticket pronto!

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel exhibit was held at Tysons Corner Center located in Tysons, Virginia – a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington, DC notorious for its booming business district and malls (one of which is Tysons Corner Center where it was held!). I happened to find the tickets on Facebook via an advertisement which is typical for me to find EVERYTHING nowadays – haha! – and then went into the Fever app (the same app where one can purchase tickets to an interactive Vincent Van Gogh exhibit, Claude Monet exhibit, or iconic Netflix’s Bridgeton Ball in their own respective cities across the United States) to order my solo ticket. Then, my adventure awaited.

Although this Sistine Chapel exhibit isn’t still on display at the Tysons Corner Center at this exact moment that I am writing this blog post, it still felt like a dream come true. I personally didn’t stay for long, as I have seen many of these works of art either in real life or very similar works of art when I studied abroad in Tuscany, Italy and London, England and traveled to Paris, France to see ALLLL of the extraordinary works of art including the iconic Mona Lisa at the Louvre. But, it was still super amazing to see the several works of art that I had barely gotten to enjoy while visiting The Vatican amongst the sweltering heat and crowds. While at Tysons Corner Center, I got to view every single painting that I saw at a distance within a sea of people up close. It was a pretty amazing experience if you ask me.