T minus 8 days

...and counting. Moving day is 8 days away, and, well, suffice to say that there are a lot of little things to wrap up. Which would explain why I'm posting a blog post. Hmm, well, perhaps that's a non sequitor, but oh well, it is what it is. Zach's parents very graciously came out this weekend and moved our larger permanent furniture back to OH. The rest of it we will sell. They also took our car with them. That was kind of a sad moment--Pierre has been a pretty constant companion for the last 5 years, so it was a sorrowful goodbye... But alas, he cannot live in New York with us, so at least he will have a good home :-)
We were blessed with beautiful weather this weekend, so we spent lots of time outside. We walked from downtown D.C. into Rosslyn on Friday night by way of Georgetown. I can hardly believe how warm it was. Saturday morning, we went to Brooklyn Bagel, a real New York bagel bakery right here in Arlington. I can't believe it took us a year and a half to find it! You can sit and watch them making the bagels through the glass in the restaurant, which we thoroughly enjoyed. And the final product was, like it should be, tough on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. Yummy.
We stopped by the farmers' market in Arlington as well and generally enjoyed a LOT of sun. It made up for the rainy day on Sunday. All in all, though, it was a beautiful weekend, and very much enjoyed by all.
So, now finals for Zach and the last few days of work for me. It's kind of weird to have the normal ammenities of life seem to disappear around you (like our dishes, furniture, soon to be bed), but we are really excited knowing that such an adventure is just around the cormer. So, bring it on--New York, here we come!

Friends and Washington, D.C.

I'm suddenly realizing that we're really moving in three weeks. That's 21 days total, and only 15 days of work. Crazy, huh? So, I've been trying to fit in opportunities to see friends before I live 4 1/2 hours away. Zach and I also had the chance to walk through D.C. last night as the sun was beginning to set--with everything in full spring glory, it was pretty beautiful. I won't really miss D.C. as a city, per se, but it definitely has some very picturesque qualities--poorly captured in the photos below, but nonetheless, a little taste.

The wing reunited :-)

Flowers in D.C.--that's the RNC building in the background
The Capitol
Capitol again
Washington Monument in the distance--I love the sun in this one

Streets around Capitol Hill
Pretty garden

More pictures

I finally got a chance to upload a bunch more pictures from our New York trip last weekend and from some of the spring beauty around our apartment here in Arlington. Enjoy!

The cherry blossoms in the courtyard of our apartment complex have finally come out, and they are beautiful!
More cherry blossoms
This is the hotel where we stayed on Thursday night after Zach's reception at the law firm. It's right downtown, and it was beautiful! The room was larger than our apartment.
Fresh orchids
Cafe Lala: I met up with a couple here that our pastor had introduced us to via email. Cafe Lala is where they filmed the scene in You've Got Mail in which Kathleen Kelly has the book with the flower and is supposed to meet up with the person she's been emailing. Joe Fox shows up instead. It's a lot smaller than it looks in the movie, but no less quaint
More pictures from Sakura Garden up the street.

There are several cathedrals/churches around our house, all of which are very lovely, but are under construction--you can see all the scaffolding on the spire.

You can see the Broadway street sign. This is right near our house.

Our kitchen, view one
Kitchen view two
Another church, very close by
Us--New York, here we come (we're not exactly dressed to impress... we had just finished moving into a 5th floor walkup, so we were pretty exhausted)

New York Pictures

Moving day was on Saturday... at least most of our moving happened that day. In between carrying our belongings up 5 flights of stairs to our little new home, we managed to get some good pictures of the spring weather in the upper west side around the apartment. Enjoy!

International House (above) houses many of Columbia's students.

These pictures were taken in the Sakura Garden, right up the street. It's absolutely beautiful, and very quiet at 8:30 on Saturday morning

Spring is finally coming

I know the official start of spring is March 20, but spring doesn't really arrive (at least in my opinion) until the weather is like in the 70s and the trees are blossoming... which means that it's finally coming. I will miss Arlington's plethora of flowering trees when we move, but perhaps Morningside Heights has lots of flowering trees too. We can always hope! Zach and I took a bunch of pictures earlier this week from the area around our house as we walked back from our Tuesday night date (happy hour at a local restaurant). Hopefully we'll get some more before they all disappear.

A cold magnolia tree... the warm weather can't come soon enough!

The tulips were just waiting to pop

Our spring street

Another beautiful magnolia

These snowy white blossoms are all over our neighborhood

With finals right around the corner, we've been trying to get everything set for the start of Zach's summer job. I think this process is far more enjoyable for me than for him, becuase it involves significant amounts of clothes shopping and, as he says, playing dress up with him. He's modeling one of the new shirt and tie combinantions in the picture below. Yes, it's purple, and yes, it looks so good on him! So much fun, at least for me :-)

See, how great is that?

Just for kicks

Pictures

Pictures from Easter weekend in Pennsylvania.

"Aunt Beth" and Alexandra Decorating Cookies

More cookies

Lunch time at the work site--they're using a piece of drywall for a table.

Alexandra in her "Cinderella" dress--she is totally into the princess thing!

Easter

The three-day Easter weekend in PA was wonderful. I'm so thankful to be able to get away to another home that's pretty easy driving distance. My brother just bought a house, and is in the process of drastic remodeling, so we got in and got our hands dirty... At least Zach did... My contributions were somewhat limited--hanging drywall isn't really in my field of experience or expertise. I pulled up some carpet and swept up the dirt.
On Friday, I baked and then decorated cookies with my four-year-old niece... Oh so cute! I'll post pictures as soon as I get them. My camera is still dead, but thankfully, her mother is a good mother who carries a camera with her everywhere :-) My grandmother also joined us for the afternoon and evening, and it was really nice to have a chance to talk with her and be reminded of the rich heritage of family. The laughable moment of the evening (and unfortunately one for which I was responsible) came when we realized that the brownies I had made us for dessert had no flour in them... because I had forgotten to put it in. I have to say, the final product was really very good--very rich and chocolaty--but a little less like brownies than we were anticipating. Somehow, they were still eaten, so I guess there weren't too many serious objections.
It seems that spring has sprung overnight in Virginia. I am going to enjoy this last spring here in Arlington with all the blossoming trees and flowers outside. Now, if it could just get warm out!