Princess Kalyn

I threw a bachelorette partaaay this weekend for my very-special-lady-friend Miss Kalyn. All the girls arrived on Friday night and Saturday morning. Our first activity was a trip to the Capitol Skyline pool party.

When we first arrived around noon, there were a lot of little kids and babies in the pool. Around 1 o'clock or so, the dj started cranking up the music, and by the time we left the place around 4 o'clock it looked like this:

The water was so full of hair, suntan lotion, and bodies that we lost a pair of sunglasses on the bottom of the pool. You couldn't even see your feet! Kinda gross, but the people watching and poolside drinks were totally worth it.

Next, we headed back to the house for some dinner, bachelorette games, and a little R&R. Here we are getting the party started back up with some cherry jell-o shots....

We spent the rest of the night getting a little late-night tour of Washington DC on the Boomerang Bus. They don't disclose the evening agenda for the bus until you start the trip, so after the meetup we found out which three bars we were headed to for the night and met the other people on the bus. We ended up having a great time, and now I can't wait to see everyone again next weekend for the wedding!

if I were brave, I would buy this...

from OnceWed

I would take the blue thing off and replace it with a more subtle sash. Other than that, it seems like it would fit me, it's inexpensive, and it's one-of-a-kind vintage....
but I'm not quite ready to commit yet.

baby steps

Here I am* with my nephew, when he was a little peanut.

... and look at him now!

Is he the cutest or what?? Now that he is a big two-year-old, he is just bursting with personality, as you can tell in this last photo. He likes watching the trains go by, swimming in the pool, and eating potato chips. When he feels like talking to me on the phone, he wants me to sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Usually at the end of the phone call someone in the background will tell him, "tell Auntie you miss her," and he'll say, "misss yoooou, home soooooon," and my heart just ACHES to be home on Long Island with him.

Watching him grow into this little independent human being has been such a blast so far. My feelings have been so torn... half of me can't wait to see the next stages, and the other half of me doesn't want to leave this part behind. Little man is the first baby of his generation for our family and I know one thing for sure - our family events are way more fun with a baby around to make funny faces at us.

*wtf is going on with my collar?

In search of a Pen Pal

Yesterday, I started thinking about how nice it would be to receive a letter in the mail. When I was a little girl, I would LOVE to bring in the mail and see what kind of goodies were in there. Now that I'm an actual functioning adult in the world, the mail has lost all its magic; now it's full of junk and bills and other responsibilities.

I figured Google might be able to help me out with this, so I opened a window and searched "pen pal". Nearly every website that came back provided millions of ways to find an email pen pal, but that just isn't the same. After a few different variations of the search, I finally came across a website called Pen Pal Party.

picture from Flickr - you can find it here

On this website, you can make a profile and describe the kind of pen pal you are looking for. Once you have a profile, you can browse through the other people on the site and contact them to see if they want to be your pen pal. So far, I have posted a profile and I have contacted one person. I have also gotten five or six emails from people that want to write me!

The emails are all so sweet, I might just end up with too many pen pals. Let me just show you a little glimpse of one.

"Hi. nice to meet you.
my name is Eunji.
i'm 22 live in seoul South Korea
i looking for a friend. but i can just little speak and
wirtes, reads in English/Japanese
i want a penpal from a different backgroud culture because
i want to know about different people
Can we become friends?"

Can we become friends? OF COURSE WE CAN because you're adorable.

Nanny and Poppy

My Poppy John is 85 years old and he is so cool. He took all of his original old photographs and scanned them into his computer. Last time I was home, I pulled this one onto a thumb drive to keep for myself, but I can't wait to save them all to my hard drive when I go back to visit this August. I want to frame some of the best ones and hang them in my house someday.

I think it would be really cool to display wedding pictures from our families at our own wedding. I'll have to think about ways to do it.

the grass is always greener

With all the snow we got in Arlington this year, I spent a lot of time anxiously awaiting the arrival of summer. And boy did I get it! Skipping right over spring, we dove head first into the swampy heatwaves of a Virginia summer. I walked a couple of blocks at lunch today and by the time I got my sandwich, my hair was all stuck to my face and neck.

If we get a true spring next summer, I'm going to make it a point to spend more time sitting near the Cherry Blossoms. Even with our barely-there springtime, the famous Cherry trees still managed to show their beautiful blossoms. As a local Arlingtonian, I followed Bloom Watch and listened loyally when it told me to enjoy the peak day for cherry blossoms. The best part about the peak day this year was that it was in the middle of the week, which means a lot fewer sight-seers. What better excuse to sneak out of work early?











I'm not sure if this last picture is a cherry tree or not... it looks a lot more pink than the others. You can find these extra-pink trees out on Hain's Point. Hain's Point is also a great place to seek out a parking spot, since it's off the beaten-path of most tourists.

Basil Resurrection

A few weeks ago, a roommate of mine packed up all of her things and whisked herself off to live with her FH. (see definition #1) Lucky for me, she didn't feel like dragging a half-dead experiment in gardening along with her. And so I became the recipient of this little hand-me-down:



Brown stems? Not a good sign.... and it gets worse.




Translucent and malnourished leaves. Don't worry, though, there IS good news in this post.








Little baby leaves have begun to grow, and guess what? They're green. REAL, live, garden green.

Big Oak

If you ever have the chance to spend some time in Emerald Isle, NC, you need to make time for a visit to the Big Oak drive-in.



And if you have the option, you should most certainly ride your bike there in whatever clothes you pick up off of your floor.




And you should DEFinitely bring your khaki shorts-clad future husband.



Then order a Shrimp Burger, which comes with fried shrimp, cole slaw & tartar sauce all right there on the sandwich.




you can thank me later.

Mountain pie maker

Have you ever heard of a mountain pie? Well, coming from a family that does about as much camping as we do traveling to the moon, I had never heard of one. And if you've never heard of a mountain pie, then you surely have never heard of a mountain pie maker. One of my roommates introduced them to me a few weeks ago, and let me tell you - I have been seriously missing out!