A trip to the capitol

Hoping that we were escaping a bit of the chilly New York weekend, we headed down to DC to visit our friends (& fellow newlyweds), Megan & Michael. Unfortunately, the weather followed us and it was actually colder in DC for the weekend (with windchills down to 12). Needless to say, we didn't do too many outdoor activities and had a great excuse for staying in after church on Sunday to watch football. It was a wonderful visit - it is always so encouraging to be in the fellowship of good friends.

Favorite City / Winter Photos

These are some of my favorite photos from the winter season in NYC...the building with the giant candycanes hanging off of it is actually the building I work in, which you can also see in the background of the photo of my favorite fountain in central park (below-middle). We get to walk past the flat iron building every Sunday on our way to church and we never get tired of seeing the many bridges that connect the boroughs of New York to Manhattan.

Cupcakes!

Cupcakes are apparently, all the rage...there are more cupcake shops in NYC than we will probably be able to go to during the course of our year here. We're making a good effort though to visit them all! Every Sunday, in typical Tongan fashion, we do a bakery run after church, each week visiting a new cupcake shop, in search of the perfect cupcake. These were very thick, dense cupcakes with very fancy frosting. Pretty pricey at $3.50 each, but the shop was quirky, with several rooms of old, cozy furniture providing plenty of seating for guests.

A cheesesteak sandwich & some much missed company

With the holidays here, several of our friends still serving in the Peace Corps in Tonga were home to visit family and friends, one of them was our friend, Sami, who was going to be in Philadelphia. So we hopped onto a Greyhound bus for the short trip down there, met up with a previous boss of mine, then reunited with Sami for a day of being a Philly tourist (it was Jason's first trip to Philly). We walked the whole of the city, rang the Liberty Bell, ran up the "Rocky" steps and devoured some cheesesteak sandwiches before departing back for NYC. The best part was being able to visit with our friend, who we last saw in December 2006.

Starting the New Year right!

...with a run along the Hudson with my best friend, Julie. It's been a year and a half since we've been able to run together. Today was the most gorgeous day here - we would run, then stop to take some photos and then run a little more...all while Jason was running for real. It was a perfect start to the year!