Saying goodbye to our first home

This was our home for our first year of marriage ... we felt blessed every single day we lived here as it was far beyond anything we expected to be living in. It was really difficult to say goodbye to it last week, but we will always have wonderful memories of our time here to keep.

Last NYC cupcake run

Our last Sunday in New York was the 6th ... and we visited our final cupcake shop. A darling place with delicious cupcakes ... but a very odd rule about not allowing customers to take photos inside or outside! I got scolded for taking these. Very odd. But, of course we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless!

Our final days in NYC

For our last few days in our home of NYC, we decided to do a few touristy things that we had yet to do. Of course, we didn't have enough time to do them all...but we tried :)






Here we are, ready for an evening cruise around Manhattan!

Since nothing declares the independence of our country better than eating, Jason & I could not resist heading out to Coney Island to watch the Nathan's Famous international hot dog eating contest. ESPN was even there to broadcast the "sporting" event. Happy 4th of July!

Joey Chestnut & Kobayashi tied at 59 dogs eaten in 10 minutes and the contest went into eating overtime!! It was quite the thrill - the one to eat five hot dogs the fastest would be the champion of 2008! Joey out-ate Kobayashi by 7 seconds and retained his title!!!

Coney Island beach ...

Celebrating Unemployment

To celebrate the end of both of our jobs, Jason & I met up with our friends Megan & Michael in Washington DC and headed together to the Shenandoah Valley for the weekend before last. They had found a perfect, rustic little cabin for us to stay in and we had a fabulous time visiting with them and sight-seeing!

Our cabin and the view from it's balcony!

Of course, we had to get a picture with the park sign!

Along skyline drive at Shenandoah National Park...sooo beautiful!

Jason on the Appalachian Train!

A waterfall hike...

View from inside our cabin

A beautiful sunset!

A parting shot at our wonderful little cabin!

We had a couple hours before our bus departed from DC, so Megan & Michael took us to the National Art Gallery gardens where we joined the many tourists and soaked our tired feet in the fountain - it was a fantastic ending to our weekend!