i know it's gonna be a lovely day

Sigh, DC:

Since we're leaving the east coast soon I'm hurrying to soak up all the perks that spring in the east has to offer. Everyone keeps reminding me that California is really beautiful all the time, but that's the beauty of spring out here! It's not beautiful here all the time, and feeling the renewal of spring here is really an amazing feeling. Especially when it's randomly 80 degrees in March, as has happened a few times this month.

I drove down to DC last Friday with my friend Ashlie and our kids in the hopes that we could get some good blossom-peeping in. I haven't been to the Tidal Basin as a tourist before and usually walked there from our house or work, so I wasn't prepared for the traffic on a beautiful day that also happened to be Good Friday, but I think it was worth the quick trip. We also got to meet up with my dear friend Linnea (who took these beautiful pictures) and her sweet daughter Annika.

So skeptical.

I wish I could bottle up days like this.

easy come, easy go

Next week we're moving to Philadelphia so that Robbie can start business school. To some of you that news is coming out of nowhere probably due to the fact that I'm still sort of in denial about it and it's hard to just casually bring up in conversation. Also, I never post anything on Facebook and it seems that's how people make big announcements these days.

I understand now why our friends who have left DC keep it on the DL for the most part until right before they leave. It's just hard to say goodbye. People come and go all the time, and I'm usually sad at first about it and then life goes on—new people move in, you make new friends, and it doesn't feel as sad anymore. But at the risk of sounding totally dramatic, it feels like the end of the world for me and I'm kind of having a hard time dealing with it! Today, for example, I was thinking about how much I like our mailman and how I'm going to miss him (even though he's seen me in my bathrobe like a dozen times in the past six months), and how it's dumb that I'm going to miss the mailman because we're just another house on the route for him but the other day he had a package for us and said "This one's for Miss Rhoda!" and I was like, the mailman knows Rhoda! And now I'm tearing up thinking about the freaking mailman and wondering if it would be weird if I told him I'm going to miss him when we leave.

We've lived here for five of our six married years. We brought our baby home here. We always knew that DC was going to be a temporary stop for us, but when it's all you know as a little family it makes it hard to leave. There's also a strong possibility that we'll be back after school is over, but even then, can you ever really go back to the life you had before? Every day I can think of a hundred annoyances about this house and this city that make me happy to leave (the biggest one being that noisy Rhoda has to sleep in our living room because she's been banished from our bedroom) and yet I can't imagine living anywhere else. I can't decide if it's helpful or not that spring has been incredible so far and I am just in awe at how beautiful it is in DC right now. I guess I'm happy that DC and I are parting on good terms. Our BFFs left in fall, which makes the pain of leaving a tiny bit easier since they abandoned us first (JK, Julie!), and still the thought of making new friends all over again is like, super stressful for me. Extrovert problems, you guys.

I have lots of other irrational thoughts swimming around in my super hectic brain (such as—will I ever find a book group as good as the Capitol Hill book group? a pediatrician as chill as Dr. Wirt? midwives as magical as the ones at GW? fun crafternoon buddies??) that are preventing me from writing a fitting farewell to this fair city, but I'm sure as moving day creeps closer the thoughts will fall into place. I just needed to get some of them out before I collapse in a pile of sad moving tears.

spring fever

I've heard a lot of people in DC say that they feel like they got gipped in April because we didn't really have April-like weather. Whatever that means, I guess. In all the places I've lived I feel like April has always alternated rain, sun, and snow and everyone complains every year as if it's supposed to just be really nice all the time. I guess that's not too much to ask though, IS IT MOTHER NATURE??!

April gave us a good rainy sendoff this week (in the spirit of April showers bringing May flowers, I suppose) and the past two days have been glorious. Low humidity, sunshine, and smiles on everyone's faces—I really wish that both warm seasons were this pleasant. I couldn't even get that mad yesterday when my bike chain fell off and my derailleur (just learned that term so I'm trying to say it as much as possible) got all janky and I had to walk the rest of the way home because it was just so nice outside. And some of April's blossoms are still hanging on for dear life for everyone to enjoy without the high pollen count. It's a pretty good life here in the District.

in my opinionation, the sun is gonna surely shine

Are you ready to be BATHED IN CHERRY BLOSSOMS???

I generally try to avoid a bunch of pictures that are basically the same, but with cherry blossoms, RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. Plus, cherry blossoms are really only around for like five minutes so it's best to enjoy them in large doses while you can.

So, anyone who follows DC's weather very closely (just me? cool) knows that we've had a funky winter. Short spurts of warm, spring-like weather in February, followed by two snowstorms in March and then just chilly and windy for the rest of March. The cherry blossoms were supposed to peak sometime in mid-March but thanks to the aforementioned snowstorms they were delayed a bit. And then delayed some more. And then Easter and spring breaks came and went, and still no cherry blossoms. Then we got a little tease this weekend with some warm weather and you could see hints of pink on the trees around town, but still no sea of pink and white around the Tidal Basin. 

And then, just as the blossoms are wont to do, they just came out of nowhere! And you can pretty much count on two or three pretty good days of blossoms and then one SPECTACULAR day (what the National Parks Service calls the "peak" day), when the blossoms are pinkest, just before they turn white and carpet the ground with petals, so we were really counting on our free Wednesday morning to be The One. And it had to be a good one because Robbie has never seen the cherry blossoms. Never! He's either been out of town or too busy to face the crowds at the Tidal Basin, so I was determined for this year to be his year. Anyway, we played our cards right because the blossoms were still blushing pink and the early morning crowds were at a minimum, and the weather hadn't climbed up to the forecasted 90 (!!!) degrees yet. It was pretty awesome.

Most hardcore observers (cough cough Sarah) like to get up at sunrise to get the money shot and to avoid the crowds (though there are usually tons of photographers with the same idea—there were photogs snapping at least 100 of the same shot while we were there), but since I'm usually studying the backs of my eyelids until 9 am on most days, it was a miracle that we got out of the house by 7 am this year. One day I think I'd like to witness the cherry blossoms bathed in pink early morning light, but this was not my day. Doesn't matter—7 am is still a pretty good time to be there.

After the stop at the Tidal Basin we biked down to Hains Point to enjoy the trees around the bike loop. Definitely a must-see, but beware of huge tour buses and of hardcore cyclists flying around the loop. They don't care if you're there to see the trees in bloom because they're too busy training for the Tour de France or whatever. Also, be careful not to stand too close to the edge as the river is apparently really high right now?

To conclude, los Hamills give the cherry blossom hype two thumbs up—despite the fact that my allergies have been going haywire ever since.

o'er the land of the freezing, and the home of the brave

I like these glasses, but it is almost impossible to get a picture where you can see my eyebrows when I'm wearing them. What's a girl to do?

Robbie and I were kind of planning on going to inauguration yesterday, AKA the fake swearing-in ceremony held at the Capitol (because President Obama was actually sworn in on Sunday), but didn't fully commit until our super-connected friends Bemily asked us if we wanted tickets. Well, duh! I'll go wait in lines and stand in the cold if I'm guaranteed a good viewing spot. So off we went, orange tickets in hand, ready to get a sweet spot on the Capitol lawn—until we realized that even though every single person who works any kind of security detail for the federal government was working yesterday (I'm looking at you, TSA and Border Patrol), that didn't mean that any of them really knew what they were doing. To make a long story short, we were making pretty good time going through security and walking to the Capitol from our house (which is usually a 5 minute walk except there were tons of barricades up so it was like 30 minutes) until we were barred from crossing a street due to a motorcade (or ten, I'm not sure), and while we were waiting to cross the street, thousands of people kept crowding around us and by the time we were let through it was like letting a herd of cattle run free and people were jumping over barricades and I'm pretty sure no one was checking tickets at this point? So our super sweet spots were snatched up pretty quickly and I ended up with this view (well, this is more Robbie's view because I stuck my arm up in the air to get this picture):

I actually didn't mind the bald head view as I minded the guy with THE WORLD'S HUGEST FRO that was conveniently blocking the sliver of Jumbotron that we could see behind the tree blocking it. I'm kind of laughing to myself as I remember these details because it really wasn't that bad, but I can't believe how many things combined against us to make it so that we couldn't see anything. But it's okay! We could hear pretty well, it wasn't really as cold as everyone anticipated, and we had a nice group of people around us. AAAALLLL AROUND US:

There were also some crazy people who, in an attempt to get a better view, climbed into a bush—presumably in the hopes that the bush would have a magical clearing on the other side? I'm not really sure, because Robbie told me he peeked in the bush and there were like 30 people hanging out in this bush. And then there was Bush Girl:

...who slowly emerged out of the bush, one fur coated-arm at a time (not that her arms were coated with fur, but she had this ridiculous fur coat—like every other classy lady at the Capitol that day), and yelled "I can't go back in there! There are so many people in this bush!" Okay, well, you are crazy for climbing in the bush in the first place. Then she proceeded to yell out everything that was going on from her vantage point, but with about a ten second delay ("JAY-Z JUST WALKED OUT! MICHELLE OBAMA HAS BANGS, AND SHE LOOKS GOOD!"). It was funny but got old kind of fast, especially when people continued to emerge from the bush, like the older woman wearing a tank top. A tank top?? In January?? It must have been really hot in that bush. But everyone was very polite and quiet for President Obama's speech, which (I thought) was really good, but I also get my news from NPR and voted for the man, so take that for what it's worth.

After the speech, people started leaving in droves so we took the opportunity to move forward for a better view. And a better view we did get! I was really excited to be able to see and hear Beyonce sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" (in reality we saw her as a tiny speck but we also got a good Jumbotron view), which was a pretty good contender for Best Performance of the National Anthem (my personal favorite being Whitney Houston's version):

And then I found out today that Beyonce lip-synced her performance, but Kelly Clarkson did not, and I feel really conflicted right now because I don't really care about Kelly Clarkson, but I do love Beyonce. Beyonce! You only get to do this once, girl. Just do it live.

Anyway, it was a fun morning, regardless of the slip-ups at the beginning, and I'm really glad we got to go. I will say I'm a little bitter at my Facebook friends who posted photos with amazing views of the inauguration (I have a friend who was sitting next to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir—what the heck) and captions like "well, I was disappointed it wasn't Romney's inauguration," and "regardless of how I feel about the man, God bless America!" If I'd known these people had such good tickets but such strong disapproval for the man I would have told them to stop whining and give me the tickets instead. Let this be a message for all of you when Hilary is inaugurated in 2017—I will take your good tickets.

*UPDATE: Here is an awesome view of the crowd from the Washington Post.

fall is dc's way of apologizing for the summer

We were driving through our neighborhood the other day and Robbie pointed out that Capitol Hill seems to be made for fall. When the trees are green and leafy, you don't really get the full effect of the colors and old brick of the rowhouses, but the brilliant oranges and yellows around the Hill really bring out the beauty of the buildings. He also noted that the creaky old homes with insufficient insulation are perfect for this weather too—it's not quiiiiite cold enough to unsuccessfully attempt to heat up your house with central heating, but it's still comfortable enough that building a fire and cozying up with a blanket will suffice. Yesterday evening we took a little walk and I caught the remaining bursts of color. It's sad how they disappear so quickly (and how you can't really quite capture it in a photo) and every year I'm a little sad to see fall leave us, so I'm glad we got to enjoy it while it lasts. You just can't beat fall on the east coast (spring's a close second, but only because its time here is even more fleeting).

In other news, Robbie's old roommate/BFF Adam is here for a month while he does a rotation at Children's Hospital and we're super excited to have him around. Sorry to his wife, Allison, who is still in Seattle—but we promise we're taking good care of him!

#latergrams

Earlier this summer Robbie and I came up with this scheme where we'd assign points to each summer activity we accomplished and call it the Hamill Olympics. The point system was sort of arbitrary—1 point for grilling, 2 points for a bike ride, 7 points for a day trip, 10 points for camping, add 1 point for each person you invite along to the activity, things like that. I actually wrote out all of our ideas and assigned them points. And then we didn't do anything with our system because we never figured out what the points would get us in the end, and we just kind of forgot about it. Maybe it would be different if we had kids with endless enthusiasm for meaningless things like points, but alas.

But that doesn't mean that we haven't been doing fun stuff! I've just been doing a bad job of sharing these activities outside of Instagram. Allow me to repent.

We took a trip to visit friends in Richmond

We went kayaking (twice)

We made pie (twice)

Robbie rode without hands while holding a pie (that only happened once)

We went to outdoor movies

We discovered a (clean!) public pool in DC that isn't busy and has waterslides

We visited other neighborhoods (pictured: Logan Circle, Georgetown)—this is actually a huge deal because we never leave the Hill.

We went to a Nats game

I finished some sewing projects


We reunited with my BFFL Courtney and her family when they came to DC for a far-too-brief visit

And, well, this has been my plight every day (this is what greets my coworkers when they happen upon my cubicle):

I think that all adds up to, what, hundreds of points? I win!

Meanwhile, I'm sort of simultaneously mourning and celebrating the end of summer. Mourning because summer never seems long enough (it hasn't since I graduated from college), and celebrating because I'm going to lose it if we have another 100+ degree day. I read this article in the Washington Post yesterday, which accurately sums up my feelings about August and the end of summer. August, you need to step up your game, even though you are my birthday month and should be otherwise awesome.

colors and colors and colors and colors

These are some pictures from last weekend's visit to the Hirshhorn with our lovely friends Emily and Ben, in town for the weekend from NYC. We enjoy their company so much that we decided to trade places and go stay with them in NYC this weekend. I like that we are only a bus ride and $18 away from that wonderful place—especially when you've been working till 8:30 every night lately and need a weekend away.