Living Pharr: Spring Has Sprung (FINALLY!)

Winter sure did try to hang on for a good long while here in NYC, but (finally!) we are having some nice spring weather. The last few (and really, I mean last 2) days in March were lovely; thankfully they were on Easter weekend. However, I think Mother Nature was just toying with us (and trying to live up to the whole "...out like a lamb" bit) because the next week or so was touch and go, but I think we are finally into some consistent spring weather - YAY :)

Easter Brunch
We took advantage of the nice Easter weekend weather and attended a jazz brunch at Smoke, a jazz/supper club just a few blocks from our apartment that we have been saying (for the last few years) that we would like to check out. It was really nice to celebrate Easter with a fun, new experience such as a 'true' jazz brunch where the singer (Annette St. John) and three-piece band were from Harlem (where real jazz is from, right? ;)) Also, the food was really good :)

Easter Jazz Brunch

Spring Flowers?? not so much
The nice Spring weather also brought about predictions of the Washington DC cherry blossoms' peak bloom. I am not sure how many of you have been reading my blog and for how long, but our first Spring here in NYC, we went down to DC to try and see the cherry blossoms. Matt is really keen on seeing these because of all the morning/news/political shows that have these blossoms in the background each spring. Well, we have learned that these suckers are elusive.

When we went to DC two years ago, we were way too early, but we didn't know that. We read up, learned about cherry blossoms and then tried to see them in bloom at the Brooklyn Botanical garden (that same year) when the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's website said they were in peak bloom (they were lying - in my opinion).

THIS YEAR, we had been watching the bloom watch website, and it seemed like the weekend of Apr 4-6 was the weekend. We bought Bolt Bus tickets, booked a hotel and were on our way. Sadly, that weekend was colder than expected and the darn blooms were not at peak. There were maybe three trees in bloom, and everyone in DC was trying to get their pictures taken with these 3 trees. I think the peak bloom actually happened about 2 or 3 days after we left when a nice warm front came into DC. Oh well... I guess we are not destined to see cherry blossoms anytime soon. But, here are our pics of one of the three tress in bloom :)