A couple of years ago, my parents bought me this book called Emily Alone.  It was when I was interested in Geriatrics, and it's basically the story of this little lady coping with aging.  It's pretty cute, but kind of depressing, so I don't know if I'd recommend it.  Anyway, it's set in Pittsburgh, of all places!  There's this scene in the book where she's looked forward to Spring for so long (turns out Pittsburgh is pretty miserable in the winter ...) and she and her friend go to this Spring Flower Show at a place called the Phipps.

I was planning a little trip up to P'burgh this past weekend, and am pretty ready for Spring myself.  So I did a little research and it turns out that the Spring Flower Show is a real thing at the Phipps Conservatory!  And it also turns out that my husband is awesome and was willing to spend 1.5 hours looking at flowers during March Madness season.  Gotta love him!

We walked through all the amazing displays, smelled some flowers, sneezed a little, practiced with my new camera, and really got ready for Spring!  Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Wedding colors, anyone? =)

There were SO many kinds of orchids!  It was amazing!  Also did you know the flavor vanilla comes from the orchid flower?  There.  You learned something from my blog.

Some of the orchids even had scents  =)

I.  Love.  These.  Peach tulips!

Pineapple, anyone?

Youch!  There was a cactus garden, too.

I don't know what that was, but it was about as tall as we were

Stuart experimenting

Sculpture in the cactus room.  Appropriately shaped.

This was my favorite flower of the day.  Double early tulips.

Can you tell I like tulips?

Unfortunately, Spring wasn't quite ready to be sprung.  On my drive back from PA today it started snowing up a storm!  By the time I (safely) made it back to C'ville, there were already a few inches on the ground!

Home sweet, frozen, home

Maybe next week it'll get warm.

Intern Day Off!

Time off is few and far between these days; and even when you have it it's tough to find a day when other folks are free, too.  Last weekend the planets all aligned and about 15 of us 'terns were off on the same day.  It just so happened to be beautiful weather and so we decided to spend the day in the great outdoors.

We started the day off at Pippin Hill Vineyards.  It's a pretty young vineyard a bit south of town in a beautiful setting.  The weather was perfect and there was still some snow left on the ground from our recent 8-10 inches!  We walked around indoors and out, and noshed on some fancy lunches.

Probably one of the prettiest, but least rustic, barns I've seen

Brick oven pizza made fresh inside

Cyndi enjoying her Virginia ham, goat cheese, and arugula pizza

Croque Monsieur for me, with an arugula salad

Who doesn't love a mason jar?

Design for future house?   Haha

We ventured outside after lunch to soak in the views

Wow I love Virginia!

Part of the vineyard to the left

After we hung out there for a while, we drove a few miles down the road to Albemarle Cider Works.  They grow bushels and pecks of apples to sell, and also press them into cider.  Saturday was the "release party" for two of their new batches, so of course they were doing tastings complete with a live band!  We tasted (small) samples of all their ciders while we sat on the porch in the sun.  And of course we sampled some apples, too!

Some Granny Smiths

The (empty) box at the end obviously had the best apples, called Goldrush.  I brought home half a peck!

Pink Ladies

We had to wait a few minutes for a table for 12, but we didn't mind snacking on apples while we waited

Some of the cider samples

A toast to ALMOST being finished with intern year!

We got to sample a bit of each type they had.

Ragged Mountain was my personal favorite.

Chatting in the sun and enjoying some cider

Scout even joined the party

She wasn't allowed to have too much fun though.

After spending a few hours enjoying the sunlight, we traveled a bit further to Blue Mountain Brewery for some light pre-dinner snacks.  Then back into town we went for some Thai food!  We all ate a ton throughout the day!  Perhaps next day off we'll go on a hike ...