Hi friends!  So not too much has changed since my last post, except for that the countdown has officially started!  We have 2 weeks left of work and then our big adventure begins.  It is crazy how fast the time has flown!

I am now finished with my commitment to fly back and forth to Pittsburgh.  I will still continue to work on the project and transfer my responsibilities over to other team members until my last day.  Overall, it was a good experience and though it was challenging (as expected), I did enjoy my time there.  I worked hard, but I did have a little fun too.  Here are a few pictures from the past 2 weeks in Pitt.

Instead of coming back to NY last weekend, I made a trip to Cinci to see one of my best friends, Jess, her husband, AJ, and their 4 week old baby girl, Carter Elizabeth!  We checked out some local breweries during the day and watched NCAA basketball at their house Saturday evening.  It was so good to see them and relax.  Even the 4+ hour drive from Pittsburgh was nice, I jammed out to everything from Alanis Morrisette to Lionel Richie to Taylor Swift.  It was just what I needed to get my mind off of work for a bit.

While in Pitt, I made an effort to cook and eat pretty healthy, but no Trader Joe’s trip is complete without these.  I ate a handful of these (or more) most evenings. 🙂

So now that I am back in NY full time, Hoch and I need to start preparing for our trip.  We have a list of to-do items and have been slowly checking items off, but now it is go time.  At the same time, we want to enjoy our last couple of weeks in this great city.  So the madness continues.  Work, packing, trip preparation and NYC fun will be keeping us rather busy.

Me trying not to be a wimp.  I am always nervous before shots, but they are never as bad as I imagine.  Though I will add, my arm was still pretty sore the next day.

This weekend was the official kick off of go time for me.  Saturday, I sorted through most of my clothes and started making piles of items to take on the trip, items to pack for storage, items to give to family, and items to donate.

Saturday night, we went to a Mets game with some friends, which was fun, but the weather was freezing!  Spring in NY is always hit or miss.  I felt like I should’ve been at a football game based on the temperature.  After the game (the Mets lost to the Phillies 0-1), they had a Saturday evening firework show which was really cool.  There were fireworks in the middle of the field along with the perimeter of the stadium and the show was timed to match with the music.  My stupid phone died because of the cold temp right before the show, so I do not have any cool firework pictures to share.

Afterwards, we ended up going to Flushing, one subway stop from the stadium, for Hot Pot (Shabu Shabu), which is a Japanese dish in which you cook your own vegetables and meat at the table and create a stew.  It was my first time trying it and it was pretty perfect on such a cold night.  We ended up drinking a few too many bottles of Soju (Korean version of Sake) and had a long commute back home, so it was a much later night than planned, but we had fun. 🙂

Before my phone died:

Today we slept in and then ran some errands, including a stop at a nearby Goodwill to donate some clothes, a stop at Home Depot to purchase packing supplies, and a stop at the grocery store to stock up for the week.

We also purchased flights today to Japan!  It was not originally part of the itinerary, but a friend will be there while we are in Korea so we decided to make a long weekend out of it!

OK, well that is all I have for now.  Time to be lazy this evening and binge watch House of Cards (Hoch has been waiting on me to watch them since I’ve been in Pitt).  Hope you have a good week!

Kimberly