Spring Workday

SPRING IS HERE!!! Less than 2 weeks ago it snowed here, and now, everything's in bloom! The cherry blossoms have opened up their cotton-candy pink blooms, which is particularly special to us after living in DC for the early part of our marriage (where cherry blossoms are found throughout the monuments) and because we had 2 cherry blossom trees in our yard in Texas.

The view from our kitchen window!
An interesting practice: the university students here are given days off throughout each school year, not for vacation, but for manual labor around the campus. For the past 3 days, they've been clearing out fields for planting, getting trash and rubble out of alleys and gutters, and generally beautifying the campus. (Notice the fresh white paint at the base of all the large trees and the stack of rubble that's recently been cleared out of the planting areas). This idea of group involvement in community beautification is foreign to us, but is an regular event here.