Summer Fun

So I am coming off of a week of vacation and no lab. In fact probably the only reason I'm blogging is because I'm in lab right now in between incubation times!

This last week has been awesome, and so nice for us to forget about work/school for a while and to get out and enjoy the sun....until it got to 105 degrees last week...then I was begging to get back into my freezing cold lab.

One of the highlights of the week was a weekend with the Ricks (and Danny)! They were nice enough to let us come out to Spencer's parents house in Westchester to go wake boarding/water skiing. It was our first time out of the city and it was so gorgeous out there. Its so green and lush that it seems like you're in another country and you can't believe you just left the city (and apparently Beyonce and JayZ live out there!). What was amazing was that the lake we went to had NO ONE on it--we had it all to ourselves! We both agreed that this was one of the best things we've done in a long time!





Danny looking suspicious...





The Ricks are both pros at water skiing/wake boarding, but it was my first time trying to water ski. I got up on like my 4th try? Seth didn't take any pictures of it....though he got a video of my awkward attempts, which I refuse to post! haha. Hey, I'm just happy I eventually got up.

Seth went on the wake board, and took a lot of seaweed with him.





We also jumped off a fun rope swing!



Seth climbed to this freakishly unstable branch to jump off. Sorry, there was no way I was going up there. I was contempt with jumping off of the trunk.







And of course, tubing was awesome!

Seth and Danny the Anchor:





Erica and I:





Afterwards, we went raspberry picking! Yum!




...and then made my new favorite treat: Raspberry Raptures!!!!!!!!!!!!! [drool].





It was such a fun weekend! I have a billion more pictures to upload from the past week, and they're all on my iphone (by a billion I mean more like 600). If you've ever dealt with iphone pics before, its irritating because you have to email them to yourself, then download them, and then do editing/uploading on to a photohosting website...ehhh..! If I ever get around to it then I might actually post something! :)

Well, happy hump day! I went back to lab today only to get slammed with a ton of work. Oy. Only two more weeks until my sisters wedding and I get to see my FATTTTTTTYYYYYY!!!!

4th of July Weekend!

And thus ends the week of Claude in NYC.





That kid has no inhibitions. He will talk to anyone, ask for anything, go anywhere, etc. We had all of these plans to show him around the city, but we always woke up in the morning to an empty apartment....Claude would just take off in the morning and wander around the city! He would get his directions by just asking the nearest person. He literally went EVERYWHERE in the city. It was always interesting to talk to Claude when he would get home because we were always surprised with the long list of places he went that day and the people he met.

He met all of our friends at a 4th of July get-together at the Snows. They had an amazing view over the Hudson for the Macy's fireworks show.





There was lots of good food and good friends!









Claude took this picture:



The fireworks were awesome. It looked like the city was on fire! Thanks to the Snows, we had practically a perfect view of the whole show.



The craziest part was the exodus of people afterwards. From where we were, it looked like the entire city was evacuating. I'm SO glad we didn't have to deal with all of the crowds!
(If you look closely you can see at every intersection there are a billion people crossing the street.)





It was a fun weekend! Although I am happy to have my tiny apartment back to myself and CLEAN...I will miss Claude! He always makes us laugh and is a good friend.



Note: He claims that he doesn't like the In N Out logo, and refuses to wear it in the front. Such a fashionista.

In the words of Bruno Mars...

...Today I don't feel like doing anything...



I just want to plop down in the sun like Fatty and take an afternoon nap.

Instead, I will pretend that I am doing something in lab while I oogle over these pretties:











Happy pseudo-Friday!

BTW, tomorrow is my meeting with my PI. Its after our 3 hour lab meeting (which I don't have any data to present...just to add fuel to the fire...), which means she will be hungry and grumpy. eeeek! I keep telling myself that it will be over soon and then I will just take off for the weekend. Though she might just eat me alive. Wish me luck...!

Need a pick-me-up?

Happy hump day!

Need a pick-me-up to get you to Friday?

You should meet Claude, the master of Hula:



If you haven't, you're truly missing out. He is fantastically awesome. He is here visiting us through Sunday. :)

Groovin' Old Man

The highlight of this weekend was coming up on an old man groovin' to some drumming in Central Park. He did this for at least an hour, and then we walked past the same spot a few hours later to see him still there! He starts off with some intense shaking, then some body rolls, followed by crazy spinning!



I never know why iphone videos show up funny. If you make it full screen you can see it better.
I love this old man!!! All of this dancing is probably the reason why this old man is so skinny. Exercise!

We also walked along The High Line park on Saturday. Its an old freight railroad that sits above most buildings in the city, and they made it into a public park! It was pretty impressive and I was happy to see something so eco-friendly in the city.



















The north end of the High Line ended up in some crazy inflatable park. All you could do was hit/push/hug(?) these giant inflatable things. They also played this weird carnival music that reminded me of the creepy guy in the jumpsuit from the movie "Hanna."




Then we ended the day watching people sail remote control boats in Central Park and talked about how badly we want to go on a vacation somewhere.





By the way there are fireflies in NYC. I didn't know that! Awesome.

Someone has a case of the Mondays (seen that movie?). By someone, I mean me. Even though I passed my thesis proposal last week, I just got an email from my PI saying that she wants to have a personal meeting with me on Friday. That pretty much means that I'm going to be berated for an hour or so (It happens regularly). She always tells me I'm moving too slow and that I'm not in lab enough and that I don't care enough about my project. That amazes me because I don't do anything else BUT my project and I'm moving as fast as a new masters student can!! Mind you, I'm not a phD student! Plus I stay there longer than most other people in the lab. ugggh. I think she just wants me to sign my soul over to science. Too late lady---I already did! What else do you want from me?

Uggh. I hate Yell-At-Lacey-Days.

Children, don't go into a science research-based career. And If you do anyway, make sure to pick your lab carefully. Verrrrryyyyy carefully.