Oh the weekend. How awesome. After working myself into a tizzy all week (every night we were up till midnight or later futzing with figures and messing with photoshop, thank goodness for endless episodes of 24 to keep T occupied), I got my poster printed on Friday afternoon.

And I am thrilled. So much hard work went into it, but I am genuinely happy with it and think it will impress some fancy scientists who will give me glowing recommendations on my upcoming paper. Or I hope. Just a relief to have it done with.

Friday night we had some senior undergrad rowers over for drinks and snacks on the patio, Deirdre and our new neighbor joined. Deirdre spent the night and I made spinach smoothies for everyone before heading to the bike shop for a bit. Lots of cute kids getting bikes and carriers... fun times. Trent packed and cleaned house and the instant I was done at the bike shop, we headed to the beach!

Trent's assistant coach, Thomas, has a family beach condo in Atlantic Beach and he invited a bunch of folks for the weekend. It was perfection. We arrived around 9pm and immediately started playing beer pong, eating watermelon, going on a night beach walk and picking up ghost crabs (my biologist heart was all aflutter...), playing silly games. Trent and I shared a twin bed (spooning paradise!) and I slept better than I had in ages (despite all sorts of shenanigans I heard about the next morning). We had coffee on the balcony overlooking the ocean with our new neighbor friends and discussed early childhood development. Trent and I grabbed Thomas's surfboards and hit the waves. Nothing stellar but a blast just playing around. The rest of the day was surfing, tossing footballs, naps on the beach, fried scallop burgers for lunch (oh my goodness they were good), more surfing, tossing frisbees, flying kites, just being silly and relaxing. It was so much fun to play and snuggle and just relax for a bit, we definitely needed the break. Home late last night (Deirdre spent the day with Pilot) and crashed.

Back to reality a bit today, 9am meeting and finishing up some experiments and getting my flies happy to be left alone for a week. Then hoping to head home early and pack and get mentally prepared to rock this conference.