So at the end of my last huge post, I had just returned from my Bristol-Tally-Boston-Tally-Bristol trip and was enjoying the fact that I had like 4 whole days until I traveled again. I got some research done during the week, but definitely took it easy and enjoyed not being on the road. Thursday MC and I met up with Derek, Matt, and Lynn for some Karaoke at Bird's (since Matt had been dying to go for while). I usually need a little liquid motivation (read: beer) before I'm much for Karaoke and since we were shooting to leave at like 6 Friday morning, I just enjoyed Matt's performance. While he loves the Karaoke, he would also prefer not to be the sole performer, so I told him that I would come back next week and we could close the place down :-)
So Friday we got up bright and early to head down to Miami. MC and fam were having a family vacation that they let me join in. Nothing too crazy (got a hotel at the beach about 45 minutes from the house), but we had a lot of fun. We first went to MC's house and grabbed gear and food (LOTS of food) and people then headed over the hotel. Luckily we had left early enough that we still had some sunlight left for some swim time, though the reduced light may have made MC more susceptible to getting eaten by a wave ;-)
Got back to the hotel room and I decided I wanted to start playing around with the panorama function on my camera a little bit more and got a cool pic of the view from the room.
It had been a long day for us so we decided to just have a chill evening at the hotel and crashed fairly early. And by crashed, I mean tried to fall asleep in the oven a room that we were in. The hotel had a problem with their A/C and had just fixed it, but apparently our side of the hotel was still having problems getting started back up because it was definitely roasty. Even MC was so hot she couldn't sleep. After many phone calls and failed promises to fix it, we finally got moved to a new room at about 1 in the morning. Needless to say, our opinion of this hotel was not the highest thus far. Anyhoo, the view turned out to be nicer at the new room. The windows just look odd because of me tilting the camera when I panned, but hopefully you can see there is a lot more beach view to go along with the city view in this one.
Since Saturday was our main beach day, we got out fairly early to play in the ocean. After a little swimming we realized there were a decent number of little fish that liked to swim around our feet. It is definitely an odd feeling to keep accidentally kicking fish! Good thing I brought my waterproof camera!
While the service wasn't the best (except the first guy who helped us with our luggage. I think he thought our womens were hot because he was offering to get us a rollaway for free and being very helpful), the hotel was a decent little hotel. Here's a beach view.
Though there wasn't really much for waves, it was still a lot of fun to just hang out in the water. I made sure to put on lots of sunscreen so my gringo butt wouldn't get fried ;-) A lot of it was just hanging out and trying to catch some of the little fishies, but MC found the time to tear up the water with some of her newly developed swimming skills.
And here's most of the crew enjoying some time in the water.
After a full morning out in the ocean, I took it easy in the room for the afternoon (sunscreen can only do so much!). It turned out that some of MC's friends live not to far away, and MC thinks their son is the cutest thing in the world. So Lisa brought Noel over for a little play date.
He and MC had a lot of fun playing around in the kiddie pool. Especially when he got a hold of a volley ball that I think he wanted to eat.
I thought it would be cool to encompass a little more of the scene so I did a 2 shot panorama, which I thought turned out pretty well. Especially because of the craziness in the background that I didn't even notice until I got the pics on my computer. See if you can find it. (you may need to click on it to enlarge)
Did you catch it? Did you see the person on the shoulders of the person on the shoulders of the person on the shoulders of the person in the pool? How frickin' nuts is that!? And I didn't notice at all at the time. Anyhoo, we had another pretty relaxing evening. We played Cranium once the regular way, then two times a speedy way that we developed. It was a lot of fun, even if our team barely got nudged out in the 2 out of 3. ;-)
We got a late checkout on sunday so we packed things up and still got to have some beach time. I had noticed from the room, that a little ways farther out than we had been looked a little darker, so I decided to borrow MC's goggles and explore. Note: Swim goggles aren't that great for snorkeling-type activities. I could see better than without the, but the visibility still wasn't great. My favorite pic I got while was out there had some little fishies (maybe Sargent Majors?) that I didn't even see until I got the pics on my computer
As always, I had to snag a picture of me and my sweetie too!
Then we had a session of trying to get some underwater pics of MC with her brother and cousin, and this was the one that turned out the best.
Then we got an above-water picture once her sister and other cousin joined in
When Julie's boyfriend Richard joined us, he brought out some noodles (as you can see with Julie and Kary above) and we started getting a little creative. According to Mikey, it actually worked semi-decently as a snorkel!
After we finished playing at the beach, we got everything settled with the hotel, packed up the cars, then headed out. Mikey, MC, Kary and I went to the mall while the rest of the crew went straight back home. We had to stop by the Mac store (the makeup place) so she could get the free lip gloss she had been waiting months for and we snagged some food while we were there. Went back to MC's house where we mostly took it easy while Mikey and I played the bejesus out of some Rock Band: Metallica. Good times!
Woke up bright and early and packed everything up, including Rambo! That's right, MC's little fella was going to join us in Tallahassee! He doesn't do well on car rides, so we gave him a sedative, loaded him in his crate, and hit the road.
I don't know what kind of "sedative" the vet gave us, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was just a sugar pill because it seemed to do nothing. After about an hour, we gave him the little extra the vet said we could if we needed to, and it still seemed to have virtually no effect. He was still barking like crazy. Luckily after about 4 or 5 hours, he started calming down and the second half of the drive he was actually quiet most of the time. We got him settled in the new place, and it didn't take him too long to make himself comfortable.
I know I posted that pic already, but figured I would post it again with more context :-) He's gradually been getting used the place, and we've gradually been trying to break him of some bad habits. Since I'm home a lot, we hang out a good deal and he makes a nice little work-from-home companion. He can also have a lot of fun playing with those toys of his!
So anyhoo, I managed to get some research done this week, which was handy because Jonathan, the professor I will be working with in the fall, is here for the week to try to get things settled for the move. Had a couple meetings to solidify things with the work I will be doing over the next few weeks and caught Gary up on some of the stuff we did while I was in Boston.
Thursday I kept my promise to Matt and we headed out to Karaoke at Bird's. Derek joined us (though he wouldn't participate :-P), and we had a lot of fun. Sang some good songs (we had made a few requests for songs last week and he actually got all but one).
Friday I took it easy, picked up MC and had lunch at New Leaf then watched Clerks 2 (yes, I had never seen it). MC got back from work early and we got to hang out a little bit before dinner. We met up with Jonathan at Pitaria then we headed over to Brew and Bean for a few beers and to hear my buddy Austin play a set. Live music is always fun, especially when it's someone you know!
Everyone had a lot of fun and it was cool hanging out with Jonathan and letting him meet MC. I think we are gonna have a lot of fun, inside and outside the lab, when he gets down here. Dropped him off at his hotel, then came back to the apartment to crash not too long afterwards.
Currently, MC is off running 8 miles with Julia (the half marathon training continues!) while hang out, blog, and try to keep Rambo from leaving his excretions where they don't belong (something he hasn't quite fully grasped the concept of). Speaking of Ramboni (or Ramalamadingdong as I sometimes call him), it turns out that he will actually be going back home to Miami this weekend. It was a lot of fun to have him visit, but he is missed at home and MC and I really weren't quite ready for the responsibility of pet ownership. If you read this you know we travel constantly and that wouldn't be too fair to the little fella. We loved having him up for a little "vacation," but I know he'll be glad to be home. :-)
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