Overall, this long weekend was one of the better weekends I've had since starting this doctoral program. In part, it's likely been good because I did virtually no work whatsoever - which of course makes today a day for a lot of work to get done.
The Canada Day bbq went off fairly well I think. I enjoyed myself (more than last year for sure), and I think if I play with things next year, I can get it down to spending even less time in front of the grill and enjoying myself even more. Most everyone seemed to enjoy themselves - there was one person who was really tired and left early, and another who felt sick (not my fault, honest!), and maybe a couple of dates who felt a bit out of place, but there's not much you can do about that after you've chatted them up for a bit.
We had a birthday party the next day to go to - which was fun - I think if I start hanging around with this family much more, they'll have to consider adoption, but if they don't mind, I don't mind! No, really, it was a really pretty neat party, and I haven't gone to a kid party that I haven't hosted in a long time, so it was nice to be on the other side of the fence for a while.
We talked about spending Sunday lying around the pool and then watching movies, but decided we'd be more active and drove out to Mt. Monadnock for a bit of hiking. My hips still hurt! We decided (perhaps a touch foolishly) to pick the straight up, straight down route up the mountain - on the map, we went up White Dot and down White Cross, which are apparently the most direct way up and back the 3,165 ft. elevation gain. The trail is rated 'moderately steep' which means it's not supposed to go above a 45 degree angle slope, but there are a couple of places where it exceeds that. And not many that go below about 25 - it's pretty much a straight scramble up what is likely a stream/waterfall bed during runoff. We've been to the White Mountains area of New Hampshire, which is much more scenic, but also a little farther away, so we decided to try Monadnock (and daughter 2 was excited to hear we'd gone to it since she'd been there with the school last year). Much more energetic day than staying home by the pool though!
Yesterday, we drove almost out to Rhode Island to a 4th of July bbq (sure, why not hit both holidays, right?) though we came back a bit early because we (well, not so much me) needed to get ready for a busy week ahead. The traditional kickball game was unevenly matched, but we had fun with it (even though I apparently can't catch a ball to save my life - something the other team worked very hard to exploit by kicking it toward me each time!)
But now it's back to work.
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