Xtreme cottage, serene cottage, and 5 days of vacay

I've been busy ringing the last drops of relaxation out of my quickly-coming-to-an-end summer vacation. Following is a list of various and sundry headlines from the past 2 weeks:

1.) Weekend trip to Grant's cottage in Ohio dubbed Xtreme Cottage by vacationers:
Some people got hurt riding bikes (tandem, I might add), others nearly drowned in the 10 foot waves Lake Erie taunted us with on Saturday, others still couldn't use their appendages for days after Dr. Turner dragged us behind the boat on all sorts of water toys for 5 hours on Sunday. A brave few returned home with wicked bruises from a series of hilariously intense tetherball matches against Shveta. I didn't know anyone could be good at tetherball but Shveta proved to be the stone-faced Gabby Reece of the playground. I seriously thought Holly was going to cry at some points.

We didn't go to bed Saturday night because the beach bonfire convo didn't slow down until 5:30 am at which time we realized we might as well stay up for sunrise. Afterward, we briefly scoured the shore for newly washed up beach glass but in our delirium, everything looked blue or green. We went to bed at 7 am, got up 4 hours later and finished sleeping on the beach. All in all, a great weekend.

2.) Madeline hosts in Boyne City a week later, coins term "copping" (read: cottage hopping):
This past weekend was a serious change of gears as a handful of us made the 4 hour trek up to Madeline's family cottage in Boyne City...and by 4 hours I really mean 7 seeing as how Josh, Katrina, and I stopped at the gas station, all of our houses, Wendy's, and the outlet mall before we finally arrived in Boyne close to midnight on Friday (but with hot new shoes that Katrina and I got a killer deal on!). We're glad Maddie was understanding...and we brought her a little gas station souvenir as a proverbial olive branch just in case she wasn't :)

We had a wonderfully low-key weekend sunning ourselves, shopping at the Farmer's Market, eating too much ice cream, playing 9 holes of golf, and eating and swimming without waiting half an hour in between. It was a lot of fun.

3.) Despite resolute end date of 8/11/06, Sonya continues research: I was certainly planning on washing my hands of my research project last Friday afternoon (well, not the whole paper-writing and poster-presenting part, just the lab work) but I've found myself at work for the first half of this week. Basically, science doesn't care if I only have 5 days of work-free summer before school starts again and I did have to finish up a few last-minute experiments anyway. I think I'm done today, though, and look forward to a completely unadulterated 5 days off.

4.) TKP plans whirlwind US arrival this weekend: My sister returning to the States from an extended stay abroad has become as normal for my family as my dragging my big-as-a-kindergartner laundry bag through the front door of my parent's home and calling "Lucy, I'm home!" This weekend, I'm motoring down to the Windy City with the 'rents to pick up my jet-lagged sister after she touches down at O'Hare. I'm excited to see her and even though I only have 1.5 days to hang out with her before classes start, I'm sure we can fit all the updates in by using our barely coherent finish-each-other's-sentences giggle-babble.

5.) Announcements:

- a huge congratulations goes out to my college friend and weblog muse Emily who got engaged to her wonderful boyfriend Bill two weekends ago on Mackinac Island. To think I saw them at the ice skating rink on their first date ever...le sigh! Congratulations you two!

- because I'm a bonehead friend, I once again forgot to wish my friend Thomas happy birthday on August 8th. Tom is in Japan aboard a navy ship right now and will be there for another year and a half or so. I think it's to-tally awesome that he's not allowed to tell us where the ship is going, only where it's been, for security reasons. After all, you know what they say about loose lips...

Happy (belated) birthday, Thomas! Ahoy!

And that's all the news that's fit to print...or post...or whatever. Once I get my wireless internet working (and don't have to use Josh's weird desktop in lieu of my adorable laptop), I'll post some pics. Because I'm officially on vacation until classes start next Tuesday, I give you permission to be on vacation until then, too. Do something ridiculously fun and then write me a comment about it!

Toodles!

xoxox