A visitor from the north and time spent with friends

This last weekend Austin and I had quite an excellent time hosting our good friend Kim on her tour of North Central Florida. It was fun to have a catch-up with one of my oldest pals and to spend time doing lots of the fun things that will always make this part of the world so special to me.

Our tour started off with a trip to Manatee Springs. The manatees like to come into the warmer river waters during the cold winter months. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any manatees this trip...but we did get to see some seagulls and eat some delicious blue crab quiche during a pit stop in Cedar Key on the way home ;) We spent the rest of Friday enjoying the nice afternoon sunshine around Lake Alice and had dinner and drinks with our Gainesville pals.

Our only manatee spotted

The beautiful Suwanee river

The spring itself

Keeping our eyes open...

At Lake Alice :)

On Saturday we left behind modern-day Gainesville for a simpler, more sword-filled time: the Medieval Faire :D Austin and I went last year and it was a lot of fun. Cheesy at times but all the people involved have a fun time with it, plus there's beer and games to test your axe throwing and archery skills, and cool guys dressed up as War of Roses soldiers who let you hold all the cool weapons. This year Austin and I tested each other in fencing-Austin was victorious but I had the most points for speed and style ;)

At the tent with the War of the Roses guys, Austin with thrasher

My lab mate Cody joined us and followed the cowboy hat-wearing lead of Austin

Kim and I had a bit of a spat!

A crucial element of the Faire

Post-jousting

With our jousting champion Markus

That same night we had my 'formal' going-away party. I'm still around for a couple more weeks but wanted to have a party while people were in town and before the semester got too busy for people (or for me being busy with packing and such). But of course it couldn't be just any party-it had to be a British Isles-themed costume party ;) We had everyone from Elton John, Amy Winehouse, Mary Poppins, Hermione Granger, Dr Who, Sherlock, and the list goes on and on! It was a really fun party and I'm glad we had so many of our friends there to celebrate and be silly with us.

Austin as Robin Hood and me as a punk rock type of person :P

Amy Winehouse and judge

Some very stylish guys ;)

On Sunday we took it easy for a bit and then went gator watching at La Chua sink. There were a TON of alligators all enjoying the sunshine :) the most I've seen since probably 3 years ago when we went on a warm January day.

A gaggle of gators

On the last day of Kim's visit we went to St. Augustine to the old fort, the Castillo de San Marcus. It's a really cool fort and I'm glad we came back for a visit since our first time there on a hot, busy August day in 2009. A really cool place and a reminder of Florida's varied and unusual history. We also spend the warmer part of the afternoon on St. Augustine beach and found lots of big pelicans (but not that many swimmers...the water was quite cold!)

On the top of the fort

View of the bay

Austin and I taking in the view from the bastions

An ocean friend!

Thanks for coming to visit, Kim!

Congrats to Austin!

After my trip to Europe in August, I brought Austin home some really nice whiskey from the Isle of Islay in Scotland as a souvenir. After a few weeks of the bottle sitting around, I asked when he wanted to try some and he said not until after his first paper was accepted.

Well, last night with dinner Austin brought out the bottle and a glass and shared the good news with me-he got his first first-author journal paper accepted :D Such a great accomplishment for grad school and I was very excited to hear the good news-and to try a sip of the whiskey ;)

Congrats to Austin and good luck with the last semester of grad school :)