Where did April go?

What happened to April? Here's a picture update to make up for my terrible blogging!

Sarah threw a dance party at her house the night Mara and I got back from field work. The theme? Just Dance!

Mara and I fresh from the field!

I went to go see Pascal Sunday through Monday- we went to mass in the church at Stanford after eating a super spicy Thai meal in Palo Alto on Sunday, then on Monday we went to the beach at Santa Cruz! We laid on the sand and completely relaxed. That night we had dinner with Matt and Jenny, and then I had to return to Davis on Tuesday so I could go to class and TA. Tuesday night I went to the BANFF film festival with fellow geology grads, and on Wednesday a bunch of us got together to wish Cara a happy birthday karaoke style! Thursday was board game night at Gary and Mark's, then Firday I went to Stanford to make dinner with Pascal. On Saturday I had dinner with him, Matt, Jenny, and his parents!

Sunday = Easter! Pascal drove to Davis and went to the 8:30 church service with me! We then went to the store and started cooking- here's the spread of delicious, Easter-y food.

Friends

We even had an Easter egg hunt! Mark was the master Easter egg hider- here's Gary finding the sneakiest egg hidden in front of my apartment. On the Tuesday following Easter (4/14), Sarah, Mark, Tova, and Gary and I went to see the Los Campesinos concert in Sacramento. 4/18 was Picnic Day in Davis, and then on Sunday I went to Palo Alto for another Sun-Tues visit. On Monday I had dinner with Robert, and then later that night Pascal and I went to a get-together at one of his business school friend's apartment. The following Wednesday I went to a painful Exxon short course at the geology department, and then on Friday I flew to Austin, TX!

I was in Austin to attend my cousin Bryan's wedding! Here's a picture of our family plus Kori, his wife!

On Tuesday Mara and I went shopping for dresses! (her for weddings this summer, and me for the GSB formal) On Saturday I went Orinda to drop off my car at Pascal's parents' house, and then we drove to the city for the formal. We had dinner with three other couples and then arrived at the W.

Dressy & Champagne

Their live band was the spazmatics! 80s music has never been so good

He means business.

The next day we had a leisurely crepe breakfast and then went to the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park. After getting our fill of penguins (!!!), coral reefs, and alligators, we drove to the beach. It was cold.

Pascal and me at the beach, bundled up. We then drove back to Orinda and had dinner with his parents, followed by two office episodes at his house.

This past week I started sawing my rocks and learning how to make my own thin sections (yay!), had a long, productive talk with Isabel about my PhD work (super yay!), and saw Sarah emerge from her self-quarantinement! On Friday Pascal came to Davis, and we had cherry crisp and watched Stardust. Saturday was Whole Earth Day at Davis, so Pascal and I walked around and enjoyed the music with Cara. After we got our fill of hippies, we picked Hillary up from the train station (Davis has a train station? That transports people? I had no idea!) and drove to Sacramento to meet up with a bunch of Pascal's friends since Paul and Elise were in town. We had dinner and then did Shady Gold River, complete with exploding (well, fizzy at least) diet cokes.