Vacation

Pictures at last! (Well, non-crafty pictures anyhow. MIL is still here and I still have qualms about snapping photos of crafty things in front of her, though I don't know why since she & FIL found the craft photo file on my computer and insisted on looking through the whole thing. And they didn't disown me for being crazy. :) )


Tejas is OFFICIALLY DONE!! Wahoo!! (I graduated too, but it was just my master's. Not nearly as cool. I prefer to bask in the reflected glory of his degree. :) )


The view driving into Yosemite valley. I swear we stopped every five feet to go "oooooh!" and pile out of the car and take pictures.


The bottom of Lower Yosemite Falls. We had a great time scrambling up the rocks to get closer (and the mist felt lovely on the 97 degree day!)


We particularly liked the lush green water meadows! At 4 pm on Saturday there was a big thunderstorm, and the temperature dropped more than 40 degrees in half an hour as the rain poured. It was lovely to watch the rain sheeting off the rocks and trickling into the meadows. I love how green things almost glow in the rain! (Picture from later, in the sunlight, alas.)


The picture postcard view of the valley.

In other news, Tejas' mom taught me to make bakri! (Little flatbreads made from millet flour. They tell me bakris are "farmer food," but I like them best of all the flatbreads I've had. Tejas likes them too.) Now it's my job to make them every night till I go home to Portland, to make sure the lesson sticks. :) I'm happy about this because I really need to learn to make rotis (flatbreads they usually eat, made from wheat) but Tejas has told me horror stories about how hard they are to make. I'm hoping bakris will be a good midway thing to learn so that I won't burn down the kitchen attempting my first batch of rotis!

Also: I so need a vacation. I'm really looking forward to going home for a few days, though I'll miss Tejas a lot. Travels to Yosemite etc. do not really count as vacation when one travels on a single weekend without missing a day of work. In fact, they kind of make things worse, because one still has to clean the bathroom/cook stuff for lunches/get groceries/do laundry/whatever, and the weekend is gone...it'll be really nice to go home and NOT BE RESPONSIBLE for anything. I'll do dishes or whatever my mom likes, but it will be completely voluntary and NOT MY JOB. (!) I'm also pretty fed up with labby stuff right now (hello, defrost of every freezer known to mankind, holding all our most precious irreplaceable research tools)--am hoping a couple days off will help me regain the will to work. (Productivity this week = not so much. Sigh.)