My egret friend. Often the egrets come by to visit as I'm enjoying the deck. Last night this friendly fellow hung out with Dad and I as we grilled and ate. Knowing that the days of summer are drawing to a close, and the evenings will be getting darker and colder we decided to capture some more relaxation on the deck.

I set things up pretty casually.

And threw everything on the grill at once.

And our vegetarian meal turned out pretty, and pretty tasty indeed. And I lingered on the deck for hours in the beautiful California evening, pulling out my Mac laptop and virtually chatting with my new professor about the possibilities of becoming involved in some exciting research involving brainwave measurement as part of my coursework!