Day Five Hundred Twenty One

The holiday blog hiatus is over! Yaaay! As per usual, I enjoyed a (largely) computer-free vacation in Virginia with my parents, and it was a wonderful ten day break from life as a grad student. But...it's back to the grind tomorrow (I know, first day back at work is a Friday? There's just no justice to it), where I return to my second home here in Austin - Welch Hall. Treat me kindly, bacteria...you were not cooperating with my research when I left, I certainly hope you've straightened yourselves out.

Vacation was fantastic, I got to spend lots of time with my parents, a day and a half with my brother and sister-in-law, and did a bunch of historical things all around Virginia. Here is a short picture diary of my time there...

First up was Colonial Williamsburg on Christmas Eve. The town was festively decorated with wreaths and lights, so naturally the first thing we visited was the jail. What can I say? We're a family that loves justice. And we got to go inside a jail cell that once held Blackbeard's pirates, which is just awesome.

Dad and I in front of the cell that held pirates.

For those of you that have been to Colonial Williamsburg, you know that a major tourist destination is Merchant Square. I love it too...mainly for this candy shop that sells amazing chocolate.

Then as we shuttled our way back to the visitor's center, we ended up sitting next to this guy. Obviously one of the actors, right? Well, he informed us that he's just as much of a tourist as we were. This was just his outfit from when he played the role of town crier in historical Boston reenactments. He may have been the highlight of that entire Williamsburg trip.

Feeling colonial?

Next up - Christmas! I got a bevy of ridiculous and wonderful things (my favorite combination), such as evidenced by this Blue Footed Booby ornament (aka - one of the best ornaments EVER). And we went to see the new Night at the Museum movie, which was the icing on top of a wonderful Christmas cake. I realize that was a stupid analogy, but I'm still jet-lagged so we're just going to go with it.

I'm currently taking name suggestions.

The following day we spent an ungodly amount of time in the car to get from Richmond to Dayton, Ohio to see my brother and sister-in-law (worth it). We played games and watched The Office and enjoyed spending our first Christmas together as a family of 5 (best sister-in-law ever).

The last few Richmond days were very historical. We went to St. John's Church (where Patrick Henry gave his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech), a military hospital museum with a weird name that I can neither pronounce or spell, and Hollywood Cemetery where two presidents are buried.

Inside St. John's Church with Ray, the best tour guide in the history of
tour guides.

Hollywood Cemetery

Grave site of Pres. James Monroe

Grave site of Pres. John Tyler

I got back to Austin yesterday after a very early wake-up call (get to the airport at 4:30am kind of early) and blissfully slept through the new year. Today, I celebrated by deep cleaning my apartment and watching Netflix. I miss vacation already.