John's Birthday, Jersey Shore

One of the great things about being here is that I can visit my brother and his family! Happily, I escaped the lab again yesterday and headed up to Jersey Shore, where my brother John is the pastor at Crossroads Community Church. I soaked up the ambiance and embraced the Christian fellowship. What a welcome switch from the intensity of academia! Afterwards, we all headed to John's beautiful PA-styled house for a delicious lunch of homemade guacamole and all foods Mexican-American. Yum!

I love my niece Emily (a sporty nature girl after my own heart :-) and my nephew Cole (who loves doing neat experiments, like melting different sized chunks of ice to see the size of the water marks). Last time, Cole and I had all sorts of cool conversations about doing science experiments. Here's a picture of Emily and her cute dog Obi:

And Cole with his friend Jacob comparing Pokemon cards. I remember doing the same thing with football cards when I was his age. Must be an important prelude to collecting scientific data.

After lunch, we sang Happy Birthday to John and had cake. I really liked the strawberry pie that Suzie made with freshly picked summer strawberries. It was SOOO nice to sit in the sun and be in the company of my family.