Friend.

I miss seeing her everyday.

fresh air

Last week was smokey, was stuffy, was blah...until Amy and I went up to Bodega Bay to do a rare plant survey. Foggy, and windy, the hillside we wandered around was a respite from the air in the Bay Area. There were about 13 different plants we were looking for that could have been blooming during June/July. We found none of them, but identified some grasses, spoke to a rather nice firefighter (who thought we were lost and totally wanted to save the day), tried to take some jumping pictures, and walked around--- Definitely one of those work days that I cherish.

Attempts at jumping. Instead, we just look poised. The timer on Amy's camera is very hard to work with.

Strolling.
We also went to the Children's Bell Tower Memorial while we were out there, a bell exhibit inspired by a murdered seven-year-old named Nicholas Greene. The intent of the memorial was good and meaningful. The actuality of it was quite creepy, but Amy has those photos.

Our placemats will ROCK

My company has a placemat policy. If an employee has been here at least three years and leaves (for more amiable reasons), they get a send-off collaged placemat of photos and funny sayings. This placemat will become part of the placemat shrine of former employees and maps of the Grand Canyon that are used to protect our awesome conference table at lunch time. Amy and I will have the BEST placemats because we take the best field photos. Mid-thistle monitoring (yes, we were counting thistles), we stopped the cart and took jumping pictures. Amy is a seasoned veteran of jumping pictures, but these were my first. It took a bit to get our timing down (Amy=hare, Leslie=turtle), but we ended up with these beauties.

Future sandwich eating employees are so lucky. They don't even know.