The summer heat wave reached temperatures up to 116F which kept us indoors for most of Labor Day weekend. I spent the cooler evenings installing solar yard lights while Melody tried her hands at smoking ribs. We also ventured out for dumplings at nearby Yang Kee’s soft opening which was respectable for the driving distance. We otherwise spent most of the long weekend lazing about with fuzzy sherpa pillows from Target and a Le Pouf bean bag for Westley. The relaxing weekend helped us rest up for our drive to Monterey the following Saturday for our first lab retreat since the pandemic. After picking up my post-doc Carol, we stopped by Fremont for Taiwanese breakfast crepes and sandwiches at Cafe Mei. In Monterey, we studied caterpillars at the Frog Pond Wetland Preserve, stopped for disappointing fried seafood at Sea Harvest, then met up at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We were wowed by the new “Into the Deep” exhibit which introduced us to psychedelic jellies and giant isopods that looked like football-sized roly-polys. At our spacious AirBnb, three generations of junior specialists coordinated a grocery run and pizza making that included teams for prepping dough and toppings. Westley joined in for some toy fort building and a round of Uno before we cracked into our Pandemic board game. We awoke Sunday to pancakes and omelettes to finish off our pizza toppings, then headed to Carmel beach where we grooved to Vulfpeck while playing badminton and volleyball. Westley tired himself out digging a hole and fell asleep on our drive home. We stopped for lunch in Sunnyvale with excellent dumplings and noodles at Dumpling Depot, but our Moomo Tea might not have been worth the 30-minute wait. This weekend, we tried out a new piano teacher, toured the new Tschannen Eye Institute building, then revisited the California State Railroad Museum where Westley kept busy building a thingamajig while getting over a non-COVID cold. Melody and I spent the rest of our time researching our Australia trip in February as our excitement grows for our upcoming travels.