The Vacation is Over

We're back from a delightful five-week break and I start work again tomorrow. I felt the weight of responsibility come to rest on me as we began our final descent into San Jose. This vacation was different. I didn't have the nagging urge to get back to work the whole time, we didn't stress ourselves out trying to visit everybody we knew, I kept up my exercising (though not my diet), and slept in almost everyday. It was wonderful. I never thought I'd be able to truly retire and just stop working, but I'm beginning to warm up to the idea. I don't need to worry about that for awhile, though, there's plenty to do for the time being. Now I'll provide a travelog.

We flew into Salt Lake City July 2nd, rented an expensive Suburban and made it to Arctic Circle around midnight. I remembered Arctic Circle being tasty. Memory is not reliable. We reached my sister-in-law's place in Bluffdale shortly thereafter. It was Fast Sunday and we walked to her ward the next morning. It was beautiful. Church in one's native language is a wonderful treat. Celebrating and singing the hymns of your national day in your own nation is another unparalleled sweetness. I felt a long forgotten joy that day. It stayed with me. My sister-in-law and her family are delightful and we loved our time with them. We had the good fortune of visiting with good friends we hadn't seen in several years. We have friends everywhere we go, but there are only a few with whom we share a more familiar bond. There's nothing better than spending time with close friends--friends who know they can make fun of you and nobody will be offended. The next weekend was spent in family reunion with my aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and parents. My extended family are like the close friends I described earlier--all of them wonderfully kind, funny and happy people. We loved spending time with them. The next week was my more immediate family reunion. While we had fun, it was too short and we didn't get the time we would have liked to spend with my siblings. That done, we flew on to Seattle.

I started this on August 7th and just found it now on October 5th. I'm posting it as is. I also just noticed how often I use the word wonderful. Enjoy!