are we there yet?

Vacation was excellent. The weather was great...warm temps, plenty of sunshine. I made some gains in my quest to see every state...added two or three. I learned how to fire a shotgun. We worked some at E's mom's, but that balanced all the relaxation nicely. We ate at a local hangout with excellent food two nights in a row...on the second night they asked if we were still lost. We had dinner with E's college friend and had a great time.

The best parts were spending every day with E and getting the tour of her life from childhood to post-college. I like having pictures in my head of the places she tells me about. On most days I think I know almost everything about her; however, I am always excited when she reveals something new. She has told me countless stories of her life before me, but I think being in the physical location reminds us of things we had forgotten about ourselves. Old stories don't change who we are...they just add new layers. I love knowing more about what made her who she is. I love looking at her, hearing her talk to her mom, seeing her in times of conflict...and knowing what might be going on inside her...where it all came from.

***
The worst part of vacation. E and I established last year that I am the driver and she is the passenger. She is a shitty driver and I am a shitty passenger. She tailgates and I am boring. So, I drove the whole vacation. Now, this vacation was not a driving only vacation...we flew and rented a car. However, I still managed to rack up about 35 hours of time behind the wheel in the past 9 days. Silver lining...no speeding tickets.

***
One of the funniest moments...we thought E would ovulate late this coming week, so while she was peeing on the stick on vacation we did not expect anything but a low reading. On Friday morning, her reading was at medium which means that she could have been ovulating by the time the weekend was over. When we saw the monitor at medium, we both looked at each other like, "Holy crap!" It was a mixture of "I hope we make it until Monday" and "Are we ready for this?" Ultimately, it was just funny when we realized we both had the same looks on our faces.

***
So, now we're back home. Reading the paper, checking email and blogs, looking at vacation pictures, watching the dog sleep...and waiting for our world to change.

m