Getting back into the swing of things...

Ok, so I know I haven't posted much about my trip, but never fear! I've been trying to keep a log on my laptop throughout the trip, and it'll make it on here in the next few days, complete with pictures and hopefully video and stuff, too.

After thirteen days, 7 flights (that equaled about 45 plane hours...whew!), I got in last night. My awesome friend Ben came and picked me up at the airport and even went the extra mile (or several miles, in fact) and took me to go see my new niece (first one!) who was born on Monday.

She's so tiny! They named her Isabelle. And she is healthy as can be, as far as they can tell. Yay!

Then I didn't get home until about 11:30ish and not actually into bed until 12:15ish...but I'm surprisingly not doing too badly! I'm trying to drink lots of water and I'm not allowing myself to sleep a lot when I get home from work. We'll see how that works...

As I've been coming down off the vacation high, I've been realizing the things I love about vacation, but also the day-to-day things that I missed here while I was gone.

Vacation loves:

1. Sleeping in, for the most part...or at least getting to take naps whenever the fancy strikes
2. Seeing new things and taking it all in; I sure got pushed out of my comfort zone, but it's nice once in awhile!
3. No cell phone to keep track of. Did I miss a call? I have a friend who tells me I'm attached to my phone...and she's right! But for two weeks, I did without, and it was kind of refreshing!
4. I didn't have to drive one bit...in fact, I was waited on quite a lot. Man, my sister and bro-in-law are awesome!
5. Eating whatever I wanted...as much of it as I wanted...and then walking the majority of it off running around to sights and shopping.
6. Not having to go to work (I mean, don't get me wrong; my job is great. But with any job, a vacation is a must!) and getting paid for it!
7. The warmth. 80 degrees just about every day, no clouds.
8. Looking at myself in the mirror and not caring that much that I didn't look perfect (I know, I know, I should be that way all the time!) Everyone kept telling me how beautiful I was, though. What an ego boost!
9. Laughing at the silly things my nephews would say, even when they were in a bad mood...
10. Talking with my sister about life and getting to know my bro-in-law better.

...and now that I'm home, I realize some of the things I missed while I was away:

1. The mountains. Driving to lunch today, I looked up and realized that they are something!
2. My straightening iron...or regular electrical outlets, for that matter.
3. People who speak English...all the time (yeah, yeah...don't think I hate the Arabic language...and not like I was expecting them to just pander to my linguistic needs...)
4. My lovely bed.
5. Drinking enough water--once I got doing things on vacation, it was just not the foremost thing on my mind.
6. My regular tv shows. (Yay for a TiVo!)
7. Pie day on the 14th. Those usually hold such good memories for me!
8. Actually knowing how much I'm paying for something. The dirham (UAE's currency) is 3.67 to our dollar. Try doing the math in your head...it hurts, doesn't it?
9. Freedom...and for a small part, safety.
10. My friends and family here in Utah, most definitely...one of the main driving forces that got me back to the US.

So here I am, back to the daily grind, hopefully with a little more spring in my step. And I'll try to get the trip posts on here ASAP! (Warning: they are of epic proportion...for those of you who received "the epic" email when we were sophomores in high school, you will realize that I have outdone myself on the log I've kept!)