I spent the weekend getting the house put back together (and doing a lot of laundry) after we got back from Hawaii late Friday night. It was hard to come back, though the kids missed us and there IS that employment issue. Today, I waded through about an hour's worth of email that included bugs assigned to me while I was gone and then rants from managers about "Why haven't you updated or closed this bug?" Sheesh.

Maui was beautiful—a little windy in the afternoons, which I'm told is common this time of year, but generally sunny and not too hot. The hotel provided beach umbrellas and lounge chairs (thank goodness—I burn easily, and I basically avoid the sun). There was a gorgeous pool, but we stayed there only part of one morning as there was very little shade and people tended to stake their claim early and then not release it. We did a lot of reading and relaxing and spent a lot of other quality time together. I hit the gym nearly every day, since HalfshellHusband can't do much walking or hiking these days (arthritic hip plus neuropathy in his feet from the chemo both cause him a lot of pain). We drove to Hana one day (long trip, but gorgeous), and took a boat trip and snorkeled on another. We hoped to snorkel again, and even rented gear from Snorkel Bob's (who could resist his lunatic ads?) But the wind picked up, and our target spots were unworkable, so that didn't pan out. We watched about half of S3 of Burn Notice in the evenings, and I did almost no writing but hadn't really expected to. We stayed at the beautiful Grand Wailea (thanks to excellent package pricing from Costco), and enjoyed the incredible scenery—gardens, fountain pools, pond-like pools with salmon-sized koi (if you stare at them too long, they stare back and wait for you to feed them. Not so good when they're creepy, creepy gray fish with whiskers and big, gaping mouths). The end of the trip got a little stressful; one of Christopher's closest friends went in for emergency surgery on Thursday, which we thought was stomach surgery (he was previously diagnosed a couple of months ago with "stomach migraines") but which turned out instead to be brain surgery for a tumor revealed by an MRI. Talk about scary. Fortunately, the surgery went well (AFAIK, it was a non-malignant tumor) and the boy is in ICU and recovering steadily. Good news in the end. *sigh of relief*

So now I've got f-list updates and stories to catch up on. I went out biking on Saturday (I avoid the bike path on weekends if at all possible, but it had been a week and a half). I rode with a man from Moldova for awhile and we had some interesting conversation. During the last 5 miles, I had the worst bug incident ever—they go straight to the back of your throat, and this one was big. I had to pull over and hack that thing out, and pray that it wasn't a bee and wouldn't sting me. Gave me a sore throat for awhile, not to mention how disgusting that was. Ack! Not exactly the welcome I was hoping for.

So, while I was gone, what have you been up to? Some of you have graduated (yayyyy!), and others are probably plotting your own vacations or returning from them. We left on yet another "winter" day, and came back in summer (finally), so it's hot here. Whee.

How've you all been?