It's been awhile. . .

I'm not sure where to start. I went to Alaska to visit my family (mom, dad, brother) and I surprised my mom. My bro picked me up at the airport and hid me at his house until the next morning. My brother is a cool guy-very hard to explain to someone who doesn't know him. He's complicated. Really into computers, Japanese anime, and his wonderful gf, Lyndsay. They put me up at their place for the night, which was super nice of them. The difficult part? Lynz is a server at a restuarant and doesn't get home from work most nights until 1 am or so. And then she's wired so they stay awake until about 5am EVERY DAY and sleep until 2pm. That Thursday, I had woken up at 6:00am (usual for work) and got into Anchorage around 11:30pm (12:30 WA time to me) and we stayed up until about 2am talking. I woke up the next day at 7:00am EXHUASTED.
The trip was good despite some really crappy parts, like Ry breaking a tooth in the middle of dinner out (at Lynz's restautant where I saw two friends from High school that I hadn't seen in 5 years) and my dad slipping on the ice and dropping my Mac on the ice. I also got super sick but I won't go into it on here. I thought about describing it a-la-dooce.com but I just can't bring myself to it. It was embarassing enough to tell the Husband about it. On the trip my mom and I talked teacher-talk, scrapbooked, shopped, went into her classroom, drove into snowbanks, and bonded lots. It was great to see my dad too-we watched the Olympics and a few documentaries. It was a really great trip-I barely thought about work at all.
We took the laptop into the Apple store today and they fixed our machine! I was VERY appreciative. We also test drove the Hyndai (sp?) Sante Fe, an SUV that the Husband likes. Afterwards I asked him why he wanted a new car (we've only ever owned used cars and NEVER had a car payment) and he gave me some very valid reasons. But it was the final reason that got me the most-as he knew it would:
"I guess it's something I've been thinking about since Leaf (our nephew) was born-I want a car that is equiped for carseat and has all the airbags and safety percautions to keep kids safe."
Seriously people how could you NOT love this guy? He also looked the other way when I spent WAY TOO MUCH at Banana Republic Petites today. Can you believe it-a whole BR store IN MY SIZE!? Do you know what this means? It means I actually bought nice pants that aren't 7 inches too long!
It was a good day in our little area of the world.