It’s 8 p.m., and I just said bye to Shannan.  The next time I’ll see her we’ll be in Germany (she’s meeting up with Joe and me for Christmas).  Cannot flipping tell all of you how excited I am right now.

Before she left my place, we chatted about our next trip (Bahrain in February) and googled images of where we think we’ll go for spring break (Spain), and basically made a New Year’s Resolution we think we can keep:  Never go on a trip before booking the one after that.   At the rate we’re going, we’ll have as many trips in a year as we do months.  I’m good with that.

Since I’ll be busy the next few days finishing things up here, I wanted to pop in and wish all of you Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all the good stuff in between.  I doubt I’ll get a chance to write much while vacationing, so I wanted to make sure my friends and family back ‘home’ know how much I love and miss them, and that despite how happy I am I do so, so, so miss all of you and wish we could do all of this traveling together.  Sadly, the dirhams do not stretch indefinitely.

Later this week I’ll be with my man, then we’ll visit my sister, do some touristy stuff, spend Christmas with my relatives in Wedel, then hop on a train (that will also hop on a ferry) and spend New Year’s in Copenhagen, and then we will cry as we head back to our real worlds, which aren’t bad at all; they’re just so far apart.  But, I’ll worry about that in January and February — good news is Spring Break is in March, so the time should go by quickly.  And then summer break will be right around the corner, and I’ll be back home hugging everyone.

Until then, though, Happy Holidays!  And may the new year bring even more love and joy into our lives.