I was a lot more excited about seeing my family than I was about going back to work. It would have been a bad time for me to be away, so I'm glad that I was able to be there. My mom actually didn't know that I was going to be back in town, so I think that was a nice surprise for her. I saw my parents and spent plenty of time with them, which was good for a lot of reasons. I also spent time with my grandmother, both the white one and the black one (she's not actually my grandmother, she calls herself that, though). I shared some pictures from our website with my real grandmother, since she doesn't use the internet. I also spent some time with Lesley's parents, which was nice. And, I was able to see Adam, his dad, and Sofia. It was a very busy three days and I'm really glad that I was able to spend so much time with so many people.

It was especially cool that everyone was so excited to see me. I guess I've been the center of attention before, like at graduation, but it cool that everyone was excited to see me and we had plenty to talk about, almost like I was a celebrity. Even though I had only been gone for a month, I couldn't take closeness for granted anymore, so I wanted to make plenty of time to see people. Since I had to work a full day every day, making plenty of time to see everyone meant that I'd have to sacrifice on sleep. As much as I wanted to go to bed on time and get plenty of sleep like I normally do, I figured I could sleep back in Seattle and I didn't want to use sleep as an excuse not to see people. So, the trip was very tiring, and by Wednesday, I was exhausted. Still, it was worth it to see everyone and I enjoyed it.