It's only been a week of sleeping on couches, having soggy sandwiches on a near-daily basis (coupled with over-priced and yet astoundingly mediocre restaurant food) and becoming all too familiar with not one but two different vans (my parents' and my brother and sister-in-law's) and already I feel like I've been away for a month. But yea, though it sounds like this girl is all vacationed out, such is not the case. This is so much more fun than being in school and/or going to work.

Vacations for me have always been about spending time with family. Some people don't agree, including my parents. Sometimes they'd rather just go on vacation where no extended family lives so they don't have to deal with relatives and can do whatever they want to do. I'm not entirely against this vacation theory because it's not bad, as vacation theories go. In darker moments this past week I wished I were far away on a white sandy beach somewhere, enjoying a fruity cocktail instead of having my hair pulled by a 2-year old boy or being treated like a 12-year old by my well-meaning grandma. But I figure if you're going to make a trip somewhere, by car especially, you might as well go someplace in convenient range of people you love but never get to see. Thus I find myself in dusty Nevada, sitting at my dad's laptop typing this while he tells me all about globalization and a sleek cat (nicknamed Psycho Cat) winds her tail around my leg and my nephew Tyler runs in and out, showing me things he's already showed me about 6 times today which shows me just how proud he is of his sticker book. Jacob (the 2-year old hair puller) just wandered in, trailing the cord of an electric mixer he's made his latest chew toy. He just smiled his mischievous grin at me, which means he's about to do something to Grandpa a.k.a. my Dad who has stopped talking and is now taking a little nap.

Personally, I wouldn't be anywhere else on vacation right now. Unless that white sandy beach and the cocktail came complete with Orlando Bloom. And maybe a personal servant. And a masseuse. But probably not even then.