Travel

I'm so exhausted just thinking about it.

January 12-15: Was going to fly home for the weekend, but my mom and sister are coming here instead. That's going to be exhausting because I have to host, not because I have to travel.

February 17-18: Drive to Abingdon, VA, to help Eric's sister and brother-in-law and niece move into their new home, assuming they find a place to move into this weekend.

February 24-28: Fly to Aspen for our yearly dean's leadership retreat. Skiing, apres-ski, and discussing leadership topics; what more could I ask for?

March 2-4: Fly to Philly for my friend Melissa's wedding. Yes, that's only two days after I get back from Aspen. Yes, I have tests on Friday, March 9, so I'll be losing some study days to attend. Yes, that sucks, but yes, the wedding is going to be so much fun. I have tentative plans to squeeze in visits to just about everyone I know in Philly during that weekend; we'll see what happens.

March 9-18: After midterms on the 9th, I fly to Maryland for spring break. I'm probably going to hang out at the AMSA National Convention that weekend, either crashing with the other kids from school at the hotel or with my sister in College Park. Then it's home for a week to prep for my friend Paula's bridal shower on the 17th and read First Aid for Step 1, to officially kick off my board studying.

Sometime in April: Just about the only free time for a possible weekend trip to Chicago to visit our friends Jon and Alissa. Jon, if you read this, Eric is supposed to call you up about this soon.

May 4-6: Drive to Stone Harbor, NJ, for Eric's cousin's wedding, wedding #2 for 2007. We're driving instead of flying because it actually isn't that much more difficult, as long as we can leave by the early afternoon on Friday. By this point, school will have ended and I'll be studying for boards hardcore, so it sucks to have wedding season and board prep season coincide.

May 18-19: Drive to Maryland for my friend Paula's wedding in Baltimore on May 20. This time we're driving because I'm going to stay in Maryland and go home for a week to finish studying, then take boards on June 1 (assuming everything goes OK with my registration, which I can't complete until I can pay for it, and I'm waiting for my spring loan check, which is taking FOREVER). Eric will fly home late on May 20 or early May 21 to go back to work, then fly back to Maryland on...

June 1: ...for his friend Aaron's wedding on the Eastern Shore on June 2 (wedding #4 for 2007). We'll take my car, which I will have kept from the May 18 drive, to go to the wedding, then drive to one of the DC-area airports on

June 3: to leave for our vacation. We were hoping to go to Scotland or Rome, but both of those vacations would be about $1000 too much for us to manage right now (surprisingly, either location would end up being about the same; cheaper airfare to the UK is balanced out by the high cost of the Pound, while more expensive flights to Rome are balanced out by the slightly-lower Euro). So right now we're thinking about Seattle/Vancouver. I'm surprisingly excited by both of those cities, so I think it will be a good trip. We'll be gone until

June 10: when we fly back to Washington, pick up my car, and drive back to Louisville on June 11. Originally, when we were thinking of going to Europe, it was definitely going to be cheaper to fly from DC than from Louisville, and it's still roughly the same from either city to fly to Seattle, and if we fly from DC we can leave our kittens with my parents. Then it's back to work for Eric on June 12 and I get a few days to prep for the start of my third year, on June 18.

Whew!

And along the lines of weddings and other life-changing events, I found out my friend Karen is having a baby, due in July! I couldn't be more happy for her and Jake!