I’m in Hawaii. ^_^

I couldn’t mention it before, because it would have spoiled the surprise for my mother, but my father arranged to ship me, kniedzw, my brother, and my brother’s wife out to Hawaii for a long weekend to celebrate my parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary with them. As I type this, I can pause to look out over my balcony to the lagoon down below, where yesterday I swam and basked in the sun; just past it is the sea, where in a few hours I’ll be going whale-watching.

(Yeah, I might be gloating just a bit.)

Quite apart from the beautiful surroundings, it’s great to be able to hang out with my family like this. The last pure vacation the four of us took together was also in Hawaii, nineteen years ago; the last vacation-with-another-purpose was a year or two later, when my brother was looking at colleges, and we took it as an excuse to go sightseeing in California. We see each other on the holidays, but it’s lovely to have this kind of time, where nobody has to cook or run errands or do any of the other things that can make the holidays stressful.

And, y’know, the surroundings don’t hurt. 🙂 Especially in light of the fact that the Bay Area is currently receiving a lot of desperately-needed, but not terribly fun to walk around in, rain.

So huzzah for my parents and forty years of happy marriage. May they continue happy for many more years to come.