First things first–thanks for the well-wishes! Mom’s doing okay–she had gallbladder surgery July 20th, and sailed through with flying colors.
We embarked on our vacation, and I’ll be writing several updates to go with that, but to summarize: Eight days with no computer, and barely any traveling in the car were awesome. The drive down there and back with two small kids was not so great. Didn’t get too sunburned.
Yes, getting up again at my normal 5am was hard.