I'm really tired of lists now

Since missing so many blog entries this past week, I have discovered that I am not very excited to get back to making a list a day. So on this second-to-last day of March, I'm declaring list month over for me. This will make it more difficult to decide what to write about, but hopefully I can come up with things that are not totally boring so that my handful of readers won't abandon me (if they haven't already.)

Something that Mark and I have been thinking about a lot is travel. We just scheduled a week-long trip to Seattle in June -- it will be my first visit to the city and the first for Mark in over a decade. Seattle is a place that I think I'll fall for because of its west coast laid-backness and mild summer weather. We're staying with Mark's aunt and uncle, with whom we are excited to spend some time and who also seem excited to host us (which is nice since we just emailed and asked if we could come out!) At the top of our list of things to see is Olympic National Park -- we really enjoy hiking, and I really want to see what temperate rainforest is like! I'm also hoping that we'll get to visit some wineries in the area. We may also have to do a day trip to Olympia, just to see the state capitol, which is becoming a tradition for us -- so far we've been to Madison, WI; Indianapolis, IN; Des Moines, IA; and Austin, TX, together (note that Springfield, IL, is not on the list yet -- we've both been there on school trips when learning about our native state, but we haven't been there together -- I think a Lincoln tour will have to beckon us downstate at some point. I'm betting my parents would be up for a short trip down with us sometime!)

Also potentially on the horizon is a short-term assignment for my job to Mumbai, India. They are looking for volunteers to go for about a month in June/July (yes, that's monsoon season!) to help train several new hires in my department. I've put my name on the list for consideration, and Mark would likely come with me since his summer is very flexible. The thing that I'm really nervous about is how long I'd have to be on a plane -- I am generally really tense while flying, and I don't really want to know what it would be like to be that tense for most of a day. Hopefully having Mark with me would help, and I also might calm down just from having to be up there for so long. But I don't like the idea of being afraid keeping me from traveling to such an interesting place, so the possibility of 16-20 hours of sheer terror didn't stop me from volunteering.

I also mentioned the other day that Mark and I are planning a road trip to Maine with Jeff & Heather in August. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the US that I've never seen and also getting some relaxing and quality time. It's very cool to have family members who are also friends who live pretty closeby. :)

In October, I am planning to fly down to Texas for about a week to help my sister, Shanna, out after she has her wee little baby (hopefully it qualifies as "wee little" since my nephew, Alex, was eight and a half pounds!) At this point, it looks like her husband, Pat, is likely going back to Iraq this summer (boo to the Army!), so that will make it more difficult to adjust to being a new parent again. I'm hoping that I can make myself useful and also spend some quality time with Shanna and Baby H.

That may be all of the travel for the year, unless the holidays bring any other times for jetting around.