trip report.

our trip was decidedly not a vacation.

For two weeks we met with friends, went to appointments, attended weddings, planned our own; discussed, reunited, celebrated, prepared, shopped.

Things we did not do:
relax
cook
spend lots of time in any one place with any one person (including each other)

We got so much stuff done on this trip. It came at the expense, though, of a lot of time for personal connections. I'm returning to work feeling disoriented, and not just because my body thinks it's still 1 in the morning. I was looking forward to buying some specialty groceries, and I had promised to cook for my parents.

We only cooked four times on this trip. One was breakfast and two were last-minute pasta dinners. We didn't spend long periods of time with ANYONE, which feels like we were denying ourselves and them a rare chance of hanging out. I didn't have any time to browse shops, though I did get to rush around 3 stores for 2 hours looking for wedding shoes. even that didn't work - my mom ended up finding & ordering the winning pair online.

What we DID do:
We touched ground on 4 continents within 24 hours.
I met a long-time internet friend in person for the first time.
Had dinner and beers with friends who used to live in Accra.
I got a great curly haircut.
Celebrated the weddings of two couples dear to my heart, and saw an old friend for the first time in 5 years.
Spent nearly 3 full days planning our wedding. The planner we hired is great.
Drove to/from the Denver airport 5 times in 3 days. I received and resized my wonderful custom engagement ring.
Tasted some gorgeous buffalo and a moist carrot cake.
I found my wedding dress!! shoes, too.

all in all... tradeoffs were made and I'm not happy about all of them -- but we got a LOT done which we won't have to worry about in the wedding-timeline countdown now.