"Vacation all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away"

Yesterday, my life took a sad and pathetic turn. I actually counted the days until I leave to go to Hawaii.

As of yesterday, it was 75, which would make today 74.

Witness the lameness that is me.

I should explain that my cousin is getting married there in June, and my entire family, including my nuclear family and a large portion of the extended branch, will be attending. I have never been to Hawaii, but then, neither has my family. We were never a family that took exciting vacations. Some people's families would save up and take a big vacation every couple of years or so. They'd go skiing in the mountains, or rent a beach house somewhere for a week, or go on a cruise. Not so my family. Our vacations were always car trips (sometimes 20+ hours) to visit other family ( my father's unspoken motto is "If we can't drive, we don't go," if that tells you anything at all). The one near-exception is the trip we took to Washington D.C. when I was about 13. I really don't think that counts, though, since it was bookended with two weeks staying with my aunt, uncle and cousins in Virginia. We might have stayed in D.C. for a total of three days.

I've only flown twice in my life, which would probably strike most people as pretty strange. And I've never been further west than Louisiana. So imagine my joy when my cousin Matt announces that he and his fiance, who, though not an Islander, was born and raised in Hawaii, would be getting married on Oahu. Matt is the eldest son of my Dad's only sister, and she would probably hunt him down and kill him if he didn't come to the wedding. And so, wonder of wonders, we're going. It's official, since we bougfht out plane tickets and reserved our rooms last week. My Mom and I are only mildly thrilled. We already have poured through a few guidebooks and I've already started a list of places I want to go. And we went shopping the other day and hit some sales, where we scarfed up some fun new summer clothes.

And yesterday, as I flipped through my planner counting the days until June 7th, my memory whisked me back to about the age of seven, when I would start counting the days until Christmas while it was still July. Because if it's five months until Christmas, then I could start writing my Christmas list for Santa at the beginning of November.

Do you see a pattern here?