I didn't fall off the face of the earth

Although I might have come close.I spent the past three weeks entertaining my 14-year-old niece. We did a lot of fun stuff -- like driving to the top of Pikes Peak with the S.O., watching a professional soccer game in Denver and visiting the zoo.

Look out! It's coming right for us!

We also did some relaxing stuff, like painting ceramics at Puttin' on the Paint, shopping, watching movies and completing the "World's Smallest 1,000-Piece Puzzle."

It was really hard to send her home -- although I know she and her dad were ready to see each other again -- and I think even the dog misses her.

I sure hope she doesn't outgrow her aunt in the next year. I'd like to make her summer visits an annual thing.

Me = Happy

This person

(who is awesome, by the way)
is going to spend three weeks with me next month. Yay!

From the in-case-I-didn't-mention-it file

The S.O. has decided to take flying lessons.

Which I fully support because he's excited about it. But look at that tiny little plane. Scary. The only downside is that the weather has been pretty uncooperative for him -- high winds, fog -- and he hasn't gotten as many hours logged as he'd like. Still, I like to think one day he'll get his pilot's license and jet us off to some exotic locale for a romantic getaway.

Shut up. A girl can dream.

Big Ben

A few years ago, the S.O. and I went to the U.K. We were only in London for three days so we crammed a ton of sight-seeing into that time. We hit all the big ones (although some we only saw from the outside): Big Ben and the houses of parliament, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park. We spent a rainy day in the Albert and Victoria museum, where I got a guard to say to me, "Ohh! You sound just like Monica ... from Friends." This was in response to me saying, "I know!"

We even went to Westminster Abbey to see the burial place of such luminaries as Charles Darwin, George Frederic Handel, Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens (as a literature geek, the writers and poets were a really big deal to me).

From London, we visited Lincoln, where the S.O. had a friend and we saw leftover set pieces from "The DaVinci Code" in Lincoln Cathedral. If I remember the movie correctly -- and I wish I could forget it -- the scenes that supposedly took place in Westminster Abbey were actually film in Lincoln Cathedral. Kinda cool. Too bad I hated the movie (especially Tom Hanks' hair).

After a couple days in Lincoln, we took the train to Edinburgh, Scotland. We visited castles and museums and strolled along the beach of the Firth of Forth. We spent some time hanging out with the S.O. aunt and uncle, who was teaching at a college there. We strolled through a forest that called to mind fairies and robber barons and cutthroats. We didn't make it to the highlands on that trip, but I'd like to go back some day.

It's been a while since we took a really big vacation like this one. So maybe I'd just like to go somewhere.