happy new year

...and we're back from the holidays.

Our trip in numbers:
1,850.1 miles in the car
4 different bedrooms
1 wedding
3 trips to the urgent care place in Michigan (1 for baby-j, 2 for P)
2 bouts of conjunctivitis (1 for baby-j, 1 for P)
2 trips to the hospital (for my dad in PA)
1 visit to the ER (for my grandmother, who was conveniently taken to the same hospital as my father after slicing her head open this morning. She is now home and doing pretty well.)
1 recurring cold (for me, unfortunately--it was gone for our trip and has now returned)

All this made for a very happy return home late this evening. It was really wonderful to see all the family, but overall, it was an exhausting trip. My father is still in the hospital trying to recover from pneumonia so the doctors can address some heart issues he has--they will most likely put in a pacemaker. We'll probably head back there at the end of this week or the beginning of next week, if not before.

Yikes: pretty depressing first blog entry of the year, I guess. My hope for the new year is that it's all an improvement upon this day, which has been a rough one.