sometimes you have to go island hopping

What a great idea. A short holiday weekend. A quick flight. We stayed both in Kailua and Waikiki and reconnected with old friends. Our kids loved seeing little Lantana who is now their official adopted cousin. What a bright light she is, all smiling and loving and innocent and so talented as a musician. With two parents who play amazing Balinese music, it's no wonder.

sometimes you just have to go to the woods

And hike for two and one half hours and fight some monsters and find several sticks perfect for walking and swords to take home and breathe the air and marvel at the beauty and listen to the silence, the utter silence of it all.

Because your girl wanted to and you had the time to spend and you were closeby.

Please Mom, can we go to the woods?

What a great idea.

sometimes you just have to jump on a plane

And then head to a hotel where your brother is staying where he will speak at a conference later in the week.  And catch him on his day off so you can walk to a mall to go to the Apple store to get a cable for his computer, and then to a seafood restaurant found via Yelp, where you will sit and drink pina coladas, because you are adults and adults do these things when they are without their kids.  And they have the time to catch up and visit with one another.

And you will eat a leisurely lunch and chat for over two hours and then walk back to the hotel and see exotic penguins and flowers on the grounds that you have never seen.  And then you and your brother will sit by the pool and relax some more and have some laughs.

And on the plane home you will marvel at how life happens and one day the boy who hit you with a snowball from the neighbor's yard and teased you sometimes but also helped you get through high school math and stood up for you when you needed a big brother is now a married father of three, and a respected physician published in the New England Journal of Medicine, presenting his research and slowly changing the face of medicine in ICUs all over the world, a great doctor who saves lives every day.

And when you look back you will be glad that for one day the two of you were able to relax together, because you both deserved it and you haven't done this since college.

sometimes you just have to take a drive around town

With your start bright star light girl.

And bring your camera so your daughter can take some photos of local topography for a school project.

And end up in a seaside chapel where you both go in and say a prayer, pleased at the spontaneous reverence of the moment.

And then go home and make a little lunch.

sometimes you just have to take a drive up a mountain

And breathe some cool fresh air laced with euchalyptus and tropical flowers.

And talk to your BFFs on the cell phone.

And take some pictures.

And then buy yourself a present.

So I did.