Anna's Adventures in Oxford: Returning to Oxford tomorrow!

My 6-week vacation is over, and time absolutely flew by. Tomorrow I commence a 24-hour journey, with three flights and one bus ride. I will arrive in Oxford sometime in the afternoon of January 12.

It is impossible to fully describe my vacation in its entirety without writing a novel, but I will give a few highlights (and a lowlight).

Highlight #1: Spending time with my family and dogs. Christmas is a very special time for my family and we take it pretty seriously, so it was wonderful to be together. Last night we all saw Lincoln together, which was brilliant. I hope Daniel Day-Lewis wins an Oscar for his performance. Although I do find it funny that a Brit & Irishman portrayed one of the greatest American presidents so effectively.

Family & dogs, photo courtesy Steve Lenz.

Lowlight: We had to say goodbye to our dog Holly, the Rottweiler in the picture above. She had been struggling with bone cancer for several months. She was 10 years old--she had been a part of the family for half of my life! I am glad, though, that she is no longer suffering.

Highlight #2: We got a new puppy. We were so devastated at the idea of being Holly-less on Christmas that we got an adorable English Cream Golden Retriever puppy. His name is Argos, after Odysseus' dog in The Odyssey (can you tell my mom is a literature professor?).

Highlight #3: Spending time with my boyfriend of 1.5 years, Mark. We mostly just relaxed, watched movies, played bananagrams, and went out for dinner. It was wonderful.

Mark's parents gave us matching sweatshirts for Christmas.

Highlight #4: A ski trip to Mount Baker with Mark and several friends over New Years. The snow was incredible (deep powder), and unlike the same trip last year, there weren't any injuries. Woo! Afterward, we all saw the Hobbit, which was excellent.