Last night I had a set of very vivid dreams. The first one was Alice in Wonderland with a twist. She entered Wonderland through the looking glass but couldn't get back that way - the looking glass ended up being a small transportable mirror piece that she could somehow copy, expand, stick on a surface, and then pass through. (It reminds me a little of Jade's powers in Homestuck.) Kinda neat, except she couldn't control where it led her to, and she couldn't remove a mirror from its spot. (Maybe she could go back those ways? I didn't experiment.) As for the travel itself, she kept jumping between not only areas of Wonderland and the real world, but times as well. This Alice apparently had a twisted backstory, as she watched a house from her past, probably an old home, become ablaze with fire and then drown in the rain. And she caused the rain, somehow. Did I mention she met with the Mad Hatter from the first? She was a tiny thing at that instant, and she remembered dreaming him somehow, so there was some definite romantic attraction despite their sizes. He was the one who gave her the small mirror to pass through from place to place, and it seemed like he would tag along, but I only saw him that once, in the beginning. The whole dream seemed like it ought to be a series, or at least a miniseries.

The next set of dreams started off as reality, but faded into nonsense. The gist was that your mom had planned a surprise party for me while I'm visiting, constituting a family reunion. But there were some strange relatives and rituals going on - team sports, pranking one another's rooms (oh, yes, we were all staying here, it looked like a mansion!), and people running around crazily in general. It was funny, though - and the dream segued into another dream that I've had before - one of traveling in a car on a busy highway, crossing a very long bridge, and in the middle of the bridge is an exit to get off at an island that houses a theme park much like Disneyworld. The road on the bridge even slopes with one of the coasters to give passerby a glimpse of the inside. Really a beautiful setup.

Today, after the bible study group, Rick took us to see the new Whole Foods Market they'd recently finished building and treated us to gelato sold there. (I got orange rosemary sorbet - the Rosemary lingered after you took a bite; it was heavenly! I think Marley liked it too, from the way she wriggled and kicked!) Your mom was impressed with all the healthy lunch options available on the bars too, and she started concocting a way to get there for her lunch break :)

I hope your 'trainer' isn't being too rough about whipping you into shape - then again, I hope he is; I know how much you want to lose that weight. Still, I wish the process were easier as a whole.

I think coming to spend a week with your family on my own was a really good idea - I've gotten a much better glimpse of the family dynamics. Micah has been an extraordinarily good boy lately, which was a load off of poor Liz's mind, I'm sure. She's gone ahead and bought the new Kia to replace the broken one - it has a lot of extras that didn't come with the last one, but she's still aggravated about the whole thing.

I haven't heard from you since yesterday morning - technically it's Thursday right now, but I'm going to wait until I wake up in the morning to watch the video you sent. I missed you terribly today - I keep wondering what you must be doing and thinking. Since I haven't heard from you, I can only guess that you must be underway, and therefore farther away than I could hope to reach. I missed you terribly today. I want a hug so badly. I would be happy just to hear your voice on the phone again - just that makes things a little easier. And now I don't even have that. I wish you had sent me a shirt...