Family Vacations

So tomorrow we will be going to Yellowstone with our parents, accompanied by my host sister from the Netherlands.

I'm excited, mostly because it's been some time since we've done a bigger trip as a family. I really enjoy the company of my parents, and going to places of natural beauty tends to be awesome no matter what. 

For background: my host sister is from the Netherlands. I stayed with her and her family for a year back in 2006, when I was 15-16. She was around nine at the time--now, she's sixteen, and I'm twenty-two. To be honest, she hasn't changed that much. It's always interesting to see how people mold with time--how they change, and what stays the same. It's much easier to see what's natural to personality and temperament that way. 

It'll be an interesting trip with her addition. The drive is going to be much longer than she is used to, and I'm not sure how much experience she has with vacationing for nature rather than cities. She says she's never camped and has no desire to--we won't be camping, but that might not be a great sign. Furthermore, she is more extroverted and sensory-oriented than my family tends to be--she likes to touch and talk and be stimulated from her senses, whereas we tend to be more subdued and introspective in the way we appreciate things. 

It could go either way. In any case, the balance and routine of our family is going to be necessarily interrupted. 

I also have a lot of stuff that I'm "abandoning" for the vacation. There's a few projects I won't be able to finish, and a few responsibilities that I have to pass along. That's a source of anxiety, though I imagine it'll be easy for me to let that go when I'm gone. It's just that I don't feel like I've done as much as I would like, which is...troublesome. 

So, two weeks. We'll see how it goes.