Happy New Year's!

So, in case you were wondering, the inter-tubes from Australia to the rest of the civilized world are very small.  Or crowded.  Or something.  If you look at the comments from E a few posts back, he pasted ping times, and for those of you who know how the Internet works, this should help explain the situation.

Essentially, even though we're back in AUS from NZ and at a hotel with dedicated Internet, this post is still short by necessity, because it would take forever to upload all the photos I'd like to share about our trip and I've got a flight tomorrow.  Oh, and tomorrow, the day, is somehow going to stretch out forever (as in, I'll board my flight, and land in California 16 hours later or something, but 2 hours before I left -- *and* despite having already rung in the new year a while ago, New Year's Eve will be occurring throughout the flight as we cross various time zones, it's enough to make my head hurt).

In other news, the decision that E&I should join the Sydney Royal Botanical Garden Foundation paid off:

Ticketed Event at the Botanical Gardens.  Controlled Access.  No crowding.  Amazing.

The short version of the year's wrap up post is this:

Total Miles (running, walking, hiking, and occasionally other aerobic activities like elliptical or recumbant biking, but never yoga, because that would be crazy): 1311 (better recap to come).

Total Books Read: 21 (missing summaries to come).

Total Audiobooks: 38 (missing summaries to come).

General 2013 Goals: Well, as I noted back in September, things just generally didn't totally go according to plan this year... Even so.  It's been better than good -- our families are healthy, we are healthy, and I definitely didn't expect to hit 7 countries this year (Bermuda, Netherlands, Spain, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand) when I made my initial plans.  Given all of the above and the fact that I do love me some international travel and cultural experiences, I'm pleased and feel exceedingly lucky.

Lucky.  That's the take-home I have from 2013.  I am so lucky.  And I want to be appropriately grateful and worthy of receiving such luck -- Here's to hoping I take 2014 by the horns and do a good job of that.

Happy New Year!