Back in the U.S.

We're back on American soil for the holidays. Once a year, we get plane tickets where we cannot get kicked off for paying passengers, as happened twice over the summer when we flew back to Atlanta. What a relief to know those seats we reserved were truly ours. We flew in on Saturday, the 20th and couldn't have planned it better. The Boston area got almost a foot of snow the day before, and then another 8 inches or so the day after we arrived.

We've been spending a lot of time visiting with relatives, but even more time racing around getting shopping done -- both for Christmas and for things we needed back home in Germany.

While driving around, we passed two Smart Cars. We see these all over Europe, but they're still pretty new to the U.S. Here's my brother Tim posing with one during his trip to see us last year. And we have seen even smaller cars than this in Germany.

Marblehead, the town my mother's side of the family hails from, is a very walkable town, but the ice on the roads and sidewalks was inches thick, making our shopping trip a bit treacherous.

We were on our way to the CVS (there was soooo much I wanted to buy, including magazines, toothpaste and Heath bars) and the fantastic toy store across the street. The steeple in the distance is Abbot Hall, Marblehead's town hall and historical museum.

You can see the original Spirit of '76 painting in Abbot Hall.