End of December

The end of the year has come fast for us and we celebrated this Christmas with family as we did last year. I flew out to Maine on the 22nd after the blizzard on the east coast postponed my trip from the 20th. I had planned on catching up with friends from Maine on those two days then head to NH to catch up with Mary from CAC. Ending at my dad’s.

Instead I crashed with Nancy and Tyler on the 22nd and was rewarded with lobstah and shrimps! I drove to my dad’s said hello and then on to Logan to pick up Mike. He flew standby at 8AM instead of his 7PM flight because the storm that delayed me was heading into Denver and they were predicting canceled flights.

We stopped on the way back at my sister’s new house which is awesome. She had been expecting the electrician to come and install and outlet over the fireplace for her TV> He did not show so we decided to do it ourselves. Tom , Mike and Dad devised a plan to add the outlet, cover the fireplace, and create a component shelf from within the closet. The better part of the Dec 24th we spent at Mary’s. Dad and I cutting the materials to Tom’s specifications and mike removing shelves, electrical, and paneling. Unfortunately we did not get to finish the component shelves but almost. We head to my Dad’s for a Christmas Eve feast. We ate, sang, and opened presents.

Next morning we drove to Mike’s family for a surprise visit. They were down to his brother’s allowing us to slip into the house unseen. We had a great time and played loads of games. Had a great dinner at Pasta Z, a new restaurant in Gardiner’s downtown, celebrating the retirement of his mom, Christmas, and family.

The 28th we headed out to Thailand for the New Year.  A flight first to Dulles with a  6 hour layover, then on to a 13 hour flight to Tokyo. Watched 4 movies, read, and slept a wee bit too. Layover of 2 hours and then a 6 hour leg to Bangkok. We arrived at 11:25PM, 20 minutes early, spent the next hour at immigrations and was met by a driver arranged my our friends in Bangkok. We arrive another 45 minutes at their place and crashed hard.

Glad to be here.