Happy Holidays

Harrisonburg, VA to Charlotte, NC, - Residence Inn to Residence Inn - is 300.59 miles and took us 4 hours and 39 minutes. It turned cold overnight in Harrisonburg and this morning the temperature was 30 degrees. As we travelled today the temperature rose and it is in the 50's in Charlotte. Our route took us parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway, along the western edge of Virginia; it was a beautiful drive and the sun shone the entire day.

I didn't take any pictures today so I thought I would put up some pictures from our most recent holidays and bring you up-to-date on our family visiting.

On Christmas Eve Suz and Scott hosted their annual Open House in conjunction with the Lynn, MA, Christmas Eve Parade that passes right by their house. There was some rain, but everyone still enjoyed the parade and the various floats.

Just before Scott whisked Maura and Nathan upstairs to go to bed, they prepared a little snack for Santa and his reindeers.

Santa arrived right on schedule and left some toys that required assembly. Fortunately there was an engineer from Caltech and one from Stanford available to figure out all the tabs and slots, screws and bolts needed to construct the train table village.

Vivian had the task of building the railroads and erecting the town.

The art easel also required the coordination of four hands.

These two Moses Brown School graduateas are demonstrating that they have learned how to cooperate the MB-way.

On Christmas Day Maura appeared as a Christmas Angle (in Minnie Mouse slippers).

Suzanne provided the feast, including her "piece de resistance", a croque en bouche. Each cream puff held a creamy filling and were stacked to create a "tree" held together with a syrup. It was heavenly.

There was also an apple pie.

On the 26th, we visited the Salem Maritime National Historic Site...

and the nearby House of Seven Gables.

On the 27th, Kathryn and Jacob arrived from Buffalo, NY. Here we are in the breakfast room at the Danvers Residence Inn.

There was lots of quality cousin-time...

and a visit to the Boston Museum of Science. We did a lot of walking there and Frederick decided to take a little rest on this bed of nails.

On New Years Eve, Kathryn and Jacob left in the morning to return to Buffalo, and Frederick and I dropped off Peter and Vivian at the airport in the afternoon before we drove to Barrington, RI, where we had the privilege of staying in the home of our friends Renn and Mary Olenn (they are in Florida).

We visited Lynn a couple of times, driving up from Barrington, and got to see Nathan in the process of mastering the two United States puzzles that his traveling Grandparents presented him on Christmas. This is the floor model...

and this is the smaller size. 

We got through most of the month of January without any snow, but then got walloped by the Blizzard of 2015 on the 27th.

This is from the 28th. Then on February 2, we had another 9" of snow. At that point, it was beginning to get hard to find a place to put the snow.

Just before we left we paid another visit to Lynn. Nathan, a "digital native", was having fun with his tablet...

and Maura had a heart-to-heart visit with Grandpa.