It has been a very busy last few weeks. We were on the road for two weekends in a row and then again the following week. Just seems that things tend to bunch up about this time of the year. Let me fill you in. I have been working on a Christmas stocking for Orin but it won’t be ready for this Christmas, he’ll have to wait until next year. Photo shows Edie with her stocking and Orin with his.

Following the arrival of Orin B. Moses on the 10th of November, we moved into high gear to arrange a road trip to go to Asheville to meet the young man. The traffic is much better on the weekends so we planned our departures for Saturday morning with arrival at destination on Sunday afternoon. The trip down was uneventful and really quite pleasant. Good weather, dry roads and really no traffic at all. In a way I was surprised because it was the weekend before Thanksgiving but we were certainly lucky. We stopped in Shippensburg on Saturday night and arrived in Asheville mid-afternoon on Sunday. Again, no traffic to speak of. We tend to go the Western Route and that means going to Binghamton, New York and then down 81. I guess most of the traffic keeps to the East.

We spent a lovely week in Asheville with a visit to Black Mountain, The Biltmore to see the Christmas trees and we ended the week with a trip to see Disney on Ice in Greenville. I don’t know who was more excited, me or Edie. All our favorite movie characters and the music. The skating was just excellent and had lots of surprises included. We also had a visit to a Hands-On Museum which at first was a little overwhelming but once we got the hang of it ended up being the best way to spend a rainy day. In the middle of the week we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the trimmings. Through all of this, we spent as much time as we could, just gazing at young Orin and holding him. What a joy to be grandparents 2.0.

We returned the following weekend, again with no travel issues. Good weather, dry roads and no traffic except for two spots around Lexington, Virginia where we got off the road and took the old highway to get around the bottleneck. The funny part was somehow I ended up in the midst of a Christmas parade behind a horse drawn wagon. Still can’t figure out how that happened but it gave us a good laugh.

Once home we didn’t sit still. We had planned a visit to Canada but there was a power outage so we felt we needed to get up there to check on the house sooner rather than later. The people who stayed there in October/November had departed and the December family don’t come in til closer to the holidays so this was a good time for us to up and make sure everything was working and no issues with the power outage. As I sit here writing this they are waiting for the electricity to come on again after a second power outage. Not sure what is going on up there but it was a pretty big snowstorm with lots of heavy wet snow.

This past weekend we celebrated Katie’s birthday with a lovely dinner party and a pizza party on Sunday. And now it is planning for Christmas. I do not know where the time has gone but it sure flies when you are busy. We won’t have the Asheville family with us this year as they prefer to stay home with their month old baby rather than travel over the holidays. I don’t blame them but I do remember driving from Delaware to Hartford with my month old baby 53 years ago after Christmas. Much shorter drive however.

Walking has been a hit or miss thing for the last month. Mixing it up between time on the Peloton and outdoor walks with the dogs. It is a lot more peaceful around here if I get out with the dogs but the weather and the footing after the snowfall make it a bit challenging. We did get out for two walks during and after the storm but I was exhausted and so were the dogs when we got back.