Merry Christmas!

A good Christmas for all of us down here in Va., and we hope for all of you too.

C and I made a quick holiday visit to her family in Pa. Spent Sat. in Chadds Ford having dinner and exchanging presents at her brother's. Came back to Va. early on Sun. Both our kids stayed home because they were working Sat. and Sun.

Today, we probably got around to exchanging presents around 11:30 a.m. E was the last person up. My big present was a USB-turntable, which I'll gradually use to turn my old albums into CDs and MP3s. C's big present was the mixer she wanted (she also got a lot of chocolates). M go various guitar accessories and a gift card to Guitar Center. E got various jewelry.

Certainly doesn't look like Christmas down here. And it certainly doesn't look like there's good skiing anywhere near by. We'll go to W. Va. next weekend for at least one night. Hopefully there will be enough snow to have some fun, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

Happy New Year too!

Snow in the mountains

C and I spent Sat. and part of this morning in W.Va., where there was 4-5 inches of nice light snow on the ground. One of the two ski areas had opened some runs, but I didn't go over. Not enough is open yet to make it really worthwhile. But it was a nice visit because it was so pretty.

On the way back we stopped and bought a Christmas tree.

E has been home this weekend. She'll go over to N. Va. Community College tomorrow morning to take care of some signing-up type business before heading back to Shepherd. This is her last week and she has some tests, the first one Mon. evening.

M also has some tests coming up. He did his weekly Potbelly's gig this evening -- and picked up three paychecks from there too. So he's flush for a while.

Nice that Ed has the chance to make a quick trip across the sea.

Don't forget to vote! This link should take you right to the correct page. We're way behind because we're not really advertising the contest. The blog that's far ahead is really stumping for votes from its readers.

Change is a 'comin

Right to the news: E has decided she doesn't want to return to Shepherd next semester. Too quiet. Too small. Not enough going on there, she says. Her grades will be OK this semester, she assures us. Starting in Jan., she'll take some courses at Northern Va. Community College, to keep her hand in academics, and work at Best Buy.

Then, hopefully, she'll transfer to some place like George Mason next fall. Or, maybe, if NVCC seems like a good place for her she'll stick with that to get an assoc. degree and go to a univ. after that.

So we'll soon have both kids back in the house, which is of course nice in many ways.

Meanwhile, M expects to soon be working again at the local Macaroni Grill at least a few days a week. He seems to be set to continue at GMU as well.

C and I saw Casino Royale on Sunday. Enjoyed it a lot, though I think it might be 15-20 minutes too long.

We'll likely be in W. Va. for at least part of next weekend. No natural snow yet, but they're starting to make it at one of the ski areas.