Ho- ho- holidays...

So, last time I wrote I think I was in Hobart. At the moment I'm sitting in Honolulu's excellent departure terminal. And I mean that - it's a lovely open-plan affair with the warm evening breeze blowing directly into the waiting areas, without the usual interruption of plate glass. We've had a splendid day cruising around the south-eastern section of Oahu - with 12 hours to kill between flights, we rented a car and spent the day driving along the coast, swimming in the sea and being awed by the spectacular scenery. Best of all, my brother-in-law Andrew (who lived in Honolulu until two weeks ago) put us in touch with some friends who let us use their shower before our next flight...

Wait.

Let me start again.

Ok, it's now a rainy day in Vancouver, nearly three weeks after that opening paragraph, and I'm only just getting around to continuing this mail! As evidenced by the long intermission, it's been a great holiday. Our first major destination was James and Tamsin's house in Connecticut, where we arrived after some 70 hours of travelling (including 12-hour layovers in Oahu and Vancouver, admittedly). It was wonderful to see the US family again, and wonderful also to be able to introduce Christina to them and show her around the parts of New England that we know so well. On our second night there it snowed, which was another first for Christina. We were at a Christmas concert at J&T's church at the time, and about 4 inches fell that night. It was perfect: just enough to cover everything with a proper blanket of white, and not so much that we were in any way inconvenienced by closed roads, delayed flights etc.

We also spent a glorious day in NYC with James (Tamsin was feeling under the weather), strolling in Central Park and visiting the Met. New York had a lot more snow, and in full sunlight the Park was was a magical place to walk. My old friend Nic Gibson, from UCT undergrad days, was coincidentally in NYC for his sister's wedding (which I had found out the day before on FaceBook), so we met up for the day and had some great catch-up chats. Rack up another point for virtual technology enabling real-world contact!

We flew back to Vancouver on the night of the 23rd, and have been holidaying with Christina's family since. We had 18 people to dinner on Christmas Eve, including Simon Spicer who joined us for the Christmas holidays from UWash in Seattle. Great to spend some quality time with him, and he also introduced us to a new board game - Settlers of Catan, which we are thoroughly enjoying. In true South African style, we went for a beach picnic on Boxing Day (albeit a very cold picnic on a fog-covered beach). We've just returned from four days at Whistler, where we spent New Year's and also acquitted ourselves very well during our foray into skiing - ie., we finished with the same number of unbroken limbs as we started.

It has been a wonderful holiday, and we still have another week before we return to Hawaii - time to get down to some work, I think. Christina has plenty of preparatory stuff to do for her observing run, and I'm taking advantage of a quiet house to get some model parametrization done too (Marietta is back at work and the kids are back at school).

So a very merry Christmas to you all, and I wish you every joy and success in 2010.