Hey, it's weird to be back in the States again.

This will be my last post of 2010.
Wow. That's a... thought.

It's been an interesting three weeks. A year ago I left Scotland, seemingly forever.
So it's a bit weird to leave Scotland again for Christmas and not go home to Idaho.
I'm in PA again, with B&J and the boys. And Curly, the cat.
It's been an interesting trip.
Note: NEVER take the #35 bus to the airport. The freaking thing takes 45 minutes! I flew to Amsterdam, which looks really great from the air. The airport is quite nice too. It has a display of winter scenes by Dutch masters. Alas, I did not have time to peruse it.

My original plan was to sleep on the flight over, but that didn't happen. Instead, I watched three, technically four films. Oh, it was a long flight. But fun!

Then Delta lost my luggage on the flight from Atlanta to Allentown. Darn rude luggage dude. It's the first time I've ever lost luggage.  THAT was lovely.
The best part for me was being able to talk to two people about Edinburgh. One man actually travels to Edinburgh for business once a month.
I want his job.
The second lady was from the Allentown area. She was super nice and we had a long chat in the line at the Delta Luggage office at the airport.
Actually, they lost 22 bags from the flight. And given the amount of unclaimed luggage on the belt, there were some very unhappy passengers somewhere in the US.
My bag was lucky enough to go from Atlanta to Detroit and then Allentown. I have no idea why. I am not one to question such mysteries. I hope it enjoyed the trip.

It's been nice to be back, but also strange. Allentown is nice and I LOVE spending time with W & J.
I do, however, really miss Scotland and can't wait to get back.
My big plans for tonight are... nothing. The boys are asleep and I have a feeling the parents will follow suit. There is a tavern next door, but... oh well.

I got a chance to go to NYC and I'll post more about that later.

Christmas was okay. The day was great. Due to naps, we actually were opening presents throughout the day. I got some good stuff, but the best part was that everyone loved my gifts.
I gave Mum some lotion and body wash called Twilight Woods. She loved that.

I also got to cook my favorite Christmas dinner. Chicken Cordon Bleu, Candied carrots, and rice pilaf.
I started cooking Christmas dinner about 10 years ago.
See, my Grams and Gramps used to come visit us for the afternoon/evening of Christmas day and we'd have dinner and open presents.
However, the first Christmas after Grams died, Mum didn't want to do anything familiar. So we opened presents, had lunch and then drove to Idaho Falls for a film (can't remember what it was) and ate dinner at JJ Norths. It's a buffet style place. So there were screaming kids, annoying Christmas music, and the food wasn't that great.
It was the worst Christmas ever.
So I took over cooking duties. It's really fun and I enjoy it.

I hope you all had a joyous Christmas. It didn't really feel like Christmas to me this year. I didn't get to watch "Muppet's A Christmas Carol," or read Dicken's book, or do anything that I usually do to prep for Christmas.
Via Facebook, the shared consensus is that 2010 rather sucked. I would have to agree it wasn't the best year ever. However, it did bring me two adorable nephews and brought me back to my beloved Edinburgh.
So let us straggle out of the muck and mire that was 2010 and boldly embrace 2011, hoping it will make 2010 worth it.

Happy New Year!