Sunday, November 20, 2011

God Bless The USA

It was great to be home! Our trip back was as uneventful as a 30 hour plane trip could possibly be. The only thing noteworthy was the rough exterior of our entrance back into the USA at the perpetually horrible Los Angeles Airport. Dana and I had a heated verbal dispute with a customs officer who was insisting that we were permanent New Zealand residents. Thus in his mind we had the entry card completely wrong and should be subjected to "double secret probation". Just another reason why I’m not a huge fan of LA. But the rest of our trip was filled with family, friends and the comforts of home. We enjoyed time in Atlanta with Huck and the Morris', Boston with the Hines', and our Maryland and Delaware family and friends. We indulged in things that you can’t consume in New Zealand like Chipotle, Dunkin Donuts coffee, Gatorade, country music, orange juice, US TV, and mom's carrot cake.
We celebrated many things during our trip including: (1) Dana’s birthday (we’ll cover this more in the next post) (2) Huckle’s birthday (October 24th) which may or may not be his real birthday, but was the day we picked him up as a rescue (3) Thanksgiving (not a holiday in New Zealand) (4) Heather Hines' birthday, and (5) Kevin Buck and Cassie Stoyer’s wedding. Some notes on the wedding: The ceremony was at the Old Otterbein church adjacent to Camden Yards and the reception at the Frederick Douglas museum. Both fantastic venues! Having attended many many weddings in the past couple of years, this one ranked near the top. Bonus for us was that we got to catch up with college friends. The happy couple is now off to Bora Bora for their honeymoon. They are staying at the St. Regis, which I’ve heard is one of the best hotels in the world. Dana has clearly stated that she’s jealous.
We also had great visits with each of our grandparents, old coworkers in Baltimore and Christiana. A bunch of you commented that you were keeping up with the blog, so thanks for reading. The trip back put a little damper on posting, but we have some exciting trips coming up in New Zealand to post about. I will cover our last couple of days in San Diego in the next post.
The swans in the lake adjacent to the Morris family house in Atlanta.  
Princess Gracie, the Morris family dog and Huckle playmate.

Huck and Gracie are very interested in Huck's birthday cake.

Tasty Golumpki made by Grammy Hines.  

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