Normal service is resumed

Sorry we've been away so long but there's just been a lot going on. Plus the blog writer has been away

So we made our way back from Honolulu, via a 15-hour layover in LA. We'd booked a "day room" at an airport hotel so that we at least had somewhere to dump our stuff and have a shower if needed. Then we flew to Boston, via Chicago on a second consecutive overnight flight .

After all of this, Annalie had then arranged to visit the UK so she could go and get a new visa from the US Embassy. For some reason, the immigration lawyers that Rolls-Royce uses insisted that Annalie visited their London office to pick up all her paperwork, despite the fact that we've already been through this process once before. It was a bit of a pointless exercise, but following a 3-hour wait for a 5-minute "interview," she left the Embassy with another stamp of approval.

Ian headed back to CT to accomplish Mission Laundry and to get back to some sense of normality. Given his lack of "routine" (and anyone to keep him at home!!) he decided to head up to Killington early to get a few runs in when the slopes were quiet. He enjoyed having the house to himself and wasn't so impressed when all the other sharers turned up to disturb the peace!! He managed to stay from Thursday to the end of Monday, but decided he had to head back, despite Monday being a fabulous powder day, because he had drill night on the Tuesday.

Annalie, meanwhile, headed up to her parents to surprise her mum for her birthday She also had some business up at Leeds Met Uni for her Masters, so spent three days (including a Saturday ) studying. Even in the library (which she doesn't remember doing much of the first time around

After a day in the Rolls-Royce London office, Annalie then headed off to Toulouse for some meetings with Airbus and IAE's Toulouse office. On her way back, she was due to fly from Toulouse to Gatwick, where she would connect to BA's new once-a-day Gatwick to JFK flight. As she was on approach to Gatwick, the passengers were told that the airport was closed due to ice on the runway, and that the plane would be diverting to Bournemouth to refuel, before trying to get back into Gatwick when it opened. Then Bournemouth closed because it was full of a load of other flights that had diverted there, so the aircraft headed off to Stansted, with no indication of when they would get to Gatwick.

After nearly 3 hours on the tarmac at Stansted, the passengers were off-loaded as the crew would not have eough duty time left to continue. Given that Annalie didn't have a clue where her JFK-bound aircraft was, nor what time it might depart, she didn't fancy chancing the trip to Gatwick, so she phoned BA and got on a flight from Heathrow, and got them to pay car hire to get her there! Once at Heathrow, she re-routed to Boston, as this is a more convenient airport to home, and Ian volunteered to come and pick her up.

After all of this, and lots of waiting around at Heathrow (but which included a massage ) Annalie almost missed her flight! That would have been ironic! But she was on the phone to IAE's travel agent at the time (who is very chatty) and lost track of time. Cue a mad dash to the gate to be told they were just about to leave without her!

The weekend after her return was the IAE Holiday Party - a renowned affair! As her team are responsible for it, she felt compelled to help out and ensure it went smoothly. She needn't have worried, there was not a hitch. But we decided to duck out early because Annalie was jealous of all the time Ian had on the slopes last weekend. So we were very mad and left the party at 11pm to drive nearly 3 hours to Killington. We were kept awake by the others in the house as they turned up shortly after we'd gone to bed and didn't exactly keep the volume down!

But we were up and out by 9am to try and make the most of our one day. We'd intended to stay up and overnight, commuting back to Hartford on the Monday morning. As it happened, we finished earlier than expected so we ended up driving home that night.

This week has been a reminder that we're approaching the "Holiday Season", with various social engagements set up. First was Annalie's Leadership Team lunch on Monday, then her department's lunch on Tuesday. Ian had a Fire House dinner on Tuesday night, then Annalie took her team on a night out on Thursday. She did have another set of drinks planned as well with the local Pratt & Whitney team on Friday night, but with the winter storm warnings for that day, it was postponed until the new year.

With the storm warnings in force, we were worried that our drive to Killington would be treacherous, so we decided to leave at 12 to try and beat the storm. We saw barely anything until we reached northern Massechussets, then the flurries really started. By the time we crossed the border into Vermont, it was full on snow, our first experience of how the weather is handled over here. The ploughers/gritters were already out in force, although we kept getting ahead of them so endured the worst conditions.

Once we were off the Interstate the fun really started. But we reached Killington just fine and were greeted with almost a foot of snow - promising a perfect powder day on Saturday. After many promises from the other housemates of being first on the slopes, we knew we would be there, but weren't sure of the other's "get up" ability. Turns out we needn't have worried, as virtually the whole house got up in plenty of time. And after clearing the additional snow that had fallen, we headed up for a dream day on the powder.

There was some amazing boarding to be had, and we were keen to make the most of it. Annalie had a few tumbles on one particlularly "lumpy" slope when she couldn't see properly so the underfoot terrain kept coming as a surprise. Ian managed to finally nail a feature in the terrain park (after a bit of coaching from armchair trickster, Annalie ) and then saved his worst tumble for when we were heading on our way out.

Tomorrow we've got to get up at the crack of sparrows again because we'll have to leave before lunchtime. We've got our friend Melly coming to stay so we've got to get to Boston to pick her up. And there's supposed to be a big Nor'easter heading this way, which will make the drive even more fun than on Friday! Fingers crossed we don't get the worst of it.