A White Christmas

After stopping in NZ for a week, we were headed back to Pittsburgh for our annual trip home. When we arrived we were still wearing our flip flops and we had to quickly grab our luggage to sort out some appropriate winter wear. Unfortunately for us, neither of us could find our winter coats amongst our stored goods at home and the weather forecast showed that the temperatures were to be below freezing all week...So it was off to the store to buy some. Somehow the cold seemed colder than ever before. It is amazing how fast you adapt to something new. We had to adjust to a lot of things...first one being that we actually got in the wrong side of car when we first picked it up. But after a day things became familiar again.

First thing we did when we picked up the car was to put on christmas tunes and they didn't come off all week. Let's just say that Jared loves Christmas and Christmas in Australia just isn't the same. Katie enjoyed it for a while too but by the end was sort of Christmas-ed out.

Our plane had landed around 6pm on Thursday and we were at Fatheads with Craig and Mo by 8pm devouring our favorite sandwiches and chips with a good microbrew to wash it down. We had already checked off the first item on our agenda for home. The next day we had to stop by work (not really working but more so socializing) and our traditional Friday night happy hour. It was good to catch up with the work crew again and it seemed like we had never left.

Of course it snowed while we were there but it did so much that we were actually snowed in on Saturday. We were very excited to see it and it added to the Christmas atmosphere but Katie was really bummed because she missed the wedding of one of her best friends from high school, Jenn Edwards. Instead, we spent the day wrapping presents and making gingerbread houses with Jared's niece and nephew, Tyler and Alex, which was a good substitute. Sunday was a family day too and we hit up both of Jared's sides of the family with two homemade meals of turkey and ham and all the fixings. We also had time for some fun in the snow and some sled riding with all the nieces and nephews.

We made sure to catch the exciting Steelers game on Sunday with the family too and then the Pens game Monday after a full day of proper US Christmas sale shopping. The Pens lost 4-0 that night and it seemed like we were just bad luck for our sports teams. For the first time ever, Jared left the Pens game early but only in an effort to catch Sir Pizza before they closed. Needless to say we didn't make it but we enjoyed some buffalo wings elsewhere (You would think these would go over well in Australia but I guess they have never caught on). I guess we will just have to catch Sir Pizza next time around.

At least we were checking most of the stuff of our favorites list: Tuesday was skiing with Rob and Leslie and it felt like old times, Wednesday we had mexican and margaritas at Mad Mex with Christy, BJ, Carly, Steph, and Kelly and trips to Starbucks throughout the week.

Thursday was Christmas Eve and we were off to Ohio to see Katie's family and then to Jared's sisters for Christmas. There was lots of great food and presents. And we had a lot of fun with all our nieces and nephews...there are 9 of them (and soon to be 10)! They grow so fast. We had missed our family so much during the year...I can't believe its been over a year already!

Unfortunately we had only one more day left but we managed to fit in a visit to our old neighbor Tom, breakfast with our old work friends Jeff & Kelly Koslow, lunch at the Olive Garden with Jared's old roommate Todd & his wife Kate who were in that day from NC, and Jared's other roommate Garry for a drink all in the next day before we flew out that evening! We couldn't have packed more in.

The trip home that night was just as exhausting and worse than the flight there. We were delayed by nearly 2.5 hours and almost missed our connection in LA to Australia. It was the last flight out that night and Jared's mum and sister were already on a flight to meet us in Australia so it would not have been good to leave them stranded in Sydney for a day. Luckily, the LA flight was also delayed and they were kind enough to still let us on so we were just a few hours late arriving home in Sydney.