Back in the USA

For the first time since he moved here almost two years ago, Jon made his first return to California this month. We went over for a brief visit for a couple of weeks before Christmas. We made a three day stop in Chicago on the way over, for Jon's friend Tiz's wedding. Tiz is a friend from Jon's first job in London and he was marrying a Yankette from their head office in Chicago so we had to show our support for another transatlantic couple. The wedding was a large Greek affair, and very lively, we had fun, even through the jet lag.

Chicago is a great town. I had been there once before briefly, something like 10 or 12 years ago, whilst passing through from Toronto and had been looking forward to going back. It let me down only in its weather. Though I shouldn't complain because the week before we arrived it was something like -12 degrees celsius. When we got there the weather had warmed up quite a bit but in the suburbs where the wedding was there was still snow on the ground and I was dumb enough to run out for the wedding wearing my dress without a coat! But in the city itself, it was pretty similar to London although rainier, if you can believe that! Although we had fun, our conclusion, in a nutshell, was Chicago is great but we'd have to come back when it's not wet and miserable.

After our brief visit to the Windy City we went on to LA. The first visit back was surreal for Jon but we had fun and he definitely enjoyed seeing his friends again. It was quite a jolly old reunion, several people made an effort to come and see him and check if he had picked up a British accent yet! We spent the first couple of days checking out his parents' new home in Henderson, Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. They have just bought a (gorgeous) new house there and are dividing their time between Henderson and OC. After that we spent the rest of the time hanging out in OC and catching up with Jon's friends. I started to drown in testosterone a bit but it was fun! It was mostly that, we didn't get to do much, the time was spent coasting from one gathering to the next! The weather was a letdown again, we were looking forward to some California sunshine in December but it was a bit dreary and unusually cold. I guess we got unlucky this time.

Then after our brief visit we returned to London for a quiet Christmas with my dad. Hope you all had a good holidays and that Santa was good to you!