January 16 thru 30, 2009

Written February 15

Dear Friends and Families,

In 2008, I (John) managed to avoid business trips to the States. I have nothing against America, it was just that 2007 had included far too many US trips and I didn't want to volunteer for free trips to Lynchburg, Virginia, or Charlotte, North Carolina. A long trip with a couple of weddings was plenty of cross-Atlantic travel for me.

But, I have changed bosses in Lynchburg now and we had decided I needed a trip back, just to get reoriented. It seemed like this would be the week after Marianne got back from her California trip but, just after she left, plans changed. I volunteered to go early, and stay for two weeks. It turned out to be 13 straight days of work sandwiched between a weekend with Geoff, Suzanne, and Ryan and a short stop in the most convenient of the 19 Smithsonian museums.

There's not too much else to tell. The visit with little Ryan was great. He's a happy almost-two-year-old and seems like a real person now. I had not seen him in a year, over half of his life so far! I'm not sure he ever knew who I was, and he had a two-year-old's reluctance to move far from mom or dad, but we'll try to stay a bit closer in 2009 than we were able to in 2008.

	Ryan has learned to make a variety of goofy faces, something that is genetic on his father's side I believe. But, they're both cute.

After the quick family visit, it was two work weeks down in Lynchburg. On the one hand it was just work, but on the other I did manage to reconnect with lots of friends and colleagues and I will admit that I enjoyed that part. Loss of contact is always a risk for ex-pats, both at work and on a personal level, so I resolved to make 2009 a bit more of a traveling year for business (and, of course, for grand kids!)

Two weeks after I landed at Dulles, I was heading out again. I managed to work in another stop at the Udvar Hazy Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, located right there at the airport. But, that's the next story.

John