And thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts. It was pretty crappy, but we are doing pretty well all things considered and we are looking forward to our trip. And yes - spending all those nice AU$ CC!

And yes badgercat - we LOVE the cold. In the past we regularly did house exchanges with Canadians for a couple of months over Christmas. We love to ski and they loved to get away to somewhere warm for the winter! So we will love wandering around in the cold of NY winter.