Thanks Mama & Papa Bull!!

Ryan's parents took a trip down to Arizona to help us move in. They were at the airport to pick us up. Even though Thomas was exhausted from the long day of traveling, he was so happy to see them. He was asleep as we put him in the car but woke up just for a second to see "Mama Bull." He sleepily said, "Oh, I love you grandma!" And then was back to sleep. It was so cute. We are all still trying to get over the jet lag. Ryan's parents were so wonderful in helping us not only move everything back into the apartment, but were up with the boys in the middle of the night so that Ryan and I could get a little sleep. We love you so much!! Thanks again for everything!

Time's Up

Tomorrow we make the big flight back to Arizona and I am starting to get a little sad. We have had a great time here and it seems that just as you are starting to meet people and get things figured out, then it is time to go. There are a lot of things that I am going to miss like...

• Just being in Scotland, it is such a beautiful country.


• Every weekend going on an adventure with the family to someplace new. (Today Ryan took the boys to see a "pirate ship.")



• Walking on the cobble stone roads. It sounds silly, but I love the sound as cars drive over the cobble stone too. I think it reminds me of my mission in Germany.


• How everything is a mixture of old and new. Not many Subways look like this in the US.
  People refer to our place as the "new apartments, yet I think it is so fun that this is our house key.




• People calling Thomas and Nathan, "Wee bonnie boys."



• Muller Rice...yumm. This is the reason for a few extra pounds now and on my mission. It says "low fat" but don't you believe it. It's probably a good thing that we don't have this at home!
  

But there are quite a few things that I am looking forward to, such as...

• Being able to use a blow dryer again. (Every time I have used a blow dyer out of the good old US of A, it seems to always short out and break the first time. Being as cheap as I am, I wasn't willing to chance it and have to buy a new one over here to only have it work in the UK outlets, just to buy a new one when I got home. So, the result is my hair in all of the previous pictures!)


• The sun and swimming pool.


• Having a car, a disposal and a washer and dryer that can handle more than one load a day. (Our kitchen cub boards hide all kind of surprises. The washer/dryer combo was right next to the fridge. Kinda weird.)


• Being close to friends and family again...well at least in the same country!

Dundee

I realized recently that I haven't posted any pictures of where we actually spend 90 percent of our time, which is in the city of Dundee. Last night a friend of ours said it best when he commented that the great thing about Dundee is that it is close to so many other places. We have been enjoying that fact, as we have traveled on the weekends. Even though, Dundee isn't the most popular city in Scotland (When we flew into Edinburgh an airport employee told me to "watch out for those Dundonians.") we still have really enjoyed our time here.
I'm pointing to the "balcony" of our apartment.
The boys like to sit in front of this boat and play with the rocks as we wait to see Ryan walking home from work in the evenings. This is just around the corner from our apartment.
We cross this bridge to get into town everyday.
We walk on a path along this water to get to the grocery store. (That's the bridge that you take to get to St. Andrews.) Really beautiful. I love that we live right on the water.

Since there are not many parks, you always see kids (including mine) playing on the statues in town.
Baxter Park is the closest park with a playground. We walk through here every Sunday on our way to church, but only came a few times to play because it is a couple miles straight up hill.
Town Square, where we often meet Ryan for lunch.

Sending our love

My parents got the boys the cutest pjs from Yellowstone. They have a bear on the front with the arms wrapping around the back to give a "bear hug." We just wanted to send a great big "bear hug" to everyone that we love!! We miss you!

Had to do it!

You can't be in Scotland and miss the chance to go and look for "Nessie"! Yesterday, we "hired" a car and made the drive up north to Inverness/Loch Ness and back. We had been pushing this off, thinking that we didn't want to drive for 3 hours (one way). Then we realized it took that much time on the bus to get to the highland games in Scone last week!

Just getting there was an adventure in it's self, with Ryan driving a stick shift with his left hand and trying to remember to drive on the other side of the road. His ultimate challenge came while going through Inverness where there were 5 or 6 roundabouts in about a two mile distance. He did a great job. There is no way that I would have tried it!
Here we are at the ruins of Castle Urquhart on the shore of Loch Ness.



Look close...can you spot "Nessie"? As we were watching the water, you could see these weird kind of rolling waves without any boat around. At first glance, if you were hoping to see something or someone special, it would be easy to mistake these small waves with the humps of the Loch Ness Monster. No wonder there has been so many "sightings!" I'm not saying I'm not a believer, though:)
It seems we never get pictures of just us anymore.
The imagination of a three year old is so much fun...Thomas would stand looking into the water calling loudly, "Oh Nessie, where are you Nessie?"
After the Castle we couldn't miss touring the Official Loch Ness Exhibition.
Here's Thomas and Nathan admiring their finds from the gift shop. Of course, Thomas begged for another sword. ( I will be happy when he moves on from this whole Knight phase.) Nate chose a stuffed Nessie. He carries it around, makes noises at it, kisses it and basically just LOVES it. I think it is so cute. Now Thomas will say "Where's Nessie?" and Nate will look all around until he finds her. So, I guess maybe we did find the Loch Ness Monster after all!

A series of uninformed, thus bad decisions... which turned out surprisingly well.

We decided to go see some Scottish highland games this weekend in the nearby town of Perth. Bad decision #1. Getting on the first bus headed to Perth without checking where it stopped on the way. Instead of the expected 25 minute ride, it ended up taking over an hour. At least it was a good way to see ALOT of the beautiful Scottish country side!

We then get to Perth and are informed that the games have been changed to Scone, which is back in the direction that we just came. Bad decision #2. Not checking updated game info before we left. (There are buses from Dundee straight to Scone.) So, we get on another bus that drops us off in what looks like the middle of nowhere. At least, we can hear bagpipe music in the far distance and it's not currently raining so we just start walking.

We are happy when we finally get there. (It's been three hours since we got on the first bus. Remember this town is only about 25 minutes from where we live.) The boys are so excited to see at least 20 different bagpipe bands practicing at the same time. Which you would think would sound horrible, but actually it sounds the same as any other time I've heard bagpipes. Funny how that is... Bad decision #3. Letting the boys out of the stroller to run around. It had been raining for most of the day, so of course the grass is extremely wet and muddy. The result is Thomas doing a Pete Rose right into the middle of the biggest puddle!

Bad decision #4. Not bringing extra clothes for the kids. You'd think I would learn, with as much as it rains around here! :) Then, it starts to really down pour. Thomas is dressed in only my hoodie and his kilt, so we pack up the kids in the stroller and start the hike back to the bus station, not knowing when the next bus would come. (Bad decision #5.)

Now, at the bus station we realize that we have a choice...wait 2 HOURS for the next bus or walk back to town. The fickle sun was out again, so crazy us, we actually started walking!! Thinking that we would rather be moving than just sitting and hoping that we could just catch the bus at a stop further down the road. (Bad decision #6?) After walking for quite a while with no bus stops in sight...Ryan makes fun of me for happily pointing out a sign saying "Scone Palace 1 mile." (At this point what's another mile of walking right!?) I figure forget the bus. We need to go see something today, we will just fork out the money for a taxi to come pick us up.

You can't tell from this picture, but as we were walking towards the palace, the HUGGEST rain storm hit. Ryan and I couldn't help from just laughing hysterically as both our umbrellas are turned inside out at the same time and tour buses are flying past us spraying muddy water everywhere. But, really what else can you do? :) Thomas and Nathan are nice, warm and oblivious in the "bubble." Luckily, as soon as we got there, the sun was out again.

The hand dryer in the bathoom remedies the problem of Thomas' wet clothes, so we are able to walk around the Palace grounds. It was too late to go inside. (This is where 45 Scottish kings were crowned. Though, I think that they kneeled placing their hands on this stone, rather than sat on it like my boys did!!) Once again, Thomas and Nathan are just happy to spend their time playing with rocks and in the puddles. The funny thing is that with all of the walking we did from the games to the palace, you could actually SEE the games from where we were at! It was only about one farm field away! Bad decison #7. Not asking the easiest route to Scone Palace from where we were at! But, through it all we just laughed and the boys still ended up having a good time.

And despite a few uninformed, thus "bad" decisions, we were able to have a pretty fun and memorable day!

Aberdeen

On the road again...and you can see how excited the boys are to be back on a bus!

This time we were headed for Aberdeen, the "city of granite." Exciting I know, but they were celebrating "Tartan Day" and we wanted to check it out. Really, I have never seen so many granite buildings and it was beautiful. I think this picture looks like we are just standing in front of a backdrop.
We got there just in time for the bagpipe parade. Just as we were thinking what a nice day is was for a parade, it began to rain. I love that a little rain doesn't detour anyone in this country. The umbrellas just came out and everyone enjoyed the parade.

This was taken right after the parade got over. Note the blue skies now overhead. The weather here changes so fast.

What's a stone statue without a seagull perched on it's head?
After the parade, there was to be a festival at one of the parks. As Scottish weather would have it, we were only there a few minutes before it began to really pour this time. We just hid under a tree and ate one of the best hamburgers ever, made from real Angus beef. (Today, I get an email from Brittany saying not to eat the meat over here because of mad cow disease. Whoops, hope we don't die!)
It did finally clear up and we were able to have a great time. There was bagpipe bands, Celtic dancing, and people dressed up in kilts all over the place. Thomas looked like a complete tourist with his sneakers, hoody and kilt. But, he didn't know the difference. (I brought Nate's kilt as well, but forgot to put it on him. Thomas of course, insisted.) The other boys, in their full attire looked much more classy.
I wish we had a better picture of this...it was so funny. Thomas was running up and down in front of the crowd, wearing his kilt, flashing those on the front row and waving his sword just like "Brave Heart."

Who knew a little paper flag could provide so much entertainment?
Thomas could not be persuaded to try on the real helmet, as he is in love with his four dollar plastic one.

The flip side to this wonderfully fun filled family day was that we almost didn't make it back home. We usually buy our tickets for these kind of trips at the Dundee bus station ticket office. This time for some reason, they wouldn't sell us the tickets and said that we would need cash to buy them from the bus driver. So, Ryan runs off with Thomas to try and find an ATM. It seems to me like they are taking forever. When he gets back he tells me that he couldn't find a machine that would give us any money. (Ryan just got paid, hurray!! So, funds shouldn't have been a problem.) He was finally able to find one, but was only able to get out 10 pounds at a time. He got enough for one way tickets and we were on our way.

We get to Aberdeen and have a great time and then realize that we don't have enough cash for our ticket home. Long story, short we had a frustrating couple of hours walking around the city trying to find an ATM that would give us money.(The boys are tired and crying.) We somehow figure out that for some crazy reason the machines pull the money from the savings account, which is umm...empty. So then we are walking around trying to find internet access to transfer money. And of course by this time it is evening and everything is closed. We finally get cash in our hands and run to the bus station to make the last bus back, to find a huge line to a bus that doesn't have a ticket machine, the ticket office is closed and oh it's raining. The first bus driver looked and me with no mercy, but his friend in the back let us on when we paid him cash, which I am sure that he just pocketed. But, at this point we are just happy to be on our way home!