California Sun

Kelli's skin matches her dad's white shirt. She has officially taken on the British tone of skin. I was elected to grill some steak and make my famous (famous to me) honey-blackened salmon. It was a beautiful day, which basically means it was a typical Southern California day. Kelli and I are both feeling a bit better...steak always helps.

We've gotten a chance to hang out with both our little nieces, and here is a shot of Penny Jane, who is hilarious. I'm not sure what she is doing here, but there is a good chance she is doing some free-style crawling.

Here is Penny with Abby playing around in our backyard.

We have a little put-put green in the yard that the kids love playing with. Penny seems to be using the flag for some other purpose than I understand. It looks like she is attempting to use the flags as something like ski poles on the green. Golf might want to look into using this as a way to throw a curve in the game. I can just see Tiger out there with two poles trying to hit the ball.

I had to go out there and show them how it is done. The key to golf is the outfit. And being able to wear sweet and awesome outfits is the very reason I have gone into academics.

I think the woman's scarf really makes the outfit.

A hummingbird!

Do you see him?

An interesting trip...

Well, Kelli and I made our trip out to California!...and it was interesting. We had to wake up at 4 a.m. to get going, which means 8 p.m. California time (which was a bit depressing). Neither of us felt all that great, both having colds, but kelli was definitely worse off. Our taxi came at 5 a.m. to pick us up, and we were serenaded by three drunk lads singing "Be Our Guest" (which I'm sure the neighbours appreciated).

At the Aberdeen airport we ran into two of our elders from church, one of which was on our plane, which is a bit random. We had coffee with him for a while before we took off. We had a lovely conversation with an Aberdeen judge who had next to us (also a bit random).

Then we got to Heathrow. Heathrow is the perfect example of how problems don't end by throwing money at them. For those of you who have never been to Heathrow (count your blessings), here is what you have to do. You sit in terminal 5 to wait for your flight to appear on the screen (since terminal 5 is basically a mall, I'm convinced that they do this to try and get you to shop). Then, with 30 minutes left until boarding time, they tell you your terminal.

At this point, we get up and walk for about 10 minutes, go down escalators two levels underground, get a train to take us to where the "B" gates are, and then walk another 5 minutes to our gate. We check in, and walk down one of the longest jet-ways I've ever seen. At the end, when we're expecting to get on the plane, they send us down more stairs, until we've on the actual tarmack, walking under a plane in the rain (which of course makes perfect sense). Then they board us on a standing-only bus like cattle, and take us on some intra-Heathrow highway system until we get to our plane. The biggest surprise was when we started to leave - our plane was only half full (if that). You can see from the picture below that we were the only one's in our entire row. Kelli stretched out across the middle seats for about 2 hours during the flight. I'm convinced the rest of the passangers are still on a bus somewhere in Heathrow.

If you look really close, you can see another plane flying along with us as we made our descent into LAX - notice the smog - awesome.

Well, we landed safe, and the trip went over without flaw. Kelli and I are both still trying to get over our cold. I'm hoping and praying that I'm 100% before my class starts. We head up to see Kelli's family today which will be fun (but hot I imagine). It was 86 degrees here yesterday, which is about 30 degrees hotter than my body is used to. To add to the confusion I had mexican food which was excellent...mmmmm...burrito.

Ellon

Part of my job entails visitng students on their clinical placements. Today, I headed slightly north of Aberdeen, to a town called Ellon.
Quite a peaceful little town...

Lovely countryside en route

Sheep and Highland Cattle

And, of course, there's a massive ruined castle behind the health centre!

Rain with a vengeance

This week started out lovely in Aberdeen. On my walk to work one morning I saw purple flowers in the sunshine.

Another day there was a nice clear skyline off the sea...people kyaking out the mouth of the River Don

Today I went to Glasgow, and experienced a slightly cloudy and cooler walk in the Kelvingrove park...

Rain fell the entire train ride back, and then my walk from the train station to our flat was a humorous disaster! I think this is the hardest rainfall I have ever experienced! My tibias were aching because my jeans were soaked, and the wind off the north sea combined with the continuous horizontal projection of the rain upon my legs just chilled my bones! At one point I found myself hiking against the wind up a hill, and my legs literally stalled in the air because the wind was holding them back. It was just funny...I actually yelled at the wind a few times!

This picture just does't capture it...but at least you can see the defeat on my face! My upper body actually stayed dry, and my feet were dry until I was about 100 yards away from home. At that point I think the gortex in my shoes just gave up!

mobilise

We have neglected to share with you a major part of our life this year. Most Thursdays, any where from 4-14 university students have invaded our flat. You probably remember the Thanksgiving feast we shared with them in November. I remember our first meeting with them in October...they would shyly enter our flat and wait until we ushered them into the living room to take a seat. Now they come in laughing, quickly kick off their shoes and then run to the sofa to be the first to get a seat (the floor gets quite uncomfortable after an hour or so)! They even squeeze onto our loveseat (see below).

The students have been extremely polite and even tolerated a few of my baking experiments! There is always lots of tea, a little bit of juice, and we've even started going through two pots of coffee.

Tim (pictured below on the right) showed me up one week by bringing a two-tiered strawberry creme cake...it was amazing!!

Here are the Edinburgh Davids...

Its been a joy to open our home to these students. We've loved hearing them process university life, alongside opening God's word and praying for His will for our lives. We will miss them this summer...

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!!!


Kelli and I were looking through out pictures today and came across one of me with her mom and one of her with my mom, so we decided to post these, because it is Mother-in-Law's Day just as much as Mother's Day!!!





We hope you guys have fun without us and we'll see you soon!!!!

Cherry Blossoms!

Elgin

St Andrews

Aberdeen

Elgin Cathedral...finally!

Third time is the charm indeed. The first two times I tried to go to Elgin cathedral it has been closed...during opening hours. As a member of Historic Scotland, I was not impressed. But this time, it was not only open, but it was a beautiful day.

This cathedral was built in the 14th century, and, as you can tell, fell into ruin some time later after the Reformation (due, no doubt, to overzealous reformed preaching). This first pic is from "inside" the cathedral in the nave looking at the front. These two towers would have had large spires on top of them, and you can still climb to the top of the tower on the right (notice picture from above below).

I love trying to recreate the cathedral layouts while you are walking through. You can see the column foundations, the arches, some of the roofline, and even the place for the stainglass. Pretty impressive for a ruin.

This side area was still intact, and you can see how the ceiling would have looked in the side aisles and lower-level covered areas.

The picture below shows another section with the ceiling remaining. This was the aisle running alongside the high altar. There were some impressive tombs in the wall and floor that have been preserved well.

This picture is from the top of the tower pictured earlier. I might have been tired when I got to the top (these people loved their spiral-staircases). You can see Mel, Mark and myself walking down one of the side aisles coming towards the tower (Kelli ran up first). The room on the left is the covered room shown before, and you can see the back end of the cathedral here. It looks like it would have been slightly smaller than St. Andrews, but clearly no less impressive.

Here is a picture of me with the bad guy from Star Wars.

Visitors!

Random churches... Random harbors...

And crazy castles...good times!