Beauty in Aberdeen

One of my favorite times of year in Aberdeen is when the Cherry blossoms come out. My walk to campus when we first moved here had more Cherry blossoms, (the one's you see below) where as now I only walk by one on campus. Fortunately, we still get to see these on our walk to church. There is a line of them in a walled cemetary and they lean over the wall giving some much needed color to the grey of King's Street.

Unfortunately, these last for only about two weeks and then they just look like regular green trees. Sad...I blame the fall.

Ceilidh

So, this past weekend I went to my first ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), which was the second one Kelli has attended since we've been here. This particular ceilidh was a fundraiser for our church, who is sending a team to Uganda.

For those who you who may be ceilidh illiterate, a ceilidh is a traditional Scottish dance (click here for more info). Scottish children grow up learning the dances in school, so they are all extremely familiar with the dances. It is one of those really cool pieces of culture in Scotland. The guys wear kilts and the girls usually dress up.

This ceilidh was at a random location downtown in a place called The Tunnels. The Tunnels is a venue under the street level in what were literally tunnels under the street. Pretty random, but it makes for a cool location. Here are some pics.



The first pic, above, was of the most random dance they did. This dance had a certain number of couples dancing in a large circle, and at one point two of the couples came together and spun around with the girls in the air. One group took a pretty awesome spill!

The band, below, is a group of the students from our university ministry who threw a band together for the evening. Two of the members play together in a ceilidh band normally, so they ended up being realy good (despite only one practice together!).





Here, above, is Kelli and I not dancing. We kept it that way through the evening even through ridicule. I kept persisting that WE were pregnant which meant that I couldn't dance as well. When that didn't work, I assured them that becoming a theologian was based on two decisions: 1) wanting to rock the sweet look that theologians pull off; and 2) not having to dance.

Below is a fun pic which doesn't really capture the quickness of the ceilidh dances but is a cute picture of two of the students from our small group (who are dating) as well as two of our friends talking on the left. We tried to get some videos up but we weren't able to for some odd reason. We'll see what we can do.

Baby Strobel

Well, word is out, we're having a baby! Kelli and I found out a while back, and it was hard to keep it a secret, but we managed pretty well. As you can see from the picture below, there is clearly something in the water here in Scotland. Several of our closest friends here our pregnant as well, each of us at slightly different phases in the process!



One of the joys of the timing of all of this is that we were able to tell my parents in person when they came for a visit, which was fun. I thought we were about to get kicked out of the restaurant we were in when I told them because my dad shouted, "What?!" Needless to say, it was a surprise. We decided to put my dad to work on research for us while they were here, as he is becoming an old pro at being an expecting grandfather!



Another aspect of the timing that worked out well was that we got our first scan the day before my parents left. Here is the little person living in Kelli. Quite the hour-glass figure huh?! I personally like the hands just chillin on top of their oval-shaped core. Makes me laugh every time.



Ever since the pregnancy Kelli has been on a cranberry and lime kick. It was such a hit that my dad and I kept ordering them as well - they are good! As most of you know, kelli is quite the coffee drinker, and you might be wondering how that is going. Another aspect of the timing that was incredibly providential was that kelli decided to give up coffee for lent, which started about 2 weeks before we found out that we were pregnant. Crazy!



This is our latest picture of Kelli's bump. She is just starting to show, and I think she feels a lot bigger than she really is. We'll do a better job of updating this with progress. The baby is due Oct. 28th, so Kelli is 16 weeks along. She feels a lot better these days than she did early on, but is still pretty tired. She is going to be cutting back on work bit by bit, and we hope that helps. That's it for now, we'll post more soon!

Balmedie Beach

Apologies for another long break in the blogging. I'll just blame it on the fact that I am pregnant, and just cannot be bothered to blog; however, you all know we tend to take some blogging breaks every now and then.

Kyle's folks came to visit in April, which was perfect timing because Kyle had just finished the whole PhD process. It was truly a lovely holiday. I'll post some more photos soon.

One evening before dinner we decided to work up an appetite by heading to the beach north of the city.

It was a quick stop, but definitely a workout!

Lots of wind and hills, sandy hills actually.


Forunately, the sky was nice and clear that night. Summer nights are almost here!