Sesame Street: Outdoors with Jason Mraz

My Sound of Music Ode to Edinburgh

Pubs on Every Corner

and Nutella on my toast

Medieval Castles and more parks then most...

Cobble stone streets made for kings

These are a few of my favorite things

When the fuse blows

When the rain sings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

and then i don't feel soo bad.

This Jason Mraz video is going to be mommy and Aricin's theme song for the summer...

Holyrood Park hike to the Salisbury Crags

We did a little hike this morning to the top of the Salisbury Crags- it wasn't far, it just took a little over an hour from our flat to the top and back with the kids. The views from up there where amazing! The picture above is the Queen's palace- word on the street is that she vacations here in July- I'm hoping to pop in for a cup of tea :)

We're actually here... In Edinburgh

our flat...

View of Salisbury Crag out our window

The courtyard in the Moray House of Education at the University

We're here. We're actually here. After about 23 hours of traveling with two kiddos we made it to our flat. One of our bags met us at the airport the other 4 had to be delivered to us the next day because they got lost in Amsterdam. The kids where troopers on all three flights and slept. I wish Aaron and I could say we slept but that didn't happen until we got the flat. Our landlord, Jonathon picked us up at the airport and gave us a quick tour of the city, he also had our fridge stocked with a few things which was nice. We're still kind of adjusting to the time difference (7 hours ahead of Colorado/ 8 hours ahead of California). Today was our first day getting out and it was great to see Aaron's office is only a block away. We walked the Royal Mile - the Queen's palace is a few blocks away and the Royal Mile is the road from her Palace to Edinburgh Castle. We picked up sim cards for our cell phones and now have UK numbers we can call each other on. We also hit up the grocery store and got a few things. We even got Fish and Chips for dinner.

I so love hearing people talk. We are in the home land of Sir Sean Connery, Tony Blair, William Wallace, JK Rowling who wrote Harry Potter based on a school pretty close to here. And oh yeah, the Loch Ness Monster is around here somewhere. It's fun to finally be here and start to explore this fun city.

Our new address is:

4/11 Dumbledykes Road

Edinburgh

Midlothian

EH8 9UR

May 2010

Front Porch fun with Daddy

Matt & Christa's Shower...

Whelp, May has almost come to a close. We've been busy throwing a super fun couples shower for the Cartier's and getting ready for the trip. Here's an update.... We leave in about 50 hours and things are really coming together... We've found someone to house sit for us while we're gone, we have someone that wants to rent out our car for the summer and we have just committed to a charming little flat in Edinburgh. All i can say is God is good and despite all our worries he has once again provided. I'll try to post some pics of the flat soon. Pray us for and our nearly 24 hour journey of flights with the kids.

April 2010

Cinco De Mayo Kisses

Cinco De Mayo

Happy Girl

Looking like a vintage Aricin pic

Guitar Fun

Reach for it...

Two little monkey's sitting on a bed...

Tally flipping her brother off :)

She's 6 months old

first day eating baby food

birthday cupcake

the party...

I found Aricin "cleaning" his sissy with a an entire box of baby wipes.

April was a blast! We threw a 2nd birthday party for Aricin with the theme of "If you give a mouse a cookie" one of his favorite books. Aricin was a little weirded out when we sang to him and told him to blow out the candles- he really hasn't been to many parties and didn't know what we were doing- it was pretty funny. The weather out here has been so much nicer then last april- we haven't had much snow- instead lots of nice spring days.

Tally is growing so fast- she's still having a tough time sitting up on her own and isn't a big fan of baby food but she loves watching her big brother and is most of the time a happy girl. Aricin is our little chatterbox- he loves to ask questions and try new words. Lately he's been talking about the Ocean in California and Uncle Jon in San Diego. He's a sweet heart and loves to help me out by bringing things that i might need when his sister is crying. He completed a music class in April that he wasn't so into. I think he had more fun watching his mamma crawl on the ground like a snake and jump like a frog- mamma's glad the class is over too :)

Edinburgh Update: We fly out in exactly two weeks and i'm started to get a little more nervous about this. We think we have someone to rent our house here and we don't have a flat yet in Scotland. We've been searching on line which is great but sometimes it's wise to see and smell the place before you lock into it- so there's a chance we might just wait until we get there- yes i know we're crazy- everyone continues to remind us in case we forget.

I'll update you soon on more of our crazy adventure.