Catching Up

Well, it's the busy holiday season, so of course I am behind on my posting. 

To start off, Jaalla and I went to see the Nutcracker back at the beginning of the month.  It's our annual tradition, and we had a great time as usual.



Last weekend, we had a girl's night at my house.  Sadly, Sheri is moving back to Mississippi and leaving us.  We are going to miss her so much!  Anyway, we had to have a girly and fun evening to remind her what she'll be missing.










We baked, decorated, and ate Christmas cookies.  Then we did a Chinese gift exchange, or "Dirty Santa" as the Mississippi girls called.  That just doesn't sound right to me.  Then we played Linkity.  Fun game!  Then we spent lots of time taking pics in front of the tree.



We'll still keep the girl's nights going but it just won't be the same without Sheri.

Girl's Weekend

My friend Tish came to spend the weekend with me two weekends ago (I know, sorry I am trying to catch up).  We had a blast!  We shopped, went out to eat, watched movies, and knitted.  And look what she made me!



Matching "Knit Chick" shirts!  We wore them on Saturday when we went out shopping.

Reading and Knitting

I took Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with me on the trip.  I thought it appropriate for the area where we were traveling.  Unfortunately, I didn't do a lot of reading while on the trip, but am finishing it up now.  I have read it before and really don't mind reading it again since it is such a wonderful book.



I also finished quite a bit of knitting before we left.  I made socks for Jason, Erin, and Andrew as a thank you for letting us stay with them while we were there.

Here's Andrew's socks because baby socks are just so gosh darn cute.

United Kingdom Vacation - Part 3

While we were still in Scotland, we took a 3 hour bus trip down to Edinburgh from Aberdeen and spent two nights there in a B&B.  Edinburgh was great!  There was so much history and things to see. 

We spent a large part of one of our days at Edinburgh Castle.  It is home of the Scottish crown jewels.  This is a picture of the outside at night. 



There is a chapel inside that was built on the summit  of the castle rock in the early 12th century for Queen Margaret.  It is the oldest building in Edinburgh Castle.  Kevin wanted to shoot the cannon really bad.



The second day we did a tour of Mary King's Close.  It was a tour of abandoned houses and walkways underneath the city that have been abandoned, some since the plague hit in the 17th century.  It was extremely interesting.  Unfortunately they wouldn't let us take pictures, but if you want to know more about it, you can click on the link. 

I absolutely had to have a picture in one of their red phone booths.  In the background is St. Giles Cathedral.  John Knox was the minister there in the 16th century. 



In fact, he is buried under this very parking space.



This is the most awesome place we ate at in Edinburgh.  They made Scottish hog roast rolls and they were so delicious!  They pulled the meat off the pig that is sitting in the window of the shop.



Anyway, it was a great time and we thoroughly enjoyed our entire trip. 

United Kingdom Vacation - Part 2

We left London on a Saturday and flew to Aberdeen, Scotland.  Our friend's Jason and Erin live there with their sweet little six month old son Andrew.  We were so excited to see them and spend time with them.



Here's Kevin making Andrew laugh, or is it the other way around.  He is such a cutey!  Our friend's were great hosts and fed us very well with great Scottish food.  Needless to say, we did not go hungry. 

They took us to two castles while we were there.  The first was Dunnottar Castle which was very near to Aberdeen.  Dunnottar is the castle that William Wallace (Braveheart) famously took in 1297.  The views were breathtaking! 





The other castle they took us to was Crathes Castle.  We actually went inside this castle and saw all the beautiful rooms.  We weren't aloud to take pictures inside though.





And the foliage was just beautiful all around the castle.  Erin spotted this tree, and we just had to take lots of pictures under it.



We had such a wonderful time in Scotland.  The weather was wonderful the entire time we were there.  it was quite a bit colder than we were used to, but it was great. 

Next we travel to Edinburgh...

United Kingdom Vacation - Part 1

Okay, things have finally settled enough for me to blog about the trip.  I will be breaking this up into parts because this was an 11 day trip, so there is lots to share.

We started off with two full days in London.  We hit the ground running at 8:30 a.m. when we got off the plane.  The first sight we saw was the iconic Big Ben and Parliament.  Then we went on to Westminster Abbey and spent several hours inside.  There are 3,300 bodies buried inside.



That evening we enjoyed fish and chips at The Sherlock Holmes pub and afterwards went to see a play called The Woman in Black.  Kevin had seen it in the same theatre his senior year in high school and remembered it being pretty scary.  He was right.  It was good and scary!

The next day we went for a walk in Hyde Park which is the equivalent of Central Park in New York City.  It was beautiful!  There were people riding their horses and the leaves were changing color.  I probably broke the law or something, but I got to feed a squirrel out of the palm of my hand.



For lunch we ate at the Square Pie Company.  It was delicious!!  That afternoon we spent several hours at the British Museum.  It was amazing.  Kevin was devastated because the entire lower floor was closed and it housed ancient Greece and Rome.  Regardless, we were totally wiped out when we left.  We saw the Rosetta Stone, some amazingly preserved mummies, and gorgeous statues.



That evening we ate at The Jugged Hare pub and enjoyed a variety platter of interesting items.  Our favorite was the devils on horseback.  From what I could determine, it is a prune that has been reconstituted and wrapped in bacon and baked.  I know it sounds disgusting, but it was actually quite good. 

That pretty much ended our time in London.  We regretfully did not have time to go to the Tower of London.  I REALLY wanted to see the crown jewels.  Hopefully there will be another trip in the future and we can go see more.  We agreed that we both love London. 

Next week I will begin Part 2 which takes us into Scotland...

Farewell

Kevin and I leave tomorrow for a trip to London for a few days and on to Aberdeen and Edinburgh Scotland for a week.  It will be the first vacation we have taken in a few years and I can't even tell you how much we are looking forward to it!  I will post pics when we return.