>Scott says that we are transitioning from la nina to el nino, which means we should be moving from cold wet weather to warmer drier weather patterns. Our next few days top out at 72 degrees so Im hoping this transition really is in the works. Scotland never seemed so warm. Im wondering if we will break 90 any time soon. Or 80. Or 75.
>Cho Cho Irish Calabrese Barton! You go Choooooooooch!
>Only because we are simply amazed with bee’s ability to hula hoop…
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…but welcome ChoCho, Cho Cho, Cho-Cho, Cho.Cho (I think we need a run election as we understand that there has been some voter fraud!).
Cho Cho loves to sleep in the same spot as Marky and she loves to have the girls pick her up. She took a nice little snoozer underneath the hammock yesterday after Bee and Frankie wore her out!! And her eyes are starting to change from blue to brown!
>watch Bee do the hula hoop!
>our very last day in scotland we saw another rainbow!
Also, lots of lobster fishing off the coast of st. andrews! And lets not forget the Scottish specialty, the deep fried Mars bar. Yum!
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>So, we havent posted in a week. We were having too much fun! We made it back home yesterday, to sunny and dare I say “warm” Michigan!
Last Sunday we trekked up to St. Andrews. We wanted to visit the oldest university in Scotland, St Andrews University, dating back to 1410. We had read that the town was a beautiful coastal town, and home to St. Andrew’s golf course, which I will admit I only know through x-box! Besides St. Andrew is Scott’s patron saint!
St. Andrews really was amazing. Its located on the east coast of scotland in the “kingdom of Fife”. Bee loved staying in the dorms (one of the dorms is turned into a “hotel” during the summer. Hotel is a stretch i would say, but the cost was right). We also had breakfast in the cafeteria each day, which Bee and Frankie thought was the most exciting thing. Between the university and st. andrew’s golf course we did not lack access to good restaurants. We had excellent Thai and Indian. The only let down was the sticky toffy pudding, which is a scotland favorite (more on that one later!).
We put our feet in the North Sea, visited St. Andrew’s cathedral and walked by the old castle.
And thank you to the St Andrews University x-country team. We found an excellent 10k run of which 5k meander through the old and new courses of the St Andrew golf course. I snuck off the pathway to run across the 8th green just because it seemed like fun. I snuck into a sand in one of the back holes and drew a hear in the sand – I thought maybe if someone’s ball got trapped there it might make them happy.
There’s more to say about st andrews and our vacation but I will just post a few pictures for now!
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Scott contemplating swimming across the Firth for Forth to Dundee.
>Scott posted the panorama he created of our hike to the top of North Berwick Law, an extinct volcano in North Berwick. Who ever would have thought we would have climbed so many volcanoes this week? Here are a few more pictures of the hike. Bee and Frankie had a ton of fun on the hike, and it was pretty tough for them in some spots! We had a little picnic at the top of oat cakes and fruit roll ups. Besides the amazing panoramic view, the summit contained an old lookout from the Napeolonic Wars in the early 1800s and also a concrete lookout from WWI and II. The original whale jawbone that scott mentioned was placed up on the mountain in 1709.
They say you can see the Edinburgh castle from the top of the Law but I couldnt see it, although i didnt really know quite where to look. The weather was perfect for hiking and viewing – about 62F and brilliantly sunny. After hiking the law we learned that it was formed as a result of the mouth of the volcano being choked with its own molten lava, forming a plug. Later, when glaciers came down during the ice-age, it peeled away the softer rock layers leaving the hard black volcanic rock. Bee and Frankie were very excited to be touching volcanic rock!
We then trekked through town to get over to the Law. As you can see the way was well posted!
Here is also a picture of the steeple for the Star of the Sea catholic church.