Highlights of Today

1. Ross (3 years old): "Lauren, can I see your nipples? Here're mine. They're tiny."
2. Ross has started using the word "effectively." Correctly. Example: "But Lauren, effectively, I can eat this bite and still get a biscuit, right?"
3. Bill's mom, Gram, is visiting. And she brought her black lab. It's so nice to have a dog around. And a grandma.
   

Scottish weather is like a muscular, moody, beautiful poet. He speaks his poems aloud; his face, his voice, and his words are too exquisite to ignore. He doesn’t use iambic pentameter or regular rhyme but mocks meter and any sense of predictability. Until, with a masterful volta, he ends abruptly, and the listener becomes nothing more than a willing victim, stunned and satisfied.

(I wrote this last night when I was lying in bed, listening to the gale-force winds and rain, and remembering the impressions I had of the weather in Wuthering Heights. This description might be a little dramatic, but yeah, so was the weather last night, and it kind of cast that mood.)

The Week in Review

On Wednesday morning, I went to Edinburgh to meet up with a backpacking tour group to travel around the Highlands and the Isle of Skye. But the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh was super late because of construction on the railway line, so I got to Edinburgh after the tour had left. So I rescheduled for another tour in a couple of weeks and walked around Edinburgh the rest of the day. I really loved Edinburgh -- even the kitschy souvenir shops that sell whiskey, "kilts," family coat of arms and all of that stuff.

On Thursday, Jo, the kids, and I drove north. Great weather. Wonderful scenery. (I've never seen so many rainbows in my entire life as I did in that one day.) Here are some of the highlights.

We stopped at Doune Castle along the way. It's where the first part of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. You know, when the two guys are arguing about swallows or something, and one of them replies that he'll fart in the other guy's general direction? Yeah, that's this castle.






Then we drove until we got to Oban, caught a ferry to a little island in the Inner Hebrides (Lismore), turned around and came back.




We stopped on the way back to take some photos of Highland cows.




And here's this photo, just because I think it's absolutely hilarious. It kind of makes me like McCain a little more.

The weather was unbelievable today, so we headed to Loch Lomond for a barbeque.

As of yesterday, I've been in Glasgow for one month. Doesn't feel like it's been that long.

My New Hiking Boots

It might be shallow of me to be this excited about material things, but I'm just as excited about these as I was my Frye boots, my MacBook, and my iPod. Judge me. I don't care. I'll just be gently petting my new Merrells whilst you shake your head in (jealous) disgust. AND they were on sale.