Great weather, great food and great friends

Ryan and I have really made some great (use the word great much?!) friends here in Aberdeen and we had a beautiful Saturday a couple of weeks ago and were able to have most of them out to the house for a little BBQ. Ryan made some delicious hamburgers and we enjoyed jumping on the trampoline (long story about this, I'll have to tell you later) and camp fire music. We even had a little game of flip cup; our Welsh friends had never played so we had to show them how! Ryan and I love having people over and entertaining and I'm hoping the Scottish summers will allow us to do it often!

Fun in the Sun

We have had perfect weather for 8 days straight!! And when I say perfect I mean, it's 65-70 degrees but in the bright sunshine, it feels like 85 and to me, that's perfect! We've taken full advantage of the weather. Ryan played two rounds of golf this weekend and Angus and I have been enjoying lots of runs/walks and playtime outside. Sunday, we headed north to Cruden Bay which is a cute a little town with an amazing golf course (Ryan played there on Saturday) and some beautiful beaches. Because it doesn't get very hot here, the beaches are hardly used meaning they stay very clean! We had a great walk along the beach; it was even warm enough to put our feet in! If we were guaranteed summer days like this, I don't know if we would ever leave. However, it is Scotland and the weather is ever changing (as I type this it's cloudy and 50 degrees with a cool wind).

My very white feet in the very cold North Sea!

Ryan trying to convince Angus that the water isn't that cold!

Playing fetch.

Needless to say, we have a very tired puppy today. We did manage to get a few miles in this afternoon on the forest trails but he is a pooped pup. We are hoping that we have a summer full of days like Sunday, it was absolutely perfect!

Countdown to Texas is 16 days!

Picture perfect

I have the Instagram app on my phone which instantly turns a regular old picture into a vintage masterpiece (that may be a little dramatic but the pictures can turn out so cool!). Here are a few pictures from the last couple of months.

I love the Scotland clouds!

Paul Anderson's fiddle. He is a famous fiddler from the Aberdeen area and I had the honor of hearing him play.

Our backyard.

Beautiful rainbow.

Apple blossoms in Edinburgh.

High tea at the Sheraton

The Elephant House in Edinburgh. Where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series.

A beautiful sunset.

Another rainbow. We see lots of these here!

Hope you all have a FABULOUS weekend. Count down to Texas, 34 days!

New Addition

That's right, we have a new addition to our family! His name is Angus and he is an 8 month old chocolate lab. Ryan and I knew we wanted a dog when we found out we were moving to Scotland and would have so much space. However, the last few months we have been weighing out the pros and cons and debating on whether or not we wanted one. They are a big responsibility! After lots of discussion and looking around we found our match. We found Angus through an online advertisement site called Gum Tree; a family was selling Angus because they were moving. We fell in love with his sweet face in his picture and we thought 'what a perfect way to pay it forward' since we had to give our dog, Ruger, away when we moved to Singapore. We contacted the family several times and decided to go meet him one afternoon and ended up bringing him home. He is such a sweet puppy and fits in perfectly with us. He has already been on a few runs with me and Ryan is having him properly retrieve a ball!

After a run with Mom! He was pooped!

We have a huge field by our house without sheep or cattle (for the moment) so lots of room to run and play!

My boys

Scotland is a very dog friendly place so he should be able to come just about everywhere with us and there are great kennels for him to stay when we are away. Looking forward to some great times with this sweet puppy! Oh and I've had several people ask what we will do with him when we move....bring him with us of course. He will be a great Scotland souvenir with a great Scottish name (Angus cattle is from Scotland).

Balmoral Run

I ran my first race in the UK about two weeks ago. It was a 10K held at Balmoral Castle which is the castle the royal family still visits in the summer. Rumor has it that Will and Kate were there the next day to celebrate their 1 year wedding anniversary. The run was great and we had a fun day at the castle. My friend, Kristin, ran the 5K and our friends, Caitlin and Tash came along for support; while my sweet hubby was a very good chauffeur, bag watcher and photographer! He is a trooper!

Kristin coming ahead of the boys! She did great!

The support! Ryan looks comfortable!

First race in the UK. Official time 53:00, not bad with the monster mile hill I had to run up! ;-)

Girls' Day Out-High Tea in Edinburgh

A few weeks ago I went to Edinburgh for a girls' day out for Alyssa'a leaving 'do' (they call a party a do in Britain). Alyssa was only on a short training assignment for work here in Aberdeen and is now on her way back to Houston. I only met her in February but it's been a fun few months (she was also on the Spain trip)! The day was a surprise for Alyssa, she did know we were going to Edinburgh but not why. We had a great day exploring the city (first time in Edinburgh for me and my first train ride!) and then ended our day with a fabulous high tea at the Sheraton before making our way back to Aberdeen.

Grabbed a quick bite to eat before hiking up Arthur's Seat!

Beautiful day in Edinburgh. Alyssa with the bagpiper!

We also hiked up Calton Hill to the National Monument of Scotland.

High tea at the Sheraton was so delicious!

Barcelona Day 3: Hop on, Hop off Bus Tour

Day 3 was again busy, busy.  We started off with a delicious breakfast at a little breakfast bar located in the La Boqueria Market (our cooking instructor told us about it). We all devoured a custard filled fried donut topped with sugar. Really words can not describe how incredibly delish this little treat was...it was great fuel for a very busy day! After breakfast we started our hop on, hop off bus tour that took us around the entire city. There wasn't much we didn't see in the city of Barcelona!

Yummy donut treats and cute Spanish boys!

Here we go!

One of the highlights of the whole trip was getting to see La Sagrada Familia on the inside and outside. This is one of Barcelona's most famous landmarks and there is a reason behind all the hype. It's the famous Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi's, most famous work. The construction of the building began in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026 (exactly 100 years after Gaudi's death).  Most are skeptical that it will be finished in this time because of funding and structure. The base of the cathedral was not built to withstand the final product so there will be a lot of foundation work, etc needed to support this massive building. The detail in this building is indescribable and there was no detail left out. On one side is the birth of baby Jesus and on the other side is the Crucifixion of Jesus. My pictures don't do the cathedral justice but you can imagine the detail and beauty, none the less. When Gaudi first presented his thoughts on the design of the cathedral to the Roman Catholic Church, they were very hesitate and were not interested, at the time, at it becoming a Catholic Church. It wasn't until November 2010 that the Pope made the visit and dedicated La Sagrada Familia. If this interests you at all, I highly recommend visiting the website to learn more about the history of the Cathedral and Gaudi, it really is amazing!

Next big stop on the tour was Park Guell which again is filled with lots of Gaudi's work along with some great views of the city. I love the Spanish tiles and colors.

Kristin and I hopped off at Camp Nou (pronounced new), where the Barcelona futbol (soccer) team plays. Kristin is a huge fan and grew up playing so we couldn't drive by without hopping off and catching some photos. They do tours of the facilities but they come at a pretty penny and we didn't have much time so we figured we will just have to come back and actually catch a game (they were out of town the weekend we were there)!

Montjuic (Jewish Hill) was our next stop. Here we were very close to the Olympic Park but it was getting late (and we wanted to catch the Fountain Show) in the day so we didn't actually visit the park. Montjuic provides some great shots of the city and was a nice area to walk around. As the sun set, it got very chilly but we, luckily, found a little place selling tea and coffee to warm us up!

The Magic Fountains was a musical, light and water show; a lot like the Bellagio in Vegas. It was a perfect ending to a great day of touring the city.

And because it was our last night in the lovely Barcelona, we couldn't go without one more night of tapas and sangria. We found a great tapas place in the El Born/La Ribera area. Afterwards we did a little dancing and then called it a night before our flights back to Aberdeen early the next day.

Check out the before and after picture of the food. Seriously some of the best food I've ever had!

 Barcelona has my heart and I can not wait to go back!