Our Trip to Scotland, Part One.

We arrived in Glasgow, Scotland early in the morning on Sunday. We took a taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. The driver had a thick accent and was quite entertaining and helpful. Our hotel was in the downtown part of Glasgow, right off one of the main streets that is closed to traffic. It has all kinds of shops and is full of people. We arrived at the hotel around 8 a.m. and Tyler and I immediately decided to take a nap. We had been flying all night and hadn't slept much on the plane. Ted was already in Scotland because he had work to do in France the week before. I told him to let us sleep for 2 hours and then wake us up. We slept about 4 and then he got us up. We took a metro train over to the conference center where he was going to have his meetings all that week so he could see where he needed to be and where he was going to be presenting his paper. After that, we walked downtown and stopped at a few shops and at a visitor's center. Tyler and I scheduled a tour to see the northern part of Scotland 2 days later. After that, it was about time to eat and then head back to the hotel.



Since it was summer, the sun was up until probably 11:00 at night. This was VERY difficult for us to get used to. We were walking around the shops until 9:00 or 10:00 without any idea that it was getting so late. After the first day of that, I told Tyler that we had to start making sure that we were in the hotel by 9:00 p.m. and then close the drapes to fake ourselves into feeling like it was night.

The next morning, Ted went to his conference and Tyler and I just walked and walked. We walked ALL OVER that downtown area of Glasgow. We went into some old churches and saw some REALLY old graveyards. They were eerily beautiful. We purchased lots of souveniers and had a great day.




The next day was our tour.

Scotland

We recently found out that Ted has a conference coming up in Scotland this summer. Tyler and I decided to travel with him this time. We are SOOO excited! We have been looking online for things to do while we are there. The conference is in Glascow, so we will spend one week there. We figure that while Ted is in meetings all day, Tyler and I will use public transportation to travel around Scotland. When Ted is finished with his conference, we will all travel to England and spend the second week there. We will travel all around England and then drive back up to Scotland to fly home. We will take lots of pictures and I will TRY to document our travels on here.

I had a great time visiting family in Springerville, Arizona over the Labor Day weekend. I went with my sister, Tanja, and her kids. We drove there Saturday morning and arrived about 2pm. We went to my cousin, Jeff's, house and visited with many family members I haven't seen in YEARS! It was great! I saw my Aunt Patsy, Aunt Neoma and her husband Ken, my cousins Cindy, Saphrona, Jeff and his wife, and Joel. I saw Carolyn and her husband and kids. Then there are my cousin's kids and the kids' kids. Too many to list. It was so nice to get to catch up with everyone.

The weather was nice and cool, though it rained quite a bit. It was a nice break from the heat of the valley. Tanja took all the pictures, so I will need to get some from her and include them on here.

Sunday morning, we all went to breakfast and then walked to church. The town is so small, you can walk all over. After that, we went to the cemetery to see where many family members are buried. It is a beautiful cemetery and there are many family names there that I recognized. We stopped by to see my dad's friend, Juaquin (sp?). They were best friends growing up and got into plenty of mischief together. It was nice to meet him. We then went and met lots of family at the park in Eager and let the kids play while the adults visited. My cousin Jeff's son, Matthew, had a contest with his sister, Marissa, seeing who could jump the farthest out of a swing. It was pretty funny. Marissa won.

In the evenings, we sat in our hotel room and I was able to visit with my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. Brek and his family and Tascha and her family came to Springerville, so there were lots of little babies for me to hug and kiss! They are all so sweet!

The weekend ended much too soon and we were on our way back to Gilbert. The traffic going home was HORRIBLE!!!!!! It seemed like the entire city of Phoenix was up in the mountains that weekend and we all decided to go home at the same time. I have NEVER in my life seen anything like it! It was most crowded just as we were coming down into Payson. It took us HOURS to go such a short distance. We had to stop and use the restroom and were in line for 1/2 hour. Once we got through Payson, the rest of the ride was fine. We had a great trip, but were happy to finally get home!

Emma came over and helped me start this blog. We added a background and a bunch of pictures. I hope I will be able to keep this thing going.

Susan (Ted's mom) was here for a visit this past week. We had fun. She left this morning and it is time to get back to real life. I expect to start working again this week.

We have a family reunion next weekend in Springerville, AZ. It should be fun. I hope to be able to visit with lots of family I haven't seen in a while.

Welcome!

This is my first attempt at blogging. We'll see how this goes. I will try to give updates on the goings on in our family - there's always something! I will also give tips and fun things I find out on a variety of topics.