Week One in Scotland...overnight flights, driving on the left, pink carpet...just a few of the gifts of the week!

Exactly one week ago, Janelle, Esther, Bella, River, Corine (Janelle's mom) and I were driving to the airport with 9 cardboard boxes, 1 suitcase, 1 bike box, 1 guitar, 6 carry-on bags, one giant double stroller, and one roll of tape (in case anything needed it).

Moving through airports with 3 kids and a ton of stuff was quite a chore...we needed every minute of our 2.5 hour layover in London, and we were very thankful for Corine!!

My wife is the master of fun colors and beautiful hair on little girls; Esther and Bella specialize in the faces!

We made it!  And we discovered an amazing park/playground right behind our "Flat"

This river runs by the playground, and it has a trail by it that runs for a few miles.  I ran some of it the other day and look forward to many runs along that path!!

Love the Old School Teeter Totter!

This is our friend, Justice Buchanan.  His dad, Travis, is doing a PhD at St Andrews and is actually an old friend from college.  It has been a HUGE blessing to have Travis (and his wife Jessica) here to give us many pointers and help us get settled in.

My school (St. Mary's) is behind that gate.  The building where I'll be taking classes this year was built in the mid 1500s! Many of the buildings in the city and the University were built around the late 1500s and early 1600s.  How amazing!

The North Sea in the background.  We have been SO thankful for Corine's help!  She has been amazing at putting together Ikea furniture, cleaning our Flat, loving on our kids.

An adventure/Tour day with Travis and Jessica and their kids took us to the Old Cathedral that was built in the 1400s and torn down by Protestants during the Scottish Reformation in the late 1500s.  St Andrews was the center of the Reformation in Scotland and my school, St Mary's, became the first (and central) Protestant training school for ministers in the late 1500s.

First Day of Primary One (UK version of Kindergarten) was today, and it went well.  Line of the day...Me - "Esther, did you meet any other new friends today (besides our neighbor)?" Esther - "Lots of kids wanted to play with me, but I told them all 'no'."

Esther loves that she gets to wear uniforms.  I'm sure I'm biased, but I'm pretty positive that she was the most beautiful little girl coming out of her classroom today!

Half-days for Bella.  She also had a great time.  We are so thankful that the girls got a good first day at school.

Walking to the beach after school.

Apparently sunny days like this are rare, so we decided to make the most of it.

Yes, that is the "Old Course" - the course where the British Open was first played and where is is still often played.  We are walking through!!

How about a swim in the North Sea?  Not too cold...if you compare it to ice water!  The girls didn't seem to mind.

River's first beach time.

Here we go!! We didn't stop until we were all the way in!

I was done with once, but they wanted to go again.  They were in the water WAY more that I could handle.  Please don't remind me that a 3 and 5 year-old little girl are tougher than I am...my ego can't handle it! ;-)

YES, this is the Chariots of Fire beach (where the running scene was filmed).  We are doing our best imitation.

As you can see, we have so much to be thankful for already, and we are having a lot of fun.

The actual settling in has been a process...it takes a while for everything to get in line (bank accounts, phone numbers, internet), and we went a couple days without mattresses.  But after Janelle and Corine made an epic 12-hour Ikea and Costco run, things started to shape up.  Our Flat is looking more and more like a home.  The pink carpet is perfect for our girls.  We are getting used to expecting rain.

We decided that we are not going to get a car for now, so we will be primarily a walking family.  I'm excited about that adventure and what that means for our pace of life and time together walking.

I had the realization yesterday while standing on the beach (that we just walked to from our home) and looking at this amazing historic city perched on the cliff while in my peripheral vision I can see the green for hole 18 of the Old Course...Wow...we seriously live here!  I was blown away by God's gifts to us that this is the place that we get to come live and study.  I know you may not believe me, but we really did not choose this place because of the city...I actually knew almost nothing about it.  We are here because of the professors here and what I want to study and because we felt like (as much as we could discern) that this is where God had us. 

Now being here, I feel totally spoiled.  Wow.  I guess the only other word is THANKS.

I know there will be many challenges and tons of work ahead, but for now we are simply enjoying our new home and God's good gifts.

God's grace and peace to you in Christ through the Spirit this day.