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| After I turned in my last paper of the Fall (the final 5,000 of 27,500 words...not bad for an engineer youth minister I guess!), we hit the road to some fun adventures near and far! This one was to the Scottish Deer Center. Bella is fearlessly feeding Izzy, a Roe Deer. |
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| A Harris hawk doing a flyby. It was raining while we were there so we got a private showing everywhere we went! The girls are quite girly but they are not fazed at all by the fact that the trainer was feeding the hawk (and owl) pieces of baby chicken! I love it! |
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| Slobbery hands! (Red Deer) I did get to feed an awesome huge stag later - super cool! |
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| Highland "Coos" in all their hairy glory at Glamis Castle. Highlight of this smaller, private castle for Esther was seeing the rooms actually full of real furniture like people lived there (unlike most of the big castles). Seeing Santa here was pretty exciting too! |
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| Edinburgh Castle on a huge volcanic rock in the middle of town. Pretty amazing! Highlight for the girls was seeing the royal crown. I liked the sword. |
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| Testing our our rain boots at a little fishing village nearby as we sought sea glass. This adventure concluded with some amazing fresh fish 'n chips! |
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| Christmas Eve Family service at Holy Trinity Church in the center of St Andrews. The building dates from the 1500s...quite a privilege to worship God there together. |
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| Angel Esther in the Christmas pageant at her school. She said all her lines loud and clear (and sung her songs the same way)! We are so thankful for Esther's school. She recently, out of the blue said, "Dad, I really like school. I'm excited to go back to school soon." Wow...thankful for that and a wee sad that our little girl is growing up! |
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| Once a week gluten-free pizza time! Check out the Snowman! |
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| Our advent candles. Our little church doesn't do advent candles so Janelle took care of that with our own custom set. Dinner routine: Little girl as she lights the candle (and hopefully doesn't light her hair on fire or burn her finger) - "Today we light the candle of hope (love, joy, peace)" All of us - "Jesus gives us hope (love, joy, peace)!" |
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| Christmas present - putting set from Aunt Lo and Uncle Mike! River is keeping watch. |
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| First putting lessons on the Old Course at St Andrews - the birthplace of golf. Not a bad place to learn! |
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| Christmas morning! |
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| Christmas morning scavenger hunt included a stop for silly pictures! |
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| The scavenger hunt led to two Hello Kitty scooters that the girls are loving. No significant crashes yet (holding our breath!). |
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| On our way for a New Years Day adventure to northern England! |
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| I couldn't resist pretending I was in Lord of the Rings by thinking I was lighting the signal beacon to call for help. (I have always wanted to be Aragorn) |
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| The 4-hour car ride (each way) led here - Hadrian's Wall - the remains of an amazing stone wall built by the Romans around 122AD as the northern boundary of their empire to keep the Barbarians out. It is the largest ancient monument in Northern Europe. Highlight for me - hiking to the top of an awesome grassy hill with the sheep and walking along a good portion of the wall. Highlight for the girls (after getting a little wet on Dada's hill adventure) - "getting warm in the museum." |
The adventuring (during the week) is ending and studying has resumed, but we are thankful for a great break ('holiday' as they say here). I hope you had a great Christmas Holiday as well.
Blessings in Christ and Happy New Year!
Forrest
