Easter, Saturday Adventures, River's Birthday, and Funny Faces

Here are some pictures from our Scottish life in St Andrews from the past month...

He is Risen - Easter 2013!!  After two Easter Egg hunts and a fun church service, we enjoyed a cool picnic at the park before one more mad-dash Easter Egg hunt with some American friends also studying here!

The (American) football hold - quite efficient when you need to get somewhere quickly!

Beautiful Mama and Daughter!

River's 1st Birthday!

In our family, the first birthday is celebrated with (gluten-free, whole-grain) pancakes, which are fortunately one of River's favorite foods.  

Some dear friends, the Buchanans, came over to celebrate and gave River his first (Scottish) football.   He loves pushing a ball and chasing after it.  Even better is his knee-slide kick!  I tried to capture it in the video

 One of the highlights of the past month has been our Saturday adventures, exploring all of the places that we want to that are free with our annual Historic Scotland Pass.  Each Saturday, we load up the car and head out.  I read Narnia to the girls while Janelle drives.  It has been great!  Here are a few of our recent adventures...

Tentsmuir National Park and Beach.  Sunny but super-windy!  Whenever the sun comes out, we try to go enjoy it.
It was a perfect day to try out our new £2 Princess Kite.  It flew valiantly before meeting its demise on the beach!

Roar!  Waiting for the start of the Kate Kennedy Parade celebrating the history of St Andrews and Scotland.   Very random but great - people dressed up as important historical figures walking slowly through town.

Broughty Ferry Castle...fire the canon!

Dunfermline Abbey and Palace.  Built in the 1100s, but not muc left now.  Esther decided to be the cross since the gravestone was missing it next to our picnic spot.  Highlight = Robert the Bruce is buried in the church next to this picture! He is really revered here - more than William Wallace (it seems to me). 

Arbroath Abbey built over 60 summers starting in the 1100s!  About an hour north of us.

Not a bad place for some soccer/football!

River took his first steps here!  He is not fully walking yet - maybe because he is SO fast at crawling.  He currently loves climbing on anything he can and coloring like his sisters do!

Learning about the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 that was an important diplomatic letter and step toward the Scots gaining their freedom from England.

Determination. 

Choo Choo!  Train ride near Arbroath Abbey.

Loch Leven with the Buchanans!  Even though we couldn't get to the castle because high winds shut down the boat, we were able to have a ton of fun at an awesome park!  The parks here are way cooler than the States - I think it's because they don't worry about getting sued so they can try all kinds of crazy ideas.  Zip lines are common, merry-go-rounds, crazy bouncing rope merry-go-rounds...I could go on and on.

A quick dance show at the playground!

Pull-ups?

Last adventure - Elcho Castle - a private residence from the 1500s that was really fun to explore. 

The girls did the scavenger hunt, checking the boxes, including over 10 "bathrooms" like this one on the roof that River and I are modeling!

A couple of fun Scottish sayings this month:
Esther - "Dadda, you have a hole in your trousers."
Bella - "Trousers are pants, don't you know?"

Esther had a great 4 week holiday and was very ready to go back to school.  Her reading has taken off, and I love it that she really enjoys playing with the boys at her school, including sliding down the grassy hills and climbing trees.

Bella is settling into her new nursery (preschool) very well, which we are SUPER thankful for. Although we are still trying to figure out how to help steer her appropriately to new challenges, it is a MUCH better fit than the previous nursery.  She is also learning to read with Janelle with amazing ease.

Janelle is amazing!  She would tell you that she has never worked this hard in her life.  It is a gift to watch her love all four of us one day at a time.

I'm just finishing up Calvin's main theological writing, the Institute of Christian Religion, that gives his developed theology.  I figured if I'm going to do a PhD on Calvin, this would be a good place to start.  It has taken me a while to crank through, but I just finished it tonight!  Now I get to further process what I read so I can bring it together for the rough first chapter of my thesis. It has really been a treat to read Calvin for myself.  Although he sometimes gets a bad rap for his predestination doctrine, at the heart of his theology is an amazing picture of the loving Father God who invites us to participate in his life by being united with Christ by the Spirit.  By grace alone we receive Christ and all of his benefits in  which he cleanses us from sin and gives us his righteousness, even taking our attempts at godly living and perfecting them as he brings them to the Father on our behalf.  He makes what is ours his and what is his ours.

 Cheerio!  (I have legitimately received that greeting a few times recently)

We'd love to hear from you too!

May you know the extravagant love of our good Father today.
Forrest.Janelle
Esther, River, Bella