Our Second Autumn in Scotland...it's feeling like home

(Again, I'm sorry that it has taken this long to post an update. Thank you for coming back to check in! Also sorry this is so long - I had too many wonderful pictures to choose from. Finally, any pictures that look professional probably are, thanks to the amazingly gifted Whitney Buckner)

Our life!

These three are so much fun! 

This little guy's smiles melt all of us. And he loves to make us laugh.

   This fall I had the privilege of "Tutoring" (think TA) for an undergraduate introduction to theology course at the University of St Andrews. I had two groups of about 10 students (mostly 18-19 year-olds). We had a ton of fun together and it was such a privilege to get to know them and help them understand what the Christian teaching is about God, Jesus, the world, people, etc. At the beginning of each session, I would ask a question to help us get to know each other and feel more comfortable in our discussions. In these contexts I had some classic unintentional American vocabulary blunders:

#1 - (as the leaves were beautiful orange and red out the window) - Me - "What is your favorite thing about the Fall?"

Students - [Silence...] "You mean Adam and Eve?"

Me - "No...Autumn!"

#2 - (On October 31) - Me -  "What is your favorite Candy?"

Students - [Silence...] "What do you mean? Oh, do you mean Sweetie?"

(I should have known - Esther and Bella love their 'Sweeties' here)

There were others, but I'll leave it at those two for your enjoyment! That is a picture as well of our time here this Autumn - Enjoying life, feeling more and more at home, but not forgetting that we are still Americans here with a specific task and purpose.

Esther's "Narnian Princess Party"for her 6th Birthday

Since I'm not especially gifted at girly, princess, pink decorating, my job was to keep River from destroying the decorations and make a dragon head...see below to see how I did!

That is a lot of pink. Perfect if your name is Esther (or Bella)!

Narnian Princess ready to get started in training (that is the kind of outfit princesses wear to battle!)

My job - lead the Narnian Scavenger Hunt to find and Slay the Dragon!

Playing Pass the Parcel (favorite Scottish game) to figure out the next clue. 

Eshter's whole P2 class running to Slay the Dragon!

If you hit the dragon with enough plastic ball-pit balls, you will slay that fierce dragon (thanks to Travis Buchanan!)

Time to hear the rest of the story - Aslan's amazing un-dragoning of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Castle Cake! (I may or may not have had a hand in the decorating of that pink palace...I'm not admitting anything)

My pride and joy. (We are not sure what to do with it now though!)

One of the sweet gifts of this season has been riding bikes with my big girls!

Almost every day this fall, I have gotten to ride with Bella to and from Nursery (Preschool). We got some crazy looks as a 4 year-old cruised through town in her pink dresses and pink jacket!

Mondays were ride to school with Esther day! The violin in the backpack for Esther was a fun added twist.

Since he is always wanting to do what his sisters are doing, River has been working on his Balance Bike (Thanks Tom and Corine) - On January 2,  2014, it clicked! He is totally a balance bike man now - such a proud and exciting dad moment.

We live a couple miles from a key Air Force Base for the Royal Air Force...

Air Show 2013 - Our favorites were the planes that put out the red, white and blue jet stream and the ice cream :-)

Even cooler than the airshow - getting a private tour of the Base with one of the dad's from Esther's P2 class!

That's a nearly $200k helmet she's trying on!

I think she looks ready to go!

At the air show we waited for an hour to sit in a fake plane, but this time we walked right into a real Typhoon (one of the top planes in the world right now). The Mums and Dads (me included) were much more excited about it than our children!

Watching take-off right next to the runway! So thankful for fun adventures together.

Speaking of adventures...I bought myself a cheap tent with some birthday money in May, promising the girls that we'd go camping this summer. On 20 Sept, the last day of summer, I realized I was about to be a liar, so we set out for a St Andrews beach and set up shop for our first beach camping adventure!

I think River has it under control.

River is well on his way to camp fire management!

Being a rookie to this whole camping on the beach thing, I forgot to look into the tide situation in advance. We set up as far away as we could, but I had an interesting night's sleep as the water came up to about 8 feet from our doorway. Fortunately, no scrambling out of a wet tent at 3am! Thankful I didn't have to learn the tide lesson the hard way!

We LOVE camping! The girls are constantly asking when we are going next time!

Personal bonus from camping - Esther woke us up early, and we went out on the beach to see dolphins playing about 100 yards off shore - something I have been hoping to see but had not yet. Thanks God!

Fresh Fruit!

Random gift of the fall - fresh fruit growing all around us! We had crabapples, blackberries (tons),  plums, pears, and lots of apples. We learned early on that most people who live here don't seem to care about the fruit, so we asked permission to harvest and always got a 'yes' (I'm sure the cute kids had nothing to do with their consent). That was seriously a gift of grace - fresh fruit every day without even having to plant them. One of River's favorite fall activities was picking (and eating) blackberries! (By the way, our own garden which we planted with about 10 different vegetables yielded two carrots: average diameter = 1/8 inch; average length = 1 inch. We sliced them up and enjoyed them together, but they didn't exactly fill us up! Maybe we should stick with harvesting.)

We have been so thankful for our wonderful visitors! Janelle's parents came for a couple weeks in October over Esther's school break.

Edinburgh adventure day in the rain!

Edinburgh castle with the coveted audio guides and our fun Oma and GPa!

Finally headed up the Highlands! Looking at the huge pine trees that came from the States at the beginning of the 20th century...I guess things grow quickly here!

Who knew Scotland had its own version of Rocky Mountain Aspen trees? Golden silver birch trees everywhere...another sweet gift that reminded us of Colorado.

Yep - missing those two front teeth!

Poo-Sticks - favorite running water activity!

A hike to "Green Loch." There may have been quite a few "dadda are we almost there" moments. My answer every time, "Yep. I think it might be just around the corner up there." Eventually it was true!

We finally made it to Loch Ness! The biggest body of water in the UK. (By the way, if you are ever up here, skip the visitor center and go straight to the castle. Here's what you'll learn at the visitor center: there is a story about a Loch Ness Monster for which there is no evidence but cannot be totally disproven.)

Although we did not see Nessy, we had a ton of fun playing Hide and Seek at the ruins of a great castle (Urquhart) on the banks of Loch Ness!

GPa and the River-man. Good.

"Thank you for our bikes" present to Oma and GPa - our first extended bike ride out of town.

The girls killed it! We had a great first ride and picnic. And fortunately Dadda didn't make everyone overdo it, so they will (hopefully) be excited about the next ride.

We don't celebrate the holiday but we do enjoy carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin seeds! Can you guess whose is whose? (Yes, that is a huge princess head with dress on the middle one)

Both girls LOVE art, and they each have their own style. Bella's specialty is still princesses, and she can quickly produce lots of beautiful art. 

Esther is more meticulous and the end result is amazing. This is an angel she helped make for her school Nativity play. We got to keep it, so stop by our house any time in the next 10 years at Christmas time to see it in person!

River-man's favorite thing - trucks, tractors, construction sites, and basically any loud machinery.

"My favorite book!" (He never gets tired of this book, even though his Mama and Dada may put it at the bottom of the pile of books every once in a while to give themselves a break from it!)

River's favorite construction site! A worker there has taken quite a liking to River and even gave River £10 to buy him a Christmas present!

"I'll just sit here in the mud and watch for an hour or so. Don't worry about me...I'll be fine."

Another one of God's simple gifts - a construction site right next to Bella's nursery. Janelle and River visit once or twice a day to watch the diggers.

We are so thankful for the amazing ways Esther loves River. She so generously gives of herself for him, including being super-excited about Diggers because she knows it will make River's day. 

Believe it or not, I could have included so many more. We are so thankful for a multiple construction sites in town!

This is his normal face - he is so serious when he is watching. The only expressions are when he points and says "Look!" when he sees something exciting.

The men at one of the sites have started joking that River should get paid for how much he is at the site. They even let him drive one time!

Esther and Bella's sweet idea for Christmas - River's own tractor!

Thanksgiving with the Mountjoys!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with two families we have come to be good friends with here. And we were so thankful the Mountjoys made it a priority to come up to see us for a few days! We loved spending a few refreshing, encouraging days with Jay and Regina.

My office - "The Roundel"

This is where I sit for about 40 hours per week on my exercise ball diving into Calvin and Latin and German and Barth and whatever else comes my way. I share an office with 7 other PhD Divinity students in a building with about 50 of us  Divinity PhD students. It is a huge gift to have a great place to study, and I learn a ton from the conversations with the other students. The areas of study are quite diverse, from Old Testament, New Testament, Theology and Arts, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, and more. (I also have a desk and an exercise ball to sit on at home for the study time after everyone is in bed.)

This is the next building over from my office - the St Andrews Cathedral ruins. Part of it was built in the 1100s! It is a also a great place for a game of "Tig" (Scottish term for Tag) in the green grass amongst the ruins. 

I had a really intense last two weeks before Christmas break as I feverishly worked trying to finish up a chapter of my thesis. On Friday, 19 December, at 7pm, I sent it in to my supervisor, hopped on my bike and rode home in the light rain. Then it hit me that I was done with it!  I was so overjoyed and thankful that I couldn't contain myself...I started cheering - "WooHoo! Thank you Jesus! WooHoo!" as I rode down the (thankfully for anyone who might have been frightened by my antics) deserted street. It was by far the longest and most complex "paper" I've written - about 25,000 words. That ends up being about 70 pages with about 230 footnotes! Hopefully most of it will make it into the final draft in the end. 

The moral of the story is that I was able to take a couple weeks off for Christmas without any work or deadlines hanging over the head. As of 7:01pm on 19 December it was time for...

A Scottish Christmas! 

Although we missed family and friends, we enjoyed a second delightful, family-time-filled, simple Christmas in a very quiet (all the students were gone) and dark (sunrise at about 9:30 am and sunset at about 3:15pm) St Andrews. The highlight was a 3 week visit from super-fun Aunt Jodi (Janelle's sister)! 

These Christmas dresses may have been worn at every church-related activity for about 4 weeks in a row leading up to Christmas. One nice man commented, "How do they keep those dresses clean to keep wearing them?" I guess it was kind of noticeable! 

Christmas cookies!

Christmas Morning...celebrating the miracle and mystery of Jesus' birthday!

Christmas Eve pizza treat from Jodi!

Just when break couldn't get any better, David showed up for a 3-day visit. What blessing! Besides enjoying St Andrews and my first distillery tour, we had a great Edinburgh day at the Christmas Market.

Esther has been asking to go ice skating for months...the rain let up at just the right time for our turn on the ice!

Waiting for the train home after a full, wet, lovely day.

River loved having another guy around, especially one as fun as David...laughter abounded!

Through the tunnel!

CHOO CHOO!

December on the West Sands Beach (Chariots of Fire Beach). Janelle had to keep hold of River's hand or he'd be soaking wet playing in the water! 

Bye Bye Jodi dinner! What wonderful gift to have you here with us!

New Year's Eve...thanking Jesus for making all things new before we did laps banging our pots and pans.

A normal evening...a memory that I will always cherish. Reading time with my sweet girls before bed. We just finished reading George McDonald's collection of fairy tales - "Gifts of the Christ Child" - Highly recommended for anyone age 5-95! 

My studies update - A few key notes:

• Languages - One of the reasons I thought doing a PhD in the UK would be nice was that I wouldn't have to take a bunch of time learning languages that I would never use. Well, now that I'm doing a PhD in theology, I have learned how much I need those languages. So much of the past year has been invested in learning German, Latin, and some French. I am SO thankful I have the privilege of learning these languages, and they are already bearing fruit in my studies (although I wish I had time to learn them more thoroughly). 
• The wide wide world of theology. This fall, a professor from John Webster accepted a job at St Andrews. He only happens to be arguably the best known and respected English-speaking theologian alive right now! I had thought about studying with him before we came to St Andrews, so it is a total gift to have him here. He brought a bunch of his PhD students with him, and one of the biggest thing I have learned from them all is how little I know of theology! There are so many different ways the Christian church has wrestled with the Bible and adequate ideas, words, and concepts to describe God and his interaction with his creation. Although it is a bit humbling, way more it is a blessing to be able to learn from and dialogue with them all.
• My topic - My PhD thesis has slowly developed into the place where I think/hope it will stay - "God's will (attitude) toward humanity in the theology of John Calvin - one will or two?" IN short, Calvin teaches a ton about the amazing loving Father we have, and he also teaches quite clearly about the way God chooses some people to express love to and others to express only judgment towards (not based on anything different in the people). I am exploring how those two ideas come together in Calvin (and in the Bible where Calvin got his ideas). I am excited about my topic because I feel like it relates to some of the most important questions I have about the Bible and God, and I think others out there may have similar questions. 
• My progress - My studies often feel like a roller coaster - I am really enjoying my learning, but I typically feel I'm moving too slow and am quite overwhelmed by the magnitude of the project. I am still shooting to be done by the summer of 2015, but that is going to be a total gift of God's grace and a ton of hard work. I'm going to try, though, and trust God with the timing either way.
• The gifts - What a gift to have this season of intense study! I really do enjoy it, and because life is so simplified outside of my studies, I am able to devote my time outside of studying to the family, which is the other gift. As Calvin would say, God's fatherly care is quite apparent in this season.

We always love hearing from you too, so please give us a shout sometime!

Every blessing in Christ,
Forrest, Janelle, Esther, Bella, and River

Appendix: 

Since I'm in academic-land, I thought I'd include a little appendix from Janelle - her Christmas newsletter