Traveling

Hello all,

I know that a lot of you have asked for details about our child, but we can't share much just yet.  With the beginning of Chinese New Years on Feb. 3rd all is silent and will be until the end which is Feb.18th.  What I can tell you is our little boy is almost 3 years of age and is living in the Northwestern part of China.  We are so excited to finally come to the conclusion of this adoption.  After 3 1/2 years and 3 different countries we have finally found our child.  As you can tell by the video, Samuel is estatic.  He talks about him often and even pretent plays with him.  Samuel keeps asking to go to the toy store and buy a present for him.  I will share more when I can.

Meanwhile, Andreas and I had the privilage to travel to Scotland.  Mom and Dad Kjernald were very generous this Christmas with the stipulation that we did something fun with the money (thank you so much mom and dad).  So they took Sam for the weekend and we flew Ryan Air (about $30 for a roundtrip ticket) to Edinburgh.  What a cool city.  I really liked it, even though it was misty and grey.  We flew in on Friday night (my first business of the evening was Starbucks!!!), we spend Saturday in Edinburgh and had a wonderful time meeting up with my childhood friend Paige Medlock (one of the highlights of the trip).  Then Sunday we took a trip out into the Highlands (Run by the hairy coo - story with the pictures).  Sunday night we went to St. Giles cathedral and joined in a communion service and Monday morning we flew home.  I really did like Scotland, but I have to say the biggest hightlight of the trip was simply spending time with my husband.  He truely is my best friend and I enjoy our get aways together.  Sorry ladies, but I think I married the best man ever!!!  All of my girlfriend may contest, but this is my belief.   

I will tell a little more about Scotland in pictures below.  We would appreciate your continued prayers for the adoption.  We are hoping to travel in May or June to pick him up.  

Blessings,

laurie

The pictures are actually backwards, but I'll work with it.  This is a lake in the highlands that freezes and they use to have curling contest on.  As in all things our tour guide says that the "sport" of curling comes from Scotland.  It may be true, anyone want to look it up.

In one of our stops there was this bench in the hills.  It is one of those Notting Hill benches and I thought it was sweet.

Part of the gorgeous Highlands of Scotland.  I would love to go back and see it in the summer.

Self portrait of course.

Below is a Hairy coo (cow).  Our tour guide runs a company called The Hairy Coo.  They provide free tours into the highlands and then at the end you can pay what you feel it is worth or what you can afford.  We had our reservations, especially when we strolled up to an orange minibus that said "Honk if your Horny" on the back.  However, it was a really good tour and the tour guide really knew his history (did anyone know that Tony Blair was Scotish?).  We had a lot of stops so it wasn't all driving and saw some great places.  The Hairy coo was brought to Scotland by Vikings and apparently the Vikings took the Scotish women and left the coos.  Hope it was a good trade! This particular coo is Hamish and he is famous in Scotland.

In the town of Callendar.  This is the border of the Highlands from the lowlands (makes sense). What a beautiful sight to see everyday.  

Andreas and I had fish and chips (really good ones) in Callendar.

This my friends is Doune Castle.  What castle you ask?  Well, (and this is particularly to my friend Dave Rhodes), this is the castle that Monty Python used in 1974 to produce the low budget Holy Grail movie.  So this is my best "you stupid British K'nigits" face.  No battles were fought at this castle, but the Stewarts of Scotland owned it.

That is my good looking man. (not the red one)

This is the main William Wallace monumet.  Apparently there are about 20 monuments, but this one is in Sterling where William Wallace and his gang fought for the castle (picture to come).  Our tour guide set us straight about what really happened with William Wallace and not how the movie told us it was.

The famous Sterling Castle.  This castle switched hands many times during the wars.  The famous or infamous, Mary Queen of Scots was here a bit and left her son here and never got to see him again (due to Catholic vs. Protestant issues).  Sterling is also where my friend Paige is doing her Ph.D.  Apparently, it is worth seeing, but we didn't have time. I guess we have to go again.  

This is carved in the front of the Wallace monument.  I really liked it.  What amazing stone work.  The thistle on the top is considered the national flower (I think).  It was everywhere.  

 This is the Edinburgh Castle.  It is amazing to look at.  It is hard to believe the so long ago they took all the stone and put it on this mountain.  There was a huge line, so we didn't get to go all the way inside, but we saw some of it.  It stands at the top of the Royal Mile.

These are haggis balls.  Hopefully, I can get the video up of us trying them.  Yes, they look really gross, but the Scotish really seem to love them.

Below is Paigee (as I call her).  Sorry men, this beautiful woman is off the market.  She is not only beautiful, but incredibly talented in art, among other things.  She is the one that taught me stain glass and pretty much all the other artistic things I can do.  Thanks Paigee.  It was really good to see her and get to see how the Lord is working in her life. Thanks for coming and meeting us.  We are standing in the Edinburgh castle.  

My wonderful husband and I in front of the Edinburgh castle.

Two doors down from our hotel was a cafe called Chocolate Soup.  Of course we had to go and get hot choclate there.  The cup says " it's a Chocolate thing".  Need I say more.

The Edinburgh Parliment is a cool work of art in itself.  On the side it had many quotes and I liked this one.  

This mount is called "Author's seat".  You can walk up there.  It is one of those places that King Author and the knights of the round table were said to have a place.  It is so cool to be in the city and then all of the sudden see these amazing outcroppings.

This is the Queen's palace at the bottom of the Royal Mile.  Of course the Scots call her the Queen of Scotland and not the Queen of England.

On another outcropping of the city stood this.  Very cool.  We never did figure out what it was for though.

This sign made me laugh.  Would you really shop for fruit and veggies from someone who is OFF License.  Sounds a bit risky to me.  But then again, the Scots eat haggis.....

A cool pic of the stone buildings on the Royal Mile.  

This is the Edinburgh Castle at night.  The city is quite amazing and we didn't have very much time to explore, but I am really glad that we had a chance to go.  Thanks again Mom and Dad.