Still here!

December 13, 2009

Hello again! Finally another blog entry! I know that you've all been holding your breath for this, so here it is! Things are going great for us. We are nearing Christmas, and are excited that several of Kim's family are coming to visit us for the holiday! We've been busy as usual with school, football, church, friends, etc. We've also continued to visit a few nice places around Edinburgh as well.

This photo is of the Forth Road Bridge in a little seaside village (still part of Edinburgh) called South Queensferry. This is also the location where I got to go sailing with my school a few months ago.

Here is Sophie standing by the water in this quiet little area.

We spend an amazing morning visiting Craigmillar castle. This is considered one of the best preserved medieval castles in Scotland. This was originally built in the 1400s and was renovated, and expanded in the 1550s. It was one of the retreats for Mary, Queen of Scots, and the site of the signing of the plot to overthrow her a few years later. Almost all of the walls and rooms are intact (although the wooden roofs are long gone), so it is easy to see how people lived. This was a cold, foggy morning - the coolest part was that we were entirely alone. Until we left, we didn't see another soul, which made it fun and and maybe a little spooky at times, especially in the dark passages, which seemed to go everywhere. The caretaker had apparently opened the gates and left for a time, so it was nice to have the run of the place. Here is a photo of Kim at one of the side towers.


Here are the kids at one of the doors leading to another set of passageways. A neat heraldic carving above the door.

This photo with our tiny kids in it is meant to give an idea of the castle's size. I'd say a medium sized castle - although it seemed pretty large when we were going through room after room.

Isaiah and Sophie at the tiny entrance to one of the tower rooms. Not sure why it was so small, but it was only about 4 feet tall.

The family on the ramparts, overlooking sunny Scotland.

The family on another wall of the castle.

This tapestry of some ancient hero, actually looks alot like Isaiah!

We were looking for Sophie... oops, sorry Sophie!

We had fun travelling through some of the dark passageways.


This is my beautiful Christmas song for you all...

Thanks for checking the blog out once again. See you soon!

Jimy MacJohnson

Last day in Historic Holland

Hi there! Well this entry is about our final day in Holland - and it was awesome! We spent this day with Kim's high school friend Belinda, and Belinda's husband Jeroen, and their two girls Terence and Mackenzie. We went to this fabulous "open air museum", that was basically a village of historic buildings, windmills, shops, farms, and fun things to do, that took you though the last several centuries of Dutch history. It was fascinating as each building was full of historic artifacts, info, and even actors dressed in period costume. Sort of like Barkerville, only larger and more spread out. I love the above photo that Emma took in one of the buildings. I think that it is a photo that you'd see on the front of a magazine about Dutch life or history or something of the sort. Emma has a good eye!

I really liked the quaint Dutch houses made of brick, with their thatched roofs. Believe it or not, these reed roofs can still be ordered when people build a house. They are very expensive and labour-intensive to make though, and fire insurance is apparently harder to obtain. This photo reminded me of the kind of house Snow White lived in with the Seven Dwarfs.

These aren't two of the dwarfs, but it does show you how small some of the buildings were!

Here is Kim with her friend Belinda and Belinda's girls. We hadn't seen Belinda for 12 years, so it was great to see her again with her family.

And speaking of her family...


A great photo of Emma, looking very Dutch in front of a windmill.

Isaiah holding an old bottle of gin. Cool wooden shoes, buddy!


These bikes were the best! Emma, Sophie and I tried them. Hard to ride, but fun!

Isaiah prefered the cars that you had to pump the handle to ride.

Sophia inviting people to immigrate to Canada. This open air museum has several very nice displays showing the immigration campaigns and how many Dutch people chose to come to Canada.

Isaiah milking the cow. Dad will be proud of this one! This cow didn't step in the bucket, however.

Our whole family in fronto of our Dutch dream house.

Here are a few fun but brief videos that we took this day. This one was a great labryinth that was on the grounds. Forgive the cheesy Igor voice, but with a little snow, I could produce a pretty good remake of The Shining.


Time to milk the cow. Let's see how Isaiah does!

Close encounters of the Baaaaa-d kind. (Sorry, baaad joke).

Although it was mostly kids riding these, I'm sure that I looked pretty cool on this bike. I'd like to get one to ride to school on! Enjoy, and see you next time!

Luxembourg City

October 21nd (continued)...

Well, after a pleasant morning at Larochette, we carried on to Luxembourg City. I decided to make this another entry just to give me a chance to post some more photos of this beautiful country. Basically, we had a great time walking around the very clean and quaint (and expensive) city streets, and checking out the massive fortifications on the edges of the city. We enjoyed a pleasant lunch and a few hours later headed back to Utrecht, Holland. It was another really nice day.

When we arrived the kids were so happy that they decided to dance with some of the locals!


Our kids sure love having fun for the camera.


A beautiful view of the ancient bridges leading over the river. When I took this photo we were standing high up on one of the stone walls built onto the natural rocky cliffs.


This is a photo from the bottom of the huge walls (from where I took the last photo).

A peaceful spot behind the medieval bridge along the water.

Some quiet and clean streets in Luxembourg. A very nice area where you could either go down to the lower parts of the city, or climb back into the busy higher streets.

The Grand Duke's palace in Luxembourg City. If you look closely you can see that they actually have an armed guard in the front. No, I don't mean the old lady with the handbag - although she does look quite serious.

Here's to a great day and a half in Luxembourg!

Cheers!

Jimy Macjohnson

Luxembourg - Echternach and Larochette

Oct. 20-21,

Hello! Well we left Trier, and headed for a small city named Echternach, which is in the tiny country of Luxembourg. We met up again with Jennifer and Jeff and kids, walked around the little town for a little while, and found a pizzeria where we all had dinner. Later we headed back to the little, old (but still pricey) hotel for an evening of conversation and the enjoyment of listening to massive snoring on the other side of a paper-thin wall. Reminded me of the good old 100 Mile House days of listening to Dad snore at night - no matter what room of the house we were in.

At the crack of 9:00 the next morning we started our day, and after breakfast, we visited the local abbey museum, which houses the most amazing Illuminated Bible from the middle ages that you can even imagine. The pages were large (probably about 11x17 inches) and were incredibly beautiful. They had page after page displayed under glass, each a magificent work of art. Definitely worthwhile seeing!

Sophie and the others REALLY love Italian gelato. Kim said that Sophie's cone was too large, but I thought that she could handle it.

The whole happy gang (except me), outside of the Abbey museum, which was an abbey palace built in the early 1700s.

The kids wanted to go swimming, but this was all that they could find.

One of the pages of the Illuminated Bible. Each page was incredibly beautifully.

This was the actual gold and ivory jewelled cover of the Bible.

Later that day we drove to Larochette, Luxembourg to visit the ruins of a castle way up on a hill above the town. As you'll see from the photos below, it was spectacular.

The interior of one of the only intact buildings in the castle.

A photo of the town, taken from one of the castle walls.

A decorative carving on the stone wall inside the castle. If you look carefully you can see the archer with what looks like a cross bow.

The entry-way to some underground passages or rooms. There was a fence around the staircase leading down, so we were not able to access them.

A great photo of Kim beside one of the crumbling walls.

Sophie overlooking the town below.

One stone had a cross carved in it. Very cool!

Next stop, Luxembourg City!

Jimy

Guten Morgen, Deutschland!

Oct. 20, 2009

Hello again! Next stop on our holiday was a half day in Trier, Germany. What an amazing city. Having visited Trier on our school Europe trip, I remember thinking that "this is one place that I want to bring my family to!" For a brief history lesson, Trier was captured by the Romans in the 1st Century A.D. and named Augustus Treverorum, and basically became the capital and residence of the Western Roman Emperor Constantine in the 3rd Century! Constantine built many amazing buildings that are still there! Although we frequently hear about how far north the Romans controlled, it's amazing to see so many Roman structures mostly intact, in GERMANY! Notably, we visited the huge black gate (originally one of 4 surrounding the city) named the Porta Nigra. We also really enjoyed seeing Contantine's Basilica (his throne hall), the Roman baths, and numerous other notable places in the city. It was a great afternoon! Below you can see Kim and the kids in front of this amazing Roman gate.


Here are the kids in front of a central monument in the main town square. I can't remember what it is called, but there is a tradition that supports the idea that the apostle Mattias (who replaced Judas in the book of Acts) has his remains buried in the city.

Here the kids are posing in front of one of the smallest cars in Germany! Although it looks like a crazy little Italian car - its actually a BMW!

Isaiah enjoying his time in the main town square. This part is very German in its look. Makes for a beautiful city!


Emma and Sophie decided that they wanted hats. They said that they were cold, but this seemed a little excessive!

Emma and Sophie resting in the gardens in front of the beautiful Governor's Palace. Behind the Palace you can see Constantine's Basilica.

The remains of the huge Roman baths. This place also has long, intact underground passages and rooms that were only discovered and excavated earlier this century.

A closer view of the huge Basilica. Amazingly, it has survived nearly 2000 years due to its construction with hundreds of thousands of small bricks that are only and inch and a half high! These made the structure not only really strong, but hard to destroy, and useless for building material (which became the fate of many castle stones around Europe).

The kids relaxing on Constantine's foot. Pretty big guy!

See you in Luxembourg!

Jimy MacJohnson