Scottish Winter Wonderland!

Happy New Year! I hope that the new year is finding everyone healthy and happy so far. Things are great here - but the weather has been UNBELIEVABLE. This isn't even an overstatement. All of the news reports actually rate this the worst stretch of weather since 1981! I mean, the Canucks were still wearing their yellow Flying V uniforms, and were getting ready to ride towel power to the Finals! Thankfully, we are here to experience this memorable weather! Other than the usual driving problems that snow and freezing conditions lead to, we've actually had quite a bit of fun in the snow. Here are a few beautiful shots of our backyard. Amazing!

Have you ever had an idea that seemed so brilliant at the start, that you wonder how it could have gone so wrong? Well... this photo shows the brilliant part of my idea. I found one of Calum's old surfboards in his shed, and with all the fresh snow on the loooong set of steps leading down into the backyard - yes, I know that you see it too... Here's Isaiah having a great time riding the surfboard down the steps.

Funny thing happened. Each time down the steps, Isaiah gradually went further and further, packing a beautiful smooth path. Finally Sophia wanted to join in, and with her little bit of added weight, the surfboard seemed to want to "take off". Unfortunately, it finally did. Fortunately, Sophia bailed off the board as it continued through the yard, swish over the edge, and sploosh into the Water of Leith. As we ran to look into the water, the surfboard jauntily tipped its hat and floated off out of sight. As I reassured Sophie that it was MY fault, in my head I was trying to figure out how much I'd owe for a replacement surfboard. Dejected, the three of us decided to walk downstream a while to see if the board could have become hung up on something. Sure enough, I was very surprised to see it a few minutes later, stuck on a snowy rock in the middle of the stream. This is the shot below!

The kids, and a few interested onlookers seemed to think that it was great sport to see me wade into the freezing cold river, which fortunately was only up to my knees at its deepest. Although difficult to see in the below photo, I was very heroic rescuing this board in distress.

Well, out of the snow, we've been having a great time keeping ourselves well fed and watered. Here is a photo of 3 of my favourite things... a gigantic beverage, a ginormous burger, and a smiling wife. Not often do all three of these go together...

Here's a photo of Kim and Courtney standing with a piper who piped us into our New Year's Eve restaurant.

Here are a few videos that we took over the break. I hope that you enjoy them!

Here Isaiah cruises around the ice on the outdoor skating rink in the city centre.

This is a shot of Isaiah making one of his early runs down the backyard steps on the surfboard. Great winter fun!

The final video is of Edinburgh's New year's fireworks. I missed the first big blast by about a second or two. Oh well, it was a pretty impressive display and went on quite a bit longer than this video. Happy New Year!

Cheers!

Jimy MacJohnson

Fun with Family

Hello again! Here are some more photos of our great visit with Kim's family over Christmas.

Emma was pretty excited about what Santa put in her stocking. And she didn't believe that he was real... !

Kim did a great job of setting up the Christmas table. It didn't look quite so nice 30 minutes later.


After all the preparations for Christmas, Kim headed straight for the pub, as usual...

A happy moment with Courtney, Steve, and Brody. Uhh... where's Grayson?


Oh, there he is. Hanging out with Isaiah, watching TV

Here's a great shot of Emma and Brody (and the Christmas tree).

Emma and Oma at the castle, overlooking Edinburgh.

Isaiah and his little cousin Brody. I'm sure that they'll talk about this shared moment when they are adults.

Three generations of girls just hangin' out.

This is the view from the flat that Kim's family rented for the visit. The building used to be the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, before being completely renovated into the beautiful apartments. Great view of the Meadows, a really nice park-like area in the city.

That's it for now! See ya!

Fun at Christmas!

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays everyone!

We are just finishing our wonderful Christmas break, so I thought that I would take time to share with you some of our fun experiences over the last few weeks. We had an amazing visit with Kim's Mom and Dad, brother Steven, his wife Courtney, and their two beautiful little boys Grayson and Brody. We did so many fun things that I am going to put them into 2 or 3 blog entries. I hope that you enjoy looking at these photos as much as we do.

"Merry Christmas everybody!"

The 3 kids loved making and decorating their own gingerbread cookies. I think that the cookies lasted for all of 5 minutes before they ate them!

The lights of Edinburgh are beautiful at this time of year. This is the Scott Monument with the Christmas ferris wheel set up in the background.

Below the ferris wheel they made an outdoor skating rink. Isaiah and I had a lot of fun skating outside until it started to grow dark.


Here we are proudly wearing our Canucks jerseys. Not only were we clearly the best skaters, but we were the best dressed as well!

Here we are on the ferris wheel a few days later. It was pretty cold up there in the wind!

Sophia, looking beautiful as always

Here Steve, Courtney, Kim and I are setting off to climb to the top of Arthur's Peak (or Archie's Head, as Kim's Mom calls it). The girls were very confident at the start, but extremely slippery frozen slopes caused them to make a wise choice and only send the guys (after ensuring that our life insurance policies were up to date).

However, the ice didn't stop this elderly cane-bearing woman from making the trek. Steve and I thought that we were pretty adventurous until we saw her in front of us. It made for some good teasing of the girls though.

Partway up, I'm thoughtfully pausing to look over the foggy city. I'm sure that I didn't know that my picture was being taken with my camera.

This a photo of the city from the top of Arthur's seat. You can just see the dark silouette of Edinburgh Castle far away on the right side of the photo.

Cheers to a great hike and a lots of fun on the break! Scotland's national drink with a little Scottish snow on top!