Saturday, January 15, 2011

Gamma and Gampa come to Scotland

My parents flew back with us from Houston to Aberdeen for a visit! It was nice to have them help me on the flight and connection since Jon was not on this flight. He had come back to Aberdeen the week before to get back to work. We showed them around Aberdeen, where we live, the places we like to eat at here, the grocery store selections, how we drive here, and all the different things about living in a country abroad. On Friday and Saturday we took them to Inverness, Scotland and to Loch Ness where we took a boat tour on the Lake and searched for the Loch Ness monster, Nessie. We never saw the monster however Trent and Landon saw the water move quite a bit where they thought Nessie could be hiding. It was beautiful on the Lake with all snow topped highlands in the background. We also saw the Urquhart Castle ruins and the City of Inverness, Scotland. We had a great time!
Our Pilots on the Amsterdam to Aberdeen KLM Flight

Driving to Inverness




Our Hotel




Castle in Inverness


Loch Ness












Urquhart Castle

Christmas Visit to Texas

I opened my blog today and realized its been 3 weeks since I've updated the blog! Thinking about it I realized we have been traveling and going nonstop for 3 weeks straight, and this Mommy is tired! A good tired though, because we've been able to see so much of our family and friends and do so many things in those 3 weeks.

On December 23, 2010 we were flying back to Texas for Christmas, YAY! We had one shot to get out of Aberdeen, as the airport had been cancelling and delaying flights for a week due to the snow so it was either we make it out that morning or we would spend our Christmas in Aberdeen. Well that morning it was like a Blizzard on our way to the airport. I will never forget the fact that it was dark, we could hardly see the road and the streets were piling up in snow. The car in front of us was headed to the airport as well and we watched it slide back and forth across the road all the way to the airport! I just knew we were out of luck. By the time we got checked in the snow had stopped. So now it was a matter of the airport being able to clear the runway of the snow and also de-ice the snow on the plane. Any delays were not on our side as we had a 9 am (10 am flight in Amsterdam) to catch! We were scheduled to leave at 6 am ...and after sitting on the plane for so long it was 7:30 am that we finally took off! Shortly before that I told Jon I thought we should just walk off the plane, there was no way we could make our next flight and I really did not want to be stuck in the Amsterdam airport after there was already many stranded passengers. We decided to stick it out, we knew we would be running to our gate when we arrived.

We arrived at Amsterdam airport at 9:30 am (Amsterdam time) and probably RAN more than a mile through the airport to get to our next flight. It all sounded too familiar to us as we have been watching "Home Alone" over and over again and remembered the scene when the whole family was running through the airport. Exhausting! We arrived at the gate at 10 am and our flight was at 10 am!!! Luckily they let us on the plane even though we did not have our boarding passes prior to arriving. Some how we made it, and I couldn't believe they still let us on the plane! We were on our way to Houston! We had a smooth ELEVEN hour flight home and were so excited to be back for a visit. We did not have our luggage for  4 days but that was ok. It was strange to drive on the right hand side of the road again, and the lanes on the Beltway were so wide compared to those here in Aberdeen!

Our first stop was to pick up Lupe Tortilla fajitas (YUMM!!!) and to see my new nephew Myatt and sister in law Stacey in the hospital! What a special treat to come home to a new nephew and cousin for Trent and Landon. He is precious. We spent Christmas eve with my family and Christmas Day with Jon's family and then spent a couple of days at the farm until Jon had to leave and come back to work in Aberdeen. Trent, Landon and I spent another week in Sugar Land and El Campo visiting with family and friends. We ate lots of Mexican food, played with Gamma, Gampa, Nanny, PawPaw, Uncle Kyle and Aunt Jill and cousin Ally, Aunt Katy and Clark, Uncle Jason and Alyssa, Uncle Neal, Uncle Eric and Megan,  Uncle Ramsey, Aunt Stacey and Uncle Jess, and cousins Drake, Carter and Myatt. We had playdates with friends at Stomping Grounds, Chick-fel-A and Chuck-e-Cheese and even Mommy got to visit with some of her friends and catch up for a night out. It was a busy trip but we had fun. When it was time to leave, Gamma and Gampa flew back with us to Aberdeen for a visit here.



Riding the Sprayer with Gampa - Christmas Eve

Our new nephew and cousin Myatt and Stacey

Trent and Landon holding Myatt

My turn!

5 Cousins - These boys will have so much fun together!

Visiting Grandma Schoenfield
Visit with Grandma Leopold
3 Cousins - Trent and Landon with Ally

New Years Sparklers with Aunt Katy and Uncle Eric

Visiting Grandma Eddie

Visiting GiGi

Drake and Trent

Carter and Landon

....more pics to come when I get them...

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Santa Claus makes an Early Visit to Scotland

On Thursday Trent and Landon had a winter concert at their school which was so cute! They sang songs on stage and had a great time. We were so proud of them!

We had a special arrangement with Santa Claus to visit our house early since we are planning on leaving to go to Texas before Christmas. After visiting with Santa at the "Grotto" Trent and Landon were excited that he remembered us from Texas. After going home and looking at the World Globe, they were also excited to see that Scotland is a lot closer to the North Pole! The boys and I baked sugar cookies on Saturday while Jon went on a pheasant hunt nearby. That night we put cookies, milk and a carrot out for Santa and the boys were sure to be in bed early. They were very surprised at all the presents under the tree the next morning. Trent received his remote control helicopter and Star Wars things he asked for and Landon received tractors and trains and new scooter along with other toys. The biggest hit for the boys were the Paper Jamz guitars. They have been playing with them nonstop and even put them by their beds at night.

This week we had another round of a lot of snow and freezing temperatures and I'm not sure when its expected to stop. It has dropped from -10 to -17 degrees Celcius (14 degrees F to 3 degrees F) so it has been pretty cold too. It has affected travel in Europe as well and we are praying and hopeful that we can fly out of here this week. Some flights are getting out and some are cancelled depending on the snow and freeze at the time. So we will wait and see. I can't wait to visit everyone back home!





















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