Handstands: April 2015

For all of my adult life (up until November 2014), I have lived in apartments with flatmates. This meant that every time my family came to visit me, they had to stay in a hotel somewhere, because the idea of sleeping on the floor in the living room was unappealing at best. In Denver and Ohio, it wasn't such a problem, but in Switzerland, the price could quickly escalate. This made longer visits difficult - who wants to pay $150 per night for 10 nights? So it was such a relief this spring to FINALLY be able to host my family in our house. With 4 bedrooms and just Paul and I, we have plenty of room to spare. At first my family had planned to join us for Christmas, until my parents quickly realized that there was only 3 weeks between the end of our RTW trip and arrival to our house, and their planned arrival for a visit. They decided we'd have too much on our hands (although I suspect my mom decided it would be too cold), and planned for a March trip instead. This turned out to be a good choice, as our house didn't have a single bed in it until just a few days before Christmas and our heating wasn't quite working so we often woke up to a freezing house. It would have been a pretty uncomfortable visit to say the least.

I had been counting down the days until my family's visit, and finally the day arrived! I met them at the airport after their long trip, and was so excited to bring them home that I missed my exit. Oops. Luckily I figured out another way home, but I couldn't believe they were here! Visiting me!

I won't bore you with the day to day events - suffice to say there was a lot of singing, game playing, and touring. Here are some of the highlights, and since pictures speak louder than words, I'm going to heavily rely on the pictures:

(No seriously, this is complete picture overload. And I'm completely unapologetic about it - I love pictures!)

A day in Edinburgh:
My family has already visited Edinburgh, so we didn't need to see everything. We picked a day to go into town to wander around enjoy the sights (even if you've already seen them, they are pretty beautiful), and eat some food. We walked up to the castle, had a pub lunch, then tried to find a game store after a walk through the Meadows. It turned out to be a longer walk then we expected, and the game shop disappointing, so we were all pretty tired and ready to head home. Unfortunately, it was rush hour, so we had to wait it out in another pub. I think jet-lag had gotten the better of everyone by that point, so we were pretty happy to head home and sleep.

Camera obscura and optical illusion museum.

Edinburgh Castle

A Day in Glasgow
We took one afternoon/evening to drive into Glasgow for a little walk around and to see our friends Stu and Ruth. We took some nice pictures, tried to stay warm, visited a cool museum, and had a delicious meal. Friends + Family = Fun!

Boy side of the table

My beautiful friend Ruth

<3 my mommy

Newcastle and more family:
As if having my family here wasn't fun enough, we drove down to Newcastle to see everyone there! My parents stayed in town while Paul and I stayed with his mum. We enjoyed walking by the quayside, visiting with family, and seeing the solar eclipse! One day we even got to go out with our nephew to a little park with a tiny train and a fun park. It might have been freezing cold, but we had a great time.

The solar eclipse!

Looking at the sun - well, some people are!

Sunny at the quayside

Train time!

Feeding the birds

The cutest nephew ever, but I might be biased!

Nothing like a little bubbly before breakfast :)

Isle of Skye:
A longtime dream of my mom was to go to the Isle of Skye. Just a 5 hour drive from our home, we squashed in together to go there for a few days. The scenery was beautiful and we enjoyed listening to a book on tape while avoiding the very pot-holed road. The Isle of Skye itself seemed quite closed (apparently it was still winter season and most places didn't open until April). We did get a short day tour, however, and despite the freezing cold temperatures and occasional pouring rain, it was absolutely beautiful. I loved the Fairy Glen and Kilt Rock, and I wish we had had more time to explore. Our last day we decided to try to get to the Fairy Pools, a short walk through lots of mud and over streams to see serene turquoise pools at the foot of large, domineering mountains. It was gorgeous, every minute of it. And yes, it was very cold, but at least it didn't rain! It's on my list to go back to, maybe sometime in the summer.

Portree

Fairy Glen

That's Chris up there!

Dinner one night - this was the seafood portion for two!

Down the muddy path...

Across the river

To the beautiful pools!

Can you see my dad and Paul?

The best time, family time:
My favorite part of the visit was just the easy family time we had in such abundance. We went to high tea together in a nearby castle, we played games together nearly every night. We watched movies, went for walks, sang to my dad playing guitar, talked laughed and hugged every opportunity we had. I am so grateful to have a home that was filled with so much love all at once. Dropping my family off at the airport was sad, I miss them already. But I know they'll be back and I'll visit L.A., because with a family like mine you never want to make it too long between visits.