Year of the Visitor: Numero Quatro

Tim & Jenna! (The spanish is in honor of Jenna who spent some time working with street children in Mexico. What a gem!)

The year of the visitor continued last week with a rejuvenating visit from some very dear friends. The excitement began July 18th when we were in Richmond at Tim & Jenna's wedding. Their photographer managed to catch the moment when they announced that they'd be visiting us in Scotland! I was slightly excited, wouldn't you say?

I'll explain the origins of mine and Jenna's friendship. In the fall of 2005, James received a phone call from a man asking if we could call this girl who was the daughter of his uncle's, friend's, cousin's, father (or something like that) and invite her to church. We had no idea who this girl was, or if she even wanted to be invited to church. So I called and did the inviting. Turned out she sounded super nice and did want to be invited to church, so I set up a time to pick her up. But, she lived in a hotel, which seemed weird at first, but I soon found out it was just because her new apartment building wasn't completed yet.

Now we're the best of friends, and our husbands became friends too. It's so great when both halves of two couples mesh!

We picked up Jenna and Tim from the airport on Thanksgiving, Jenna and I definitely made a scene with some shrieking and jumping up and down.

First stop: Tesco. Saturday would be the big Thanksgiving dinner and since Tim is a professionally trained chef, we needed his help. And boy oh boy, did he ever help.
That's Tim on the right, the blurriness helps to accurately display the speed at which Tim moved around the kitchen, teaching us how to bake a turkey as well as making lots of delicious sides.

We introduced Thanksgiving traditions to some Scots and English families, and had an American family join us as well. There was a ridiculous amount of yummy food consumed. But, it was Thanksgiving. We explained to our UK friends that if you don't feel uncomfortably stuffed and need to take a nap after the meal, you haven't had the full Thanksgiving experience.


After it was all over, Tim needed a nap, understandably.

Friday, they were a huge help at Scripture Union and Youth Club. The kids absolutely loved them, which I totally expected. In between the two events, we took them on the walk to Big Burn. It was just as beautiful as the time James and I went. We took a different route, so we saw some new stuff, like another interesting tree:


Sunday we took a walk over to the Dornoch golf course and along the beach, it was an especially beautiful day.

Tim is a golfer, it's too bad he wasn't able to play here, but at least we got a photo!

At Youth Fellowship, Jenna taught some girls the cup game. They loved it! It took me back to my middle school days.

Monday we took a trip to the west coast. Here we are at some ruins.


Almost a year ago, my dad took pretty much this exact same picture of us at this exact spot. It definitely doesn't feel like a year ago.

A little ways down the road, we got stopped on the main road for about 15 minutes as some shepherds and sheep dogs herded 100's of sheep from one field to the other. It was so cool to see (mom, I'm so sad you weren't there to see it!)




Tuesday we left super early for Glasgow so we could spend the day sightseeing before Tim & Jenna had to head over to their hotel, they were flying out the next morning.
Glasgow has a beautiful cathedral


Whaddya think?

It's hard to tell from the photo, but this bridge is curved. Locals call it the "squinty bridge." Scots use the word squint where Americans would say crooked.

Jenna had the fabulous idea to take one of those "hop-on, hop-off, open top" bus tours. It was an awesome way to get an overview of all the popular spots in the city, since we had a limited amount of time. We saw some beautiful old buildings, as well as some modern ones. James got a great shot of the white building.




That's James's "I'm cold" look. Tim and Jenna were smart and went to the bottom level of the bus.


There was a Christmas festival in George Square

Jenna and I really wanted to go on the swings, but decided against it when we realized how bitterly cold it would be.

I realized we have hardly any pictures of Tim and Jenna and none of the four of us. But that's no reflection on how much fun we had together, we're so grateful they could come. Now we miss them more than ever and are even more excited to be back in Richmond to spend more time with them. Thanks for coming guy's!