We're Here!!!!

After 3 years of talking about getting to Justin's homeland, we're finally here!!! We arrived in Aberdeen about 4:30pm yesterday. And luckily, all our travels went perfect! (Knock on wood!) The bus to Chicago O'Hare, the flight to London's Heathrow Airport, and the final short flight from Heathrow to the Aberdeen airport! And it took just over 30 hours. The flight to London was an overnight flight, so we "slept" on the plane. I got about 4 hours of sleep and J got about 2. But we managed to make it thru dinner with Katherine and Graham, our gracious hosts, and got to bed in our hotel in Cults by about 10pm. So, we met our first morning in Scotland, bright eyed and bushy tailed... mostly. (I am still quite jetlagged, but J is bouncing around as usual.)

So today we took a slow easy morning lounging around the hotel and trying to figure out our rental car insurance. We got upgraded to quite the car... a big Mercedes Benz sedan. We are driving a car we will never be able to afford! It's a very very very nice car. And so far, driving on the wrong side of the road is going ok. J has been at the wheel so far and is getting quite good at it. I think it's weirder to be a passenger in the "drivers" seat than a driver in the "passenger" seat. It's like watching a driving game demo. No control but full view.

Anyway. Graham and Katherine picked us up from our hotel on their way back from church. We had a very nice lunch and then Graham took us to Drum Castle. Wow. I'm not sure what more I can say than... wow. And the gardens... Mom Beam, we took tons of pictures of the garden... Olbrich could only dream to look l

ike this some day! It was a rose garden and had 4 sections. Roses from the 16th century, the 17th century, the 18th & 19th century. Beautiful. We came back and had tea (also known as dinner), which included roast lamb... and outside the window behind us, the sheep were grazing... this was a big step for me. But turns out I really like roast lamb with mint sauce! (Not mint jelly, but real mint sauce.) Who knew?

Now we are leisurly drinking tea after tea. We'll move back out to Katherine & Grahams amazing sun porch and lounge. And probably chat about what we might do tomorrow! J took over 200 pictures today, so I'll have to do some censoring/editing. We've posted a couple for your pleasure!

Basically, Scotland is just like you see it in the movies. Or at least the Aberdeen area is. And the sheep farm is huge and gorgeous. (500 sheep!!) And their land is so beautiful. I think we could all only wish to have this kind of life. :)

Cheers!