Happy Hogmanay

Well, it's the biggest holiday in Scotland today, and tomorrow and the next day... To start off our first Hogmanay in Scotland, we went to a Ceilidh at the National Museum of Scotland. There were lots of kids, so that made it especially entertaining. Not many people were super proficient, although there was a pair (the guy with the long hair, white T-shirt and kilt) of excellent dancers in the group. We went upstairs to get a better view of the festivities. I loved it, and am hoping to go to a "real" ceilidh soon where I can learn some of the dances.

The last song of the afternoon was Auld Lang Syne. It's a good old traditional Scottish song. The dance is an easy one, so I'll have that dance down pat on my next ceilidh! If you feel like singing along to the little clip below, here are the lyrics:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
And surely I’ll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine†;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

Well, after 2-3 years of growing my hair out, I finally gave it the old heave ho today. I have a foot + ponytail to give away to Locks of Love. It's my second time donating hair, and I think I may do it again. But we'll see how gray my hair goes in the next few years. My hair stylist was so nice. When I told him it was being donated, he only charged me for a blow dry. So instead of $80, it was only $50 - everything here is twice as expensive as in the states.... I gave him a fat tip, so in the end I didn't get much of a discount.

I had a baby-free morning to go get my hair done and then do some shopping on Princes Street . I finally purchased some jeans that fit me, and I didn't end up spending too much money. I also tried to find some cute hair things since I now need little clippies and headbands. But I didn't find too much that I liked for the price. I found some really nice headbands in Harvey Nichols.... But I refused to pay £40 ($80) for a resin hairband! Gees, I can't believe people actually have that kind of money to blow on a hairband!
Well, my hair cut is the big event of the weekend here. Monday we're going to go to the museum for a Hogmanay family ceilidh. Hogmanay is what people here call New Year's Eve and the next few drunken days. Check out the wikepedia link to find out all about the holiday. If there's one thing the Scotish can do, it's drink, well and burn things, so I guess there's 2 things we can really do! Oh, and a Ceilidh (pronounced Kaye - Lee) is a big dance party, sort of like square dancing except everyone does it and the men wear kilts! I can't wait until Monday!!!! We should have some good pictures/videos of that.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Guess what? I managed to photograph the elusive Santa Claus! He materialized in front of our electric fireplace and here's what he looks like. He's a bit smaller than I had imagined though....

I hope you are all having a happy and yummy Christmas dinner tonight. We had our big dinner last night and warmed up the duck for leftovers tonight. It was great both times. But then again duck is pretty hard to go wrong with.
Marius got his fair share of the duck and our veggies. It turns out he really likes asparagus. We kept on giving him bites from our plates, and he did a pretty good job of stuffing them in his face. He's getting more and more finicky about eating from a spoon held by mommy or daddy, so we may need to make the very messy transition to finger food. I guess I'll start making loads more food so it can be spattered on the floor and eventually thrown in the trash.... sigh... So when can these babies start feeding themselves well anyhow?

Crazy happy laughing baby and parents

Marius is getting a lot more fun to play with. Our new game is to play with him when he's standing in his crib. He loves watching us bop up and down like lunatics! And we love making him squeal with glee. Here are some videos of the craziness if you care to watch us making fools out of ourselves.

We're getting ready for Christmas a little late. We bought a little Christmas bush today. Perhaps one day we'll have a bit of garden to plant it in, but it'll fit nicely in a pot for quite a while yet. We're picking up a duck at our butcher tomorrow morning, and then we'll bake a Christmas brandy cake, roast the duck along with potatoes and some asparagus. It should be a yummy meal with lots of leftovers! That's the best. Although I am super jealous of Paula who is making tamales by hand - masa and all - this year! Oh man.... Perhaps next year I'll be that adventurous if I can get some hojas mailed to me and can find a few helpers.

Wee Tadpole

Marius got his official Tadpole badge on Wednesday during his swimming class. Here are some pictures of my little baby frog.

Fun with the Fam

Faith and Ian came out this week. It was so amazingly wonderful to have them both out here. I had forgotten what a great feeling I get from having family around. We only had three days with them so we tried to make the most of it. We did quite a good walking tour on Monday, seeing Edinburgh Castle, the royal mile, princes street, and the meadows. Tuesday we decided to get out of town and drove to East Lothian. There we saw Tantallon Castle, walked around North Berwick, and Dirlton Castle. Wednesday I took Simon to the airport, then we all went to Marius's swimming class, where he got his first tadpole swimming badge! Then we did a walking tour all around New Town and stopped off at Dean Gallery for lunch before heading back home. I dropped them off at the airport last night and am really feeling sad now. Simon flew out to San Fransisco for his annual geo meeting and he won't get back until Tuesday. It's just me and the boy for a while. I'm trying not to get too depressed about it. But I get pretty lonely when he's gone. I think it has something to do with me being the youngest of 4 kids, so I'm used to lots of people always being around. Oh well, I've got some things that will keep me busy while he's gone.

Anyhow, here are some amazing photos that Ian/Faith took while here. I need to get the ones of yesterday at the pool, but for now you'll have to settle with these professional ones from Monday and Tuesday. It's nice to have two professional photographers in the family! I told Faith that she needs to fly out and cover my delivery for the next kid, whenever that may be!

Messy Eating

It appears my thought that Marius might be ready for more self feeding was pretty unfounded. He'd rather wear his food than put it in his mouth. So, for now we'll stick to the spoon in mamma's hand and just let him eat biscuits and banana pieces by himself.

AA saves the day

I met the AA guy at our car this morning, and I have to say I am totally impressed with the AA. AAA guys know how to tow a car, fix a flat tire, and jump a car and that's really all they can do. If they know how to fill out a form or figure out street directions you've gotten the best AAA has to offer. But the AA guys (or gals if there are any) are superb! I walked up to my car and popped the hood so he could look at the car. I was thinking to myself "right this guy will just jump the car like I've already done and then tow it to the garage." But no, he immediately saw that our little clunker was missing her fan belt! How embarrassing! At first I thought someone had stolen it while it was parked on the street, but then he said that was probably the reason the car died. Again I thought to myself "right, he's going to have to tow the car to the garage now.... why is he still looking at my engine and fiddling?" Then he tells me he'll be right back with a fan belt replacement. I'm thinking "there's no way he has a spare belt just sitting in his van for my 1998 Vauxhall Corsa!" But sure enough, he comes back with a belt, actually three of them and one eventually works with quite a bit of fiddling and crow barring. He pulls out a crowbar and hammer, telling me they are his "precision and calibrating machinery." Hey whatever works! Then I'm thinking to myself, great how much is this work going to cost me? But, in the end it was all free! He didn't charge me because he said the belt he used was the wrong size, and while it would work just fine for me, he'll officially label it as a "temporary fix" making it free!!! Yippie! I was worried about having to shell out £100 pounds on the little death mobile for some repair in a garage. What a lovely beginning to my day.
Marius had his first birthday party to attend today - here‘s a picture of him in front of the ball pit/car at their house. Man, this kid has tons of toys! Am I a bad parent because Marius only has one little shelf full of toys, and most of them are either wooden blocks or soft alphabet shapes? He only has two plastic toys that light up and make noise, two large and two small stuffed animals, a wire bead toy, a push cart, and some other random small soft/stuffed type of things…. He has no plastic car to ride in with a horn, no blow up car full of balls, no big music/instrument centre with flashing lights and music, and no huge crate full of plastic toys. I’m really trying to resist the competitive mother urge in me to go out and buy a bunch of things for the boy for Christmas…. My rational is that he doesn't need a bunch of fancy toys, because he has mamma around all day and I play with him, read to him, and take him around town to see stuff, as opposed to throwing him in a corner with a pile of plastic. He'll get enough of that when I go back to work and he's in day care. Anyhow, I was thinking about getting him a scooter bug thing that he could ride around on though - they’re pricey, but totally cute and not plastic and made in China! Oh and I (errr I mean "Santa") aready bought him some books for his stocking, but those don't count... One can never have too many books.
Anyhow, getting to this party was a bit interesting, as it required me to drive through areas that I had never driven through before. I had figured I wouldn't have my car and would have to navigate several buses to get to the house. So, I hadn’t psyched myself up to take a drive in the city. I was a bit nervous about driving to a new place in the city, but it really wasn't bad at all. I'm actually getting quite used to the whole driving on the right side of the road thing.
In fact, both Simon and I are to used to being on the right hand side, that when we were watching Heroes (we downloaded the entire first season and are rationing ourselves to one or two a week because we're TOTALLY addicted!) last night, we had to do a double take when there was a scene of Niki driving down a desert road on the left side. At first we were like, wait she's on the wrong side. It was a little weird. Simon thinks that when he goes back to Cali for his conference in 2 weeks, he's going to get all disoriented with the directions. The driving isn't nearly as bad as walking and crossing the street though. I've caught myself in the middle of the street and walking because I see no cars, only to realize that I was VERY lucky because I was looking the wrong way when I first put my foot off the curb. Don't worry about Marius though people, that's only when I jaywalk and I only jaywalk when I'm alone. Intersections are actually a lot safer here than in the states, because everyone has a red light when pedestrians have the green, and you can't turn on a red here like you can in the US. So, when you get the little green walking sign, you have no fear about someone turning in front of you, actually you can walk diagonally in the intersection since all the cars are stopped. I love it! I feel like I'm in Vegas every time I do that here! Except without the neon lights and casinos and stuff.