Easter, Bank holidays, and Birthdays

Although a couple weeks late in posting I did want to report that April ended quite well here. In the UK there are these wonderful things called Bank Holidays; quite a few of them are late April/May. Mix that with the royal wedding and it meant that we had two four day weekends in a row to end our month. Always fun!

One of those was my birthday/Easter weekend. At the start of the week we had grand plans of exploring the highlands.  We encountered a few problems. Within 5 min of us reserving a car we got a phone call apologizing; every car for hire in Edinburgh was taken. Well… that won’t slow us down, we will simply take a bus and go camping. Oh wait, despite us thinking to bring our tent and sleeping bags, we don’t actually have a camping back pack (or a backpack pack, as my friend Sarah would say). Although we did our best to attach our tents and sleeping bags to my computer back pack and day bag, we realized without a car to hold our supplies it was going to be… less than ideal. Next thought, we can take multiple day trips to places we have wanted to see. Friday was my bday so we decided to spend that here. Saturday, however, we planned to explore somewhere fun. And we could have… had Scottish weather not kept us in. Since we had been traveling a bit in April, we really wanted to make it to church on Easter Sunday. So we planned one last attempt on exploring the highlands for Monday (which they call Easter Monday here, also a holiday). Buses were booked, trains were booked… Andrew was shaking?!?!  Yes, that’s right… Andrew came down with a 103 degree fever the night before we left. Although we were able to avoid the emergency room, he wasn’t quite ready to go on holiday the next morning.

So perhaps we don’t really know how to make the most of a 4-day holiday. But the weekend had its moments, even though we stayed here. My mom mailed me a box mix for my favorite cupcakes (with icing that we haven’t been able to find for the last six year). Cory was kind enough to cook up an amazing Jaime Oliver Italian dinner… thank you Cory! And, keeping with our tradition, we had a birthday week where I got to open a different present every day. Some from family, some from friends (thank you bday twin and Sonnet), some that we had bought earlier in our stay and regifted (what can I say, the pound /dollar conversion meant we had to be creative with our bday week this year), and some Andrew picked out just for me (see pic). Above all, I received so many message and cards from friends. It made my first birthday an ocean away feel… closer to home than I was expecting. Thank you to everyone!