Scotland...Shetland Isles....Orkney Isles...Scotland

Well,we have now been in Scotland for about 10 days and have been having a great time. Debbie and Les and family arrived here about 4 hours after us and we have invaded the home of some good friends - who aren't used to having little kids around so we are trusting we haven't been 'too much' for them.

During our time here we have spent 4 days in Edinburgh where we were able to stay in a lovely Missionary Flat. Unfortunately it was raining for the first day and a half but we did get to do a tour of the city and go up to the castle which is magnificent. Hopefully we will be able to post some photos eventually but sometimes we need a little 'help' to do that!!

Since being here in Aberdeen we have been able to take the grandchildren to a farm to feed animals which they really enjoyed plus a few other novelties. Les and Deb went away for a couple of nights (not sure if it was another honeymoon, a break from the in-laws or a break from the kids!!) and we were left in 'charge'! Made us realise that it is a long time since our kids were 'little' and we are looking forward to a 'holiday' in Shetland!! We didn't do too bad really and had Stan and Wilma's help also. The only problem was that Sydney had quite a bad fall the last day so looked a little beaten up! She is fine though.

This evening we are leaving by ferry to go to the Shetland Isles (where Dick's mother was born) for a week where they have booked Dick up for meetings nearly every night! However,we hope to do some touring around as well - it is not a very big place! Then a week from today we move on by ferry to the Orkney Isles where Dick's grandfather came from so he wants to look into his 'roots' there also.

Les and Debbie and family will stay on here in Aberdeen until Friday when they fly back to Novosibirsk where they expect to soon be into their long hard winter. They have really enjoyed the scenery and different pace of life here in Scotland.

Don't know if we will have opportunity to use a computer until we are back in Scotland so you may not hear from us for a week or so. When we return to Scotland we will only be here for a weekend and then we fly on to London to visit some cousins and then it is back to Los Angeles once more.