Holiday: Scotland, part 3

It's been a full and fast week....and this may very well be the last of the "Holiday" blog post series.   

We said good-bye to these lovely friends on Monday morning -- they headed back to Edinburgh and then on to the States...we headed to the Animal Park!

We met up with our friend Martha and her fella Alex.  We met Martha during our first year on the ship in Guinea.  She is absolutely one of the loveliest ladies ever - and has such a delightful Scottish accent.  She and Alex were gracious enough to host at the Highland Animal Park.  We had such a fun day seeing all sorts of incredible animals - our God is so creative!!!  The rain tried to stop us....but failed.

Tuesday had 2 objectives:  Visit the Titanic Museum and let Grandaddy fly a plane.  We're happy to report that both happened! We visited the Titanic Museum in Inverness and then Nick and his dad dropped Yaya, Dianna and the kids off at a park (an AMAZING park!) and went to the airport where a plane was rented and Grandaddy got to fly!  

Little more on the Titanic Museum....it's in a man's house.  For real. It's his personal collection of Titanic memorabilia and a model of the ship (in his backyard), as well as other maritime type things.  

There was plenty of other random stuff...you could have an incredible treasure hunt around the place -- here are some of the items that would be on the list if we were making it:

• Nemo
• A Minion
• A fake man snoring
• Wall-E
• A playground that at first glance just looks like a pile of junk (that's a compliment)
• Free coffee and biscuits

 

Looking at the Morse Code Machine

Some kind of diving submarine model

She is cracking us up.  All dressed up and posed. 

Where there's a boat driving game, Eli will be playing it. 

Whin Park officially wins the award for "Best Playground in Scotland" (granted, we didn't visit all of the playground in Scotland....but it would be extremely difficult to beat this one!).  You might just want to google "Whin Park" and then look at the images.  

Such a perfect way to spend a beautiful afternoon.  

Wednesday we took the train from Aviemore to Edinburgh...and enjoyed our last day with Grandaddy and Yaya.  If you ever have the chance to play with "Rory's Story Cubes," do it.  We had fun rolling the dice and telling stories together....(and pizza is always good). 

And then this morning we got up bright and early to see Grandaddy and Yaya off to the airport....lots of bedhead and lots of love all around.  

We spent the rest of the day playing and running around outside...swimming and playing soccer...resting and reading....jumping on the beds...swimming again....getting snacks for the plane rides...one of us got to go for a solitary trek into the heart of Edinburgh AND she got to go for an evening run - she thoroughly enjoyed herself on both outings.

All in all we had a day of rest, relaxation and refreshment.

Tomorrow morning we'll get up even brighter and earlier than we did this morning and take ourselves to the airport.  We'll get on a plane that'll take us to London and then one that'll take us to Madrid and then another that will get us to Gran Canaria....if all goes as planned we'll find one special sister/aunt/friend waiting for us and we'll all head to the Dunas for a few more days of hotel living (the ship's dry dock time was extended...so we can't go back to the Africa Mercy just yet).  None of the Cash kids are complaining about the access to icecream and french fry.  Hopefully we'll be able to move back to the ship on Thursday....feel free to pray for no more delays if you feel so inclined.

What a grand adventure it's been....so many wonderful moments and memories made.

Surely there will be more to come.