Travels and Visitors in January!

January has a bad reputation. Its days are short, darkness looms, and Christmas is another year away. I took all of this into consideration and planned two family-filled holidays. And now, January's gone and it's February, the month of love and my birthday!

St Ives & Cambridge

Before moving to Scotland, I was comforted in knowing that we would have family near, just a few hours south in England. So, at our first opportunity we booked an Easy Jet flight to visit some special people!

For the first part of our trip we stayed with Joan, Martin and Lisa, and their adorable son Sam. We visited St Ives on our honeymoon, and the town was just as we remember. We spent our days drinking lattes at the Golden Lion, strolling through the market, and dancing with little Sam.

As a special treat, Steve and Helen came to St Ives and took us to a fantastic Indian restaurant. Aside from the yummy cuisine, we had great conversation and truly enjoyed spending time with them.

For the last part of our holiday we traveled down to Cambridge to stay with Audrey. She has a charming flat near town and we enjoyed many cups of tea and games of Cribbage. We wandered around the historic town for an entire day. The highlights included steaming lattes and powdered sugar covered pastries, the Fitzwilliam Museum, and a beautiful walk through a treed park.

St Andrews, Dundee, Edinburgh, Anstruther, & Pittenweem

My mom and dad walked up to our flat after a full day of traveling and looked as young and beautiful as ever! It will be one of my fondest memories. They stayed at the Castlemount B&B and had 5 star service. And the location, right across from the St Andrews Castle, was breathtaking!

They spent their days eating fudge donuts from Fischer & Donaldson, climbing up St Rule's Tower, and exploring the castle ruins. They got to live our lives for a week and meet all of our new friends! On Sunday we attended our church, Trinity, and then had lunch at one of our favorite soup spots.

The Royal Mile is where we ended our special time together. To keep from freezing we spent lots of time at Cafe Nero and tasting many of the pubs around town. We watched the cannon go off at the Edinburgh Castle and gazed at the beauty of St Gile's Cathedral. Too soon their trip was over and we had a tearful goodbye outside of the Holiday Inn Express.

Walking away, I realized that I should consider sad goodbyes a blessing. It's never a bad thing to have people to miss. I look forward to them coming again soon!

Here are some photos of our travels: