The Pike Life and Times: Our journey through Seminary

Scotland Trip Day 1

We arrived at the airport plenty early thanks to Grandma-in-a-coma car service. Thanks Grandma! The plane was completely packed out and Joel and I were located in the center aisle, which could have been terrible except we were seated next to a wonderful couple from England. The whole flight lasted 9hr and 45 min and that was just to get to Amsterdam, which was an hour and a half past Glasgow.  The only part of Amsterdam we saw was the airport.

Technically our first full day of the trip was spent in an airplane. We left Monday around 11am and arrived in Scotland at 10am on Tuesday. However, I am not counting that as day one because we didn't sleep at all on that 9hr 45 min flight. Firstly, because we were on our way to Scotland and secondly because it is impossible to sleep on a plane! So we arrived in Glasgow, made it easily through customs, had our passports stamped and met Josh just before grabbing our one checked bag.

 We then went to Josh's place a proceeded to crash for a few hours. Then we went and saw Scotland, well at least we saw Ayr. 

Ayr is a beautiful seaport town on west coast Scotland and where Josh works as a Minister in the Kirk (That's Scottish for The Church). After a tasty lunch and a white coffee (yes! they have white coffee in Scotland, I can't get it in St. Louis or Nebraska but I can get it in Scotland... who knew!) at this cute little diner called the Hunny Pot (Winnie the Pooh themed, very adorable) we went on to our first castle.

Culzean (pronounced Cah-lane) Castle not far from Ayr is a 17th century home with some interesting history. We were really grateful to Josh for allowing us to use a special card that got us into the park and the castle for free. Most of the castle we were not allowed to take pictures inside of so don't expect a glimpse into the beautiful homes.

The grounds were beautiful and because it was a clear day we could see Ireland across the ocean from the wall.

We walked around the grounds for few hours and our legs were burning by the time we were done. Part of the history of the place was that President Eisenhower used this castle as a basis of operation. He even had his own apartment next to the castle.

We also got a quick ride to the walled garden (usually a 5 min walk but a nice gentlemen was headed that direction and gave us a lift) And that was our first day in Scotland.

We went home and slept well that evening preparing for the journey ahead.

Jonathan's Birthday

So Jonathan's birthday got push aside for almost a month. So here are the pictures of Jonathan's very quick after Church Birthday.

Spokane Trip part 2

We got to visit with a lot of family this time around. I think a little more than before but still not all that we wanted to see. We did see all that we came to though including my Grandmeir and Papa. We had lunch with them and visited for quite a while. And Jonathan got to spend sometime getting to know his Great Papa and Great Grandma.

Here are some other pictures of time spent with other family members.

Jonathan and Uncle Scotty.

Auntie Beth and Jonathan.

Spokane Trip

We spent a week in Spokane to visit with family. As most of you know Joel's dad is very ill and instead of having him travel to us it was decided (unanimously I might add) that we go to Spokane for a week. It was very nice of the two congregations to not count this as actual vacation time for us (as that would have made our trip to Scotland impossible). Both congregations agreed that as we are not expecting Joel's dad to be here with us much longer that it was an incredibly important trip and we had a very nice time spending quality time with family while we were there.

Here are a few pictures of some of the greater moments of the trip.
Sylvia and Alissa had a great time being little buddies.

We got to attend Becca's last concert as a 5th grader. I can't believe how much she has grown. Sad that the pic is so dark though. She looked lovely.

My Nephew Little Will. Gotta love that face. LOL

This is one of my favorites. Jonathan was just looking adoringly at Papachen. I am so glad I snapped it.

More on our trip soon.

A picnic and the Zoo

So our life is not so hectic that we can't get out as a family occasionally and do something fun. One thing that Emily has been asking to do all winter is go on a picnic. Not really an easy thing to accomplish when it is really cold outside and wet to boot so learning to wait for things ruled the day. Finally the weather was beautiful again a ready for picnics.  

Jonathan didn't like the grass much and stayed on the blanket really well because of it.

After we ate the girls had fun playing on the toys at the park.

And so did Jonathan...

We actually went to the zoo on the same day we traveled by plane to Spokane.  It was a good idea because it allowed us a little exercise before being cooped up on a plane for several hours. Here are a few fun moments from the zoo.

HAppy Birthday Emily and Sylvia

Saturday the 18th we celebrated the girl's birthdays. I am really grateful that the girls are so willing to share a day for birthday parties. This year, unlike last year, the girls decided on two different themes. I didn't go all out this year as in the past. Instead I placed the focus on some easy fun and of course cake and it seemed to go a lot better. Emily does not like to have all the attention on her. Birthday parties in the past have been a bit difficult because of this so I made sure that she knew exactly what was expected of her. Emily chose to have Star Wars as her special cake theme this year. She loves to play Lego Star Wars on the Playstation 2 and for some reason really likes Darth Vadar ( I know it worries me too). Sylvia on the other hand really likes to be the center of attention. She even led everyone in a rousing couple of tunes during the party while wearing a tiara and holding a wand. ( I wonder who she is more like, me or her Auntie Katy?) Her Birthday cake theme was obviously Princesses. We had a very nice turn out of people from the church and a few friends from the area. We had no idea how many were coming at all and so I planned for more then I needed too. As an activity I found a couple of foam craft kits that had crowns and crosses, stickers and markers to decorate. We had about 13 kids there and about 14 adults. It was Great! We ate cake and the girls opened presents and created with the craft projects. It was just a good time.

Sylvia's cake is an adorable fairytale castle including a princess, prince, and dragon. She was really excited about her cake.

Emily's cake is based upon two things in the Star Wars universe. Of course the lovely Death Star and in the lower right hand corner we see  Dagobah with our favorite muppet Yoda.

 

Emily seeing her cake for the first time!

The Children's museum

We had to "get out of Dodge" after a 9 day stint of way too much going on so we headed to Lincoln with the hopes of going to the Zoo. Sadly it was not going to be open until Wednesday and it was Monday so we had to find something fast to go do. We decided to check and see if any of the museums in town were open. Though we had been told that the Children's museum was closed we had to go there to see if the other museums was open (it was next door) we were pleasantly surprised when it turned out the Children's museum was open that day. According to the lady at the front desk they are open Monday's that Lincoln public schools are closed. Easter Monday, not popular in the Northwest but highly respected in Nebraska means that kiddos get the day off at thus Children's museum was open and we had 3 stories of serious fun. Jonathan and I took about an hour in the designated area for children under 3. We had a splendid time crawling around ont the floor into little tunnels and reading stories together. I think he especially liked follow the leader.

The girls ran around the whole place with daddy and had a great time crawling through tunnels of therir own. After some serious fun of tunnel crawling and the water table I joined up with the others and played in the shadow room and was asked to paint faces. So we have Emily Tiger and Sylvia bunny.

Easter

Wow! Easter was sure an interesting time around here. Between a Baptism, a Wedding and all the Holy

Week services Joel had 12 services in 9 days. It was a tough week and our house really took the brunt of the whole thing. It has taken me more then a week to even deal with a small portion of all that hadn't got done. We were able, amongst all the craziness, to have a little Easter season fun. On Saturday we spent the better part of the morning dying eggs. The girls had a great time and I think the eggs looked splendid. We went to the Egg hunt in Deshler and watched as Sylvia was only able to grab two eggs due to greedy grabby parents that were picking up eggs for their two year old instead of sharing the bounty... nothing changes. Emily's age group did much better as parents stood on the side lines and Emily, sweet as always, shared her bounty with those less fortunate. After the hunt we made a stop at the community center where kids got to make their own set of Resurrection eggs. I now have two sets if anything should happen to one throughout the years :) They also had a few crafts and each of the girls enjoyed making a stain glass window piece (transparency and permanent markers).

Sunday the girls happily hunted Easter eggs in our house (that strange bunny is always hiding eggs around our house.) And Jonathan was happy with his Easter basket. ( I am sad to say that Sylvia, being very naughty and after being told she could not have her own bunny for not finishing her dinner, managed to eat Jonathan's little bunny. We were very displeased.) Each of the kids got a stuffed animal that also acts as a pillow. All were happy and adorned in adorable Easter wear, except Jonathan. For some reason I could not find a little suit of any kind in the Walmart of the other Walmart type stores around here. But he looked cute anyway. After service we ate a very tasty pheasant dinner and relaxed the rest of the day.

K-5 musical

We had such a great time last Friday night when Deshler Lutheran School put on the K-5 musical "We Like Sheep." All the kids were just so cute in their sheep ears and black socked hands. The musical is based on the concept that we are all sheep and follow the true Shepard. It featured songs like, "We like Sheep", "99 Sheep in the Field Today", "He Never Falls Asleep Counting Sheep",  "Born to be Our Shepard", "Abundawonderful Life in Jesus", and many others especially "All We Like Sheep" which is the true theme to the musical. "All we like sheep have gone astray." Emily had been practicing around the house for weeks and though she didn't have a speaking part (these were given to the older kids) she knew all the parts by heart. I think she liked being in the musical a lot, so much so that I caught her watching "Annie" the other day. Before hand she even asked me to, "curl her hair" and she wanted to wear, "lip gloss." I was in complete shock. My Spiderman lovin', voltron watchin', tomboy wanted to be girlie! So I curled her hair and she wore a little watermellon lip gloss (none colored just shiny).

They had about 40 kids in all in the musical, Emily's class being the largest with 13 kids (only 11 showed). It was such an adorable show and I am looking forward to the copies I ordered so that I can send then to the Gram & Papa and Granna & Papachen but until then here are a few adorable pictures of Emily the Sheep.

                                                                                                                

Jonathan at Play (in the style of Dick and Jane)

See Jonathan sitting on the floor.

See Jonathan on hands and knees crawling toward you.

Jonathan likes to read magazines.
And look at pretty pictures.

Don't you like pretty pictures too?

See Jonathan Stand. Jonathan likes to be able to move about.

Soon Jonathan will be walking.

There will be no stopping him after that. Babies grow to fast.