Julie's Visit

Well, it sort of goes without saying that I have let myself get way too far behind on posting to our blog. Now I am a little overwhelmed at the prospect of getting caught up on posts. We have had so many great adventures and travels this summer, so we are excited to share some of our memories with you. Hopefully one or two of you out there are still reading our updates and checking out our pictures.

In July, our dear friend Julie came over from Atlanta for a visit. Her husband, Marty, wasn't able to join us for this trip (working too hard) so we will look forward to showing him the sights on a future vacation. It was fun getting to show Julie some of our favorite parts of town. Emerson was in absolute heaven to have JuJu here for the week. Not only did Julie take her swimming twice in a week (a rare treat for us), and bring a suitcase full of early birthday gifts for Miss Em, but she was Emerson's personal playmate for the entire week. Julie was so patient to pal around with our dramatic little red-head and played the longest continual game of house that I have ever seen. Emerson amazingly stayed in character for days at a time!

Emerson at Greyfriar's Bobby.

Showing Julie New College (Trey's school). This is inside the courtyard.

JuJu and Emerson posing on the Leith Walk.

Julie chatting with my friend Kath and Emerson during our playdate at the park.

Ward making his way through Princes Street Gardens.

Having fun with Julie at the park.

Julie's travel plans were delayed so we got a bonus couple of days with her. We decided to make the most of our extra weekend by taking a quick train trip to North Berwick with our friends John and Erinn. Some of you may remember that we went to North Berwick in the winter with my parents, so you may recognize a few of the views. It is an adorable coastal town with a beautiful beach and cute shops. We were luck to have good timing and the tide was out so the kiddos got to search in the tidal pools. Then we took a local bus to Direlton Gardens. The Direlton Castle is in ruins, but still well worth seeing but the main attraction here is the Gardens. They are in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest herbaceous border and (if I remember correctly) the oldest continually tended garden. It really was breathtaking...unfortunately my pictures to post are pretty limited. My camera battery died about 5 minutes after we arrived at Direlton. We will have to make another trip out there soon so I can take some pictures...just sad that Julie won't be here to go along this time! We had a great visit.

John, Lauren, Trey, and Ward in North Berwick.

Beautiful girls.

Emerson exploring the coast.

Tidal pools.

Dramatic skies.

The lone shot of Direlton Gardens.

Ward's First Birthday

Our big boy turned one on May 31st. We had Ward's party on his actual birthday but due to the computer issues mentioned in a previous post, have not managed to get the photos up until now. We had a fun little party out in the garden behind our flat building. We were glad to have so many of our friends join us for the big day. Ward almost slept through the party....finally we decided to go ahead and wake him up. I think the combination of having just woken up and having so many people paying attention to just him was a little overwhelming so he spent half of the party just looking confused. That is until we got to the presents and chocolate cupcakes!
His present from us was a little ride on car, which once he got it, he just sat on it for the rest of the party. I think he was afraid to get up in case one of the other children decided to take a turn. The other children didn't seem to mind too much, since this freed them up to help open his other gifts! Children's birthday parties always make me laugh, when you have like 5 or 6 children all trying to unwrap the same gift. Their enthusiasm is really great!

Not moving from the car.

Sleepy Birthday boy.

Many of our friends from Blacket Avenue joining us for the celebration.

This girl LOVES a party!


Gotta love the cupcakes.


Ward and his friend Titus.

Birthday Portraits

For fear that you will all stop reading our blog, I feel this very urgent need to post something! For those of you who don't know what is going on, we have had some crazy circumstances.  We moved flats (more on that later) and didn't have internet for weeks.  Once we got the internet back my computer died. Which means all of my pictures are on my old computer.  Thankfully we do have two sources of pictures: we had professional pictures done while we were in the States and Ward's 1st Birthday photos were still on the camera and they will follow in another post. 

We were very blessed to have Jana Candler in Greenville, SC do Emerson's 1st birthday portraits a few years ago.  Trey and I were delighted that our Spring trip to SC coincided with the month of Ward's birthday so that we could have Jana do Ward's pictures as well.  Emerson never misses a photo opportunity and of course we wanted to have pictures of them together.  Since Katie and Aubrey were with us in Greenville, we had a great time getting the portraits done together. 

The results were absolutely beautiful.  Jana did a great job of capturing the kids.  Her photos show their personality and humor.  You can watch the slideshow on her blog.  When you get to the blog, choose the May 2nd post entitled "Sweet Cousins".  http://www.janacandlerphoto.blogspot.com/

Fun with Family

While we were in the US, we did our best to cram in as much family time as possible, while enjoying the warm, sunny weather and Nana & Papa's kid-friendly garden. Aunt Katie and Aubrey came from Memphis. We had play dates with Oliver & Beckett and Nathan & Mallory, and also had a little "pre"birthday celebration for Aubrey and Ward....kind of alot in a week when you add in the trips to the pool, gardening, golfing, and other "leisure" activities. We sure missed cousin Lois, who visited Nana & Papa a few weeks before our arrival. We are looking forward to some more good family time when the Hemphill clan comes to Scotland this summer. Hopefully on that trip we'll get a few pictures with Papa...since he is usually the one behind the camera.

Ward and Aubrey getting reacquainted...she's a little scared of him.

Gardening with Nana & Papa...somebody's gotta keep that place looking good!

Emerson playing golf with Daddy and Papa.

Wardie getting ready to head to the pool.

Leisurely breakfast on the patio. "Friend-Katie" (Katie Storey) and "Ju-Ju" (Julie Hile) who are our "extended" family drove up from Atlanta to spend the night and celebrate the early birthdays.

Emerson and Oliver being silly. These two love to spend time together.

Aubrey and Ward checking out the cupcakes.

Sorry PopO, this is MY cupcake!

Openning a few gifts with Nana & Mommy.

Posing for a photo with PopO and Mylu.

Isle of Palms

May has been a busy month! As many of you know, we flew to the US at the end of April for the Orange Conference. While I (Rachael) was working, Trey took the kids to the Isle of Palms to enjoy a little R & R with his family. I can't say that everything went according to plan. While Trey and the kids did in fact make it to the beach, it turned out to be a little more stressful for everyone than we had originally expected. Jetlagged and missing mommy, Ward was a little clingy which kept Trey pretty busy. But as you can tell from the pictures...Emerson barely noticed I was gone. She was so delighted to be with Oliver, Beckett, Aunt Kylie, Uncle Jake, PopO and Mylu AND spending time at the beach that nothing could dampen her spirits. I will mention that without the family photographer along for this beach outing, there were not quite as many pictures to share as I would have hoped....but as I already mentioned, Trey's hands were pretty full...not including the camera.

Picnic with Friends

We don't get to see blue sky very often around here but when we do, we take full advantage of it. While the kids were out of school on Spring holiday, we had a remarkably sunny (and slightly warm) day. At 8:30 a.m. when I saw the sun, I immediately sent an email to all of my Tea Group friends and invited them and their families to join us for a picnic. Miraculously, by the time we headed out for Arthur's Seat at lunch time the sun was still shining!

For those of you who haven't yet been to Scotland, there is this little mountain (or maybe it's just a hill...not sure) called Arthur's Seat which is in a very central part of the city. It is great for a short day hike and boasts beautiful views of the city and the sea. One day soon we hope to walk Arthur's Seat with Emerson (we've been trying to build up her stamina so she can make it on her own) so we'll have some pictures from the top. In the meantime, we are very blessed to enjoy views of Arthur's Seat from our flat. The grassy spot surrounding Arthur's Seat and the Crags was our picnic spot on this fine day since it is such a short walk from Blacket Avenue.

Adrian & Colleen with their children and those familiar red heads.

The perfect picnic spot! Again, there is Adrian & Colleen and also my friend Bev...too many kids in this crowd to name them all.

Emerson and Ward picnicing with Edinburgh city center in the background.

Emerson going for a little run.

Emerson and her friend Hannah.

A great view of the Crags. Andrej and Sarah playing frisbee.

Ward with his "American" football.

Ward walking with Mommy.

Easter in York

After a month of ear aches, sinus infections, and general illness, we decided it would do us all good to get out of the flat and take in some fresh air. So, we took advantage of the long Easter weekend and headed south...well, a little bit south...to York, England.


Emerson has been asking for a train trip ever since our arrival in Scotland last fall. This was a great opportunity since York is only about 2.5 hours by train. When Trey and I said we were going to York for the weekend, Emerson squealed with delight..."OH! New York!...I have been wanting to go there!" (I used to be a frequent Today show watcher when we lived in Atlanta) Trey told her it wasn't New York, it was just York. She paused with that typical Emerson expression that includes serious thought. She then perked up and said "So we are going to OLD York! That's good too." So Good Friday morning we loaded up and headed to Waverly Station.



When we left Edinburgh, the sky was blue and the air was crisp and comfortable... several hours later, when we settled into The Limes, our B&B, and were about to head out for a little site-seeing, we noticed that it had started to snow. And, this was just a precurser... It snowed the entire weekend, which is why we don't have too many photos of this lovely little town. The other little dissappointing fact was that our train ride and fresh air weren't quite as effective as antibiotics when it came to curing our ailments. So, we spent a little more time at the B&B, something I' m sure delighted our host family!!!

Saturday Sightseeing:

York's narrow streets.

Emerson our little traveler.

Inside the Minster.

Enthusiastic Ward


The high points of our journey were that York is lovely (even when cold). The entire city is surrounded by a grassy embankment topped by stone walls. At this time of year they are set of beautifully by thousands of daffodils all around the city. I hope you can manage to make this out in some of our pictures. We also enjoyed the York Minster which is one of the highlights of the city's architecture. We went to Easter services here, again following in the path of our general weekend, not quite as glorious and worshipful as we had anticipated since Emerson fell off of her chair and busted her lip on the stone floor and Ward cried through much of the service..aah! We had a great time at the Castle Museum, which has an entire city street built inside and gives children the opportunity to "experience" history by trying on and touching things rather than just looking at them behind glass. And on a personal note, Ward's 2-3 steps turned into real walking which is really fun.

Easter Sunday:

Ward walking...if only he would walk toward the camera!

Cutie Easter clothes, compliments of MyLu and PopO. You can't really get the full effect in the picture, but they were really cute and even coordinated (which we never do around here).

Such sweet kisses.

York Minster in the snow.

This is Emerson huddled on Trey's shoulders crying "I'm really freezin" all the way from the Minster to the Castle Museum.