It’s finally over!!!

That’s right folks, the days of darkness are now dwindling. We made it passed the shortest day of the year and now will be enjoying the slowly lengthening daylight (on the days when it’s not cloudy anyway)! We were living with only about 5-6 hours of daylight most days, and that wasn’t even a guarantee because a lot of days it is so cloudy and/or foggy they have to leave the street lamps on all day. We have learned that we don’t hate it when it’s dark, but we definitely would rather it be light! It makes us veeeeeeeery sleeeeeeeepy when it is dark all the time :) We wake up tired, go through our day tired, and go to bed exhausted.. even if nothing was accomplished all day long (although we hope that doesn’t happen). Sometimes to help our tiredness, this happens…

I captured the event on camera the other day.. as you can tell, hubby was really glad that I did :) We even hit landmark of tiredness today when I took a nap with him! I’m not very good at taking naps, I find them more depressing than helpful, but I just couldn’t make it today. It was nice and cozy :) So, we’re looking forward to reaching normal days of sunshine again – can’t come soon enough!

In other news, Ian wanted to show everyone one of his favorite Scottish meals.. I find them really gross, but he eats this meal almost everyday for lunch (yes lunch, while that could count as two dinners for me, it is lunch for the hubby). It started with just the noodles, then he got creative and started adding some variety of meat pie with the noodles, then he figured he needed to make it a little healthier and we got this…

Yes it looks ok now, but about 10 seconds after this picture was taken it became noodly, pie-y, broccoli-y mush… Ian-style :) I married a mixer.

What? A garden in the rubbish bin? Well not exactly.. but I thought it looked cool and couldn’t resist a few pictures.. Ian got me some flowers a few weeks ago that lasted a very long time. I would’ve left them out longer but they were starting to smell weird. They didn’t quite fit into the trash can, so we got that fun result!

On Wednesday evening of this last week, we had over two couples for a big pot-luck style meal. There were the McCrary’s (Lauren and Andrew), the Kynes (who you will remember from previous blog posts), and us. Together we made a meal of marinated, boneless pork chops, ranch seasoned mashed tatties, steamed carrots and green beans, bread, wine, and pecan pie with ice cream. It was delightful! We had a great time with them and Ian awed everyone with his extensive knowledge of… you guessed it – youtube videos! :) It’s kind of crazy how many he knows about because I can guarantee you he does not just sit around and find these videos, he basically just studies and writes all the time so I’m not sure how it happens.. Anyway, I caught the guys with some post-dinner entertainment while the ladies were finishing up in the kitchen..

And finally… The date. A few months ago, Ian and I received a coupon for a free entrée at a local restaurant in town called Little John’s. We had debated on how to use it and decided to make it a special date night to celebrate the close of Ian’s first semester at St Andrews. The restaurant is comparable to an Applebee’s and was really, really fun. We got all gussied up…

…And hit the town :) It’s pretty deserted now that students have left for Christmas, so we were only dining with 2-3 other families in the whole restaurant. A kink was thrown into our plan however when we learned that the coupon is good for every day but Saturdays!! Go figure. We ended up just splitting one entrée (some really good chicken and steak fajitas) and so didn’t end up spending any more than we would’ve, and now we have an excuse for another date night somewhere down the road since we still have the coupon :). We haven’t eaten in a restaurant since we got here, so it was really fun to remember what a privilege and what a special thing that is!

We came home and were going to watch a movie but instead played a few rounds of monopoly (weird, I know, but it was fun) and I totally cleaned house the second round. I had every property on the board… it was by far the best round of monopoly I have ever played :)

We love you guys and are sad we can’t be with those of you in the States for the holidays, but we are looking forward to our Christmas time with the Ellis family, as well as the community of friends we have developed here. God is good!