Haggis, Hustle, and Happy Christmas

Hello all you lovely people,

It's 2am and I need to go to bed but I need to update you before Christmas on some important happenings since my last post.

First, we celebrated St. Andrews Day for the very first time on the 30th of November. This is obviously a BIG day here in St. Andrews. We had a graduation ceremony for the university, a porridge cooking contest, and the mother of all entertainments- the opportunity to cook and sample Scotland's most famous (or infamous) beast- the HAGGIS. Locals love to tell how the haggis is a shy creature that runs aboot on the braes (hills) and as such has two short legs and two long legs to allow it to run steady on the inclines. The reason they have to tell this cute little lie is that the truth is a wee it frightening to us non-natives... it is a glorified sausage created with the lungs and other miscellaneous organs of a sheep which are mixed with sage and other savory herbs (pronounced Herbs like Herbert of course). This is misleadinly referred to as a type of pudding in these parts. Regardless of what you call it, this rather questionable concoction is then loaded into a sheep's stomach, which is then tied off at the ends. After a bonny 45-minute boil you've got a lovely speckled off-white sickly balloon that smells like burnt rubber. Plop it on a platter, bring it to the table before your admiring guests and then plunge a dagger into it to reveal its detestable.. I mean delectable....contents. A quick dig and scoop maneuver later and you have a classic and renowned Scottish meal, made complete by pairing it with neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes).

Yep, we bought it, we boiled it, we almost barfed when carving it....but we ATE it!!! :-)

Actually, it didn't taste that bad.. imagine oatmeal and gritty sausage mixed with stove top stuffing and you get a rough idea.

But enough about that. The "hustle" in the title refers to our busy lives. I spent much of the last month continuing my aggressive reading schedule while working on, and finishing, two essays on political philosophy and research methodology that totaled roughly 50 pages of work. Needless to say I am exceptionally glad to have that over with and to be enjoying some time off from school work.

Gabriel continues to go to nursery school and loves it. One of our favorite sights is to see him wearing his shirt, no pants, shoes without socks, his Mickey Mouse sunglasses, and his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack (or his "pack" as he likes to call it) while he tells us how he's gonna go to school cuz he's a big boy.

Noah is also highly entertaining. He's quite good at communicating, although sometimes the questions he comes up with can be a bit surprising. The other night, for instance, when I was giving the boys a bath, he looked at his brother grabbed one of Gabe's buns and asked "You got poop Gabriel?" Then he grabbed his own buns and stared at them and said "I don't got poop." Guess that potty training talk with Gabriel is at least making an impression on him.

Elizabeth remains Miss Popularity. When she was away in Minnesota visiting family recently you wouldn't believe how many of her friends called to offer help with dinner or to check on us or how I managed to run into some woman who mysteriously knew who I and the boys were when we were out in town. I think that girl knows at least half the town. Once she even stopped to talk to a lady who was picking weeds in her flower bed because she recognised her, and sure enough she was a librarian in town that she had chatted with for several minutes. She stays very busy with Bible studies, book clubs, toddler groups, and a variety of other decidedly Ozzie and Harriet type activites. Best of all, she is happier and more beautiful than ever.

This Christmas, we have no Christmas tree for the first time ever and our house is the most decorated one on the whole street...we have one string of coloured lights in the window! If you think Christmas in the US is too commercial, you'd love it here. We don't miss all the trappings too much, but it will be hard to be so far from all of our family and friends back home. Thankfully, God has given us an awesome set of friends here and we have a candlelight carol ceremony on Christmas Eve and a huge potluck Christmas Day that we'll be able to attend. So we'll still be with family in a way.

Please pray that God continues to bless our family, especially as we get Gabriel evaluated for Asperger's Syndrome and that He provides the additional funds we need to pay for our rent and living expenses (it's far more expensive to live here than the States and so our budget has been forced upward). In praise, my last CT scan shows me to be cancer free and I'm sporting ever-thickening wavy hair, my federal student loan finally came through so I'll be able to pay about 60% of my tuition and housing fees right away, and my marriage is the best it's ever been thanks to some painful but crucial breakthroughs Elizabeth and I had recently. God is so very good.

I'm off to bed.

May God bless you all and give you an amazing Christmas filled with "the wonders of His love."

(With any luck we'll figure out our digital camera and have family pics in the next post.)

G'Night ;-)