Sunday with the Hamer's
Some of you may be wondering where we go to church on Sundays and what the church looks like. Well on a typical Sunday morning we attend Stirling Baptist Church in downtown Stirling. Why Stirling Baptist? Well, it was the first place we attended when we moved to the Stirling area so we said, hey this is cool and we stayed. The church has 3 services at 9:45, 11:30am and 6:30pm. We attend the 11:30 service because Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest so we take full advantage and sleep in as long as possible. Lately we've been arriving at 11 so I (Marc) can get the drums in order and prepare for worship. The kids will go to Sunday school and if Julie is not in the creche, she'll find a seat towards the back where all the Americans are told to sit (just kidding).
Dress is pretty casual but we still like to dress up the kids on occasion as you can see with Erin and Kayleigh wearing their new purple dresses. After church it isn't uncommon for us to get together with friends and take in the sights as you can see Dave and I doing below. Hey, I need my Sunday afternoon nap so why not have it at the Stirling Castle eh. Well, that gives you a bit of a snapshot of our Sunday experience. Ta, Ta for now.



 

Sizzling on the beach in Scotland
The weather here has been amazing with temps as high as the 80's and plenty of sunshine. Since this isn't exactly the norm here, we've decided to take advantage by hitting the beach. Last Sunday after church we headed off to the wee town of Elie (North of Edinburgh) where they have a beautiful beach with real sand (not rocks). We spent our time there cooking hotdogs and pasta, Dave dug and sculpted a whale which the dogs thought was their personal place to relieve themselves (see picture below). We also played frisbie and Dave and Marc spent about a half an hour at least throwing a football as far as they could. My (Marc) arm is still sore. Perhaps that wasn't the smartest thing in the world for two guys on the wrong side of 40. The kids and Dave swam in the very cold water. Dave being a surfer from Cali is so jonesing for some waves he braved the icy waters to try and body surf 1 foot waves. I decided to watch from the shore while my feet were going numb in the water up to my ankles. I'm not sure Dave actually ever caught a wave, kind of hard to catch a 1 footer when you're 6'4" tall. At least he tried though eh.

Enjoy the rest of the pics.

Marc

 

Root Beer Floats with Emily
Our good friend Emily surprised us the other day after church with a case of 'Mug' root beer she brought all the way back from her recent trip to California. We were so excited we decided to have her over for burgers on the grill and root beer floats afterward. She said she loved them but they looked gross. After she said that I had to agree. Something about how the ice cream and carbination makes it look like a bad chemical reaction or worse yet...I'll leave it at that.

Whatever it looked like, it tasted amazing as we don't get real root beer over here. Thanks Emily, you made our day and week for that matter and it was great to have you over to hang out with us and chat. 

More 4th of July Pics

Our Lakeside 4th of July Picnic
This was the scene last tuesday on the 4th as we celebrated the 4th with our good friends the Schlos's. We had a great time eating burgers, lighting sparklers, chatting while the kids tirelessly played in the Loch. We also invented some new games we think will fit right in with the next Olympic summer games. First, up is the reverse sand shovel rock toss. Dabe ended up using his hight advantage to take the gold medal in the men's division. Louise edged out Julie in the womens division but as we found out later it was at a cost as she pulled a hip flexor muscle and has had a hard time driving ever since. The shovel you see in my hand is the actual shovel we used in the competition.

The other game was the swan whack. This was invented out of necessity as the swans kept encroaching on our territory. It was about survival, really. I should say that no swans were injured during this competition.

All in all it was a great day with beautiful weather, tasty food and great fellowship. I'll post some more pics soon of the competitions and some good patriotic stuff. By the way, these photos are compliments of the Schlos's who took over 100 photos that day.

A Scottish Heatwave!
This is definitely a first since we've been here. The temp. has hit 80 degress f. That's my trusty thermometer that has traveled the world to document the event. The people here are without a doubt melting.

We had a great time on the 4th but I don't have any pics yet. I'll have to try and scarf some from some friends because I forgot to bring the camera along with us. Stay tuned.

"Our God Is A Great Big God..."
This was the scene inside Alva Baptist church last week as the kids sang, "My God is a Great Big God". As you can see there were plenty of kids and they along with the leaders had a great time. Please pray for this stuggling church. As of a couple of weeks ago, there were only 6 people attending regularly. We're hoping that some if not all the kids who attended the Kids Club will come back with their parents. We'll see what happens.

We said goodbye to the New Jersey team yesterday and once again it was a tearful goodbye to our family members. We miss them all so much. We do appreciate the time we had with them but it never seems to be enough. We look forward to our next invasion from America from the Andrews family later this month. Until then we will be busy with the IWT stuff as October is approaching fast.

Tomorrow we plan to celebrate the 4th with our good friends Dabe, Wiesie and Lills Bachs (I hope I spelled that right because I will never hear the end of it). Dabe is from the states and married a Scottish lassie took her off to the west coast and had a wee Scottish/ American lassie named Lills. They've just moved back here about 3 yrs. ago and have been such a blessing to us. We don't even have to pay them money to be our friends which is an extra bonus. Perhaps we'll have a 4th of July picture for you on wed., we'll see.

That's all for now, more later.
Marc