Scotland: Our Hosts

This post is part of a series called Exploring Scotland

A mere $80 bucks secured our flight from Iceland to the United Kingdom. Score! We spent 4 days in Cork, Ireland before traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland to meet up with my dear childhood friend, Tammy. We returned to Ireland afterwards so I’ll come back to that in another post. For now I want to gush about getting to spend 13 whole days with my sweet friend, her family, and her father who happened to be visiting from New York at the same time – what?!?! Let me begin with introductions…

Meet Tammy

Tammy is my bestie from *censored* years ago who is now a wife, mother, and crazy amazing cook. I have zero photographic evidence of this. Apparently I was too busy shoving my face full of things like duck and some kind of fancy berry sauce. Confession, I had never even heard of that berry and I couldn’t tell you the name of it if my life depended on it, but it was deeelish.

Beauty.

I’d like to play with the ducks now, Mom.

The whole family

Meet Xavier

Xavier and Tammy share both matrimony and the same culinary league, which is a major bonus for those staying at Chez Seneque. He also enjoys entertaining his little princess, hiking with family & friends, and photography.

Entertaining his princess

A day of hiking

Meet Arianna

Arianna is the newest addition to the family. She’s a darling 10-month-old baby girl who currently enjoys feeding ducks, learning to swim, and pulling on beards. Her future endeavors include photography and world domination. In the meantime, she’s an accomplished bringer of joy with her morning grins. Y’all, I get to be this little love’s first girlfriend — baby Jess gave me a run for my money, but it’s my blog so I claim victory!

really enjoys ducks

Arianna loves the water!

Champion beard puller

Future photographer

Planning world domination

morning cheese is the best cheese!

BFFs!

Meet Bruce

Bruce is Tammy’s Dad, Arianna’s Papa, and a childhood father figure to yours truly. I think he currently enjoys his grandchildren most of all.

Kick, kick, kick!

Safe in Papa’s arms

Hanging out at a lake

Meet Ramsay & Arsinoë

I should also mention the King and Queen of the house, Ramsey (who Diego calls Merlin for reasons unknown) and Arsinoë. They are named for Egyptian royalty — Cleopatra’s sister and her lover if memory serves. They mostly enjoy sleeping and being let out only to be let back in again.

Ramsay (aka: Merlin)

Arsinoë

Together Again

My number one highlight in Scotland was undoubtedly spending meaningful girl-time time with Tammy again. We haven’t done that since our days as inseparable, high-strung teenagers. Tammy and her family were the first Christians to invite me to church, youth group, and weekend retreats. I’m so grateful for the seeds they planted so long ago. Unfortunately we lost touch after high school; I left the state and she took off to study abroad in London. Except for a brief period back in the States, she really never looked back. She met her prince in London, they got married in a castle in France, and they are busy living happily ever after in Scotland.

Thank goodness for Facebook! It was such a treat to be together again as adult women. It filled my heart immeasurably to be in her home, experience her life, hang out with her Dad again, and to really get to know Xavier and Arianna…and eat their truly amazing food!

Giggling teenagers?

The Most Special Day

We were also fortunate to witness Arianna’s christening during our visit. It took place at the beautiful, old, and totally rad St. John’s Episcopal Church. Formal places of worship and rituals can be off-putting to me (I’m working on that) so I was delightfully surprised by this church. The interactive learning tools and photos of the many outreach projects they support outnumber the stained glass windows, they have a play space for babies right up front (!), and the visiting preacher was from a Lutheran Church in Germany. His message was all about unity in the trying times we face across the globe. I really enjoyed him and so did Arianna (check out the smile she gave him below!).