Our Walk to Church

Little man checking out his feet before we leave, "why do they put shoes on me?  I can't even walk!"

Walk by the neighbors

Pass through Holyrood Park

 Check out Salisbury Crags

Stop and pose for millionth picture

Enjoy the autumn colors

Laugh at Daddy who is donning a French accent and calling him Henri Matisse

Wave hello to the Queen at the Palace

Shake our heads at the ugly Parliament Building that cost 400 million pounds
and looks. like. this.

Home again, home again jiggity-jog!

As the Baker Girls would say, "Happy Nappy Time!"

Unfortunately this phrase denotes a much different meaning in Britain. . .

Happy Sunday Y'all!  

Hope your walk (drive!) was as pretty as ours!

xoxo,

The Inces

What Goes Up...

I am not a hiker. I didn't know this until 3 hours into my first real hike.

Nightmare.

When what was supposed to be a fairly easy 4 hour hike in picturesque Hallstatt, Austria turned out to be a 10 hour one, Taylor feared I was ruined for hiking forever.

I grew up going to the beach. Vacation to my family was synonymous with relaxing in the sun not self exertion (unless it involved strapping boards to your feet and flying down a mountain - for this they make an exception). The Inces on the other hand went toe to toe with Mother Nature.

And liked it.

Enjoying Mother Nature to the Kellams meant taking a dip in emerald colored water 30 feet away from a freezer full of popsicles, a lounge chair, and a NY Times bestseller.

For the Inces it meant driving to Colorado in the middle of summer, the heat blasting in the Suburban (aka Nathanael's Revenge),  camping, and of course hiking.

So when we started talking about moving to Scotland, I dreaded all of the hiking in my near future. Taylor assured me that it was more like hill-walking and that I would definitely enjoy it.

We live close to a "mountain" here in Edinburgh. You can even see it out of our kitchen window if you are over 6 feet tall and stand in exactly the right spot. And believe it or not, I optimistically looked forward to getting "into" hiking despite my previous bad experience which included me crying as I sat down in the middle of the path refusing to go on, Taylor pushing me in the back with his Bible as he read the Psalms aloud and pleaded with God that I wouldn't be so wimpy, and Nathanael finally silently throwing his hands up in the air and sprinting ahead of us (literally) so that he could actually see the summit of the mountain since I made it clear that I wasn't going past the rest stop. To my credit, we had been hiking for 6 hours already and still had to go back down. And going down ended up being almost as hard as going up. . .

Our hike up to Arthur's Seat proved the same.


Call me naive, but I didn't even have second thoughts about going in the first place.  It was even my idea to take advantage of the small window of sunlight Edinburgh had to offer one Tuesday afternoon lest we miss our chance and Edinburgh turn to grey once more.  Taylor of course readily agreed and dropped his studies (knowing he should take advantage of this rare opportunity before I could change my mind no doubt).


What I hadn't anticipated was taking Seth.


I had been given many accounts of hiking up to Arthur's Seat from various people around the city (ok, let's be honest, I drilled anyone I knew or randomly overheard discussing it on the street), and their answers were always the same.


"It's easy.  It took us 45 minutes up and back. No problem."


Yada, yada, yada.


I believed them.  And they were probably telling the truth.  I just forgot the minute detail of bringing a four month old with us.  No, I didn't forget to bring Seth.  I just didn't mentally prepare how I'd handle a hike with him strapped to my fearless hiker-happy husband.



Our trip up the hill was a little steep, but for the most part, the path was wide and grassy - maybe I should have caught on and stopped right there.  Anxious to see the vista of our new city from the top and wanting to show my husband I could enjoy hiking with him, I pressed on.

We reached the top of the first hill and the view was spectacular,






but Arthur's Seat was blocking the best part of the city.  We carried on but not until after running into a septuagenarian Scotsman hiking alone in his loafers, shorts, and not without his walking sticks of course!  He merrily recounted the time he and his wife took their 4 month old son up to the Pentland Hills, and how his wife got quite irritated with him when the baby started turning blue from the cold.  Thanks.



We could see lots of people on top of Arthur's Seat,

and I scurried to keep up with Taylor as he strode up the side of the hill.  This one, however, was rocky and even steeper than the first.

Forget worrying about my own footing. What are we doing up here with a 4 month old (who is totally asleep at this point)?!

I kept looking left and right to see if people were giving us, are you crazy? expressions.  They weren't. So I let that console me and tried not to think about it. We picked our way past elementary school children, teenagers, parents, grandparents, and shortly made it to the top.  The view made me forget my misgivings instantly.

But they quickly came back as we made our way back down.

Taylor spotted some stone steps that led down the mountain on the side closer to our flat (the opposite side from where we climbed up).  The only problem was that we were here.

Not at the top of the actual stairs.  I was scared. Again my head swiveled from side to side to check out those around us to see if people were looking at us incredulously.  Taylor was standing in front of a "trail head." More like a footprint here and there made by some large rabbit and maybe a daring teenager.

"See.  Here is a trail marked out.  I will get us to the stairs," he promised confidently.  I wasn't buying it and began to balk, backing up and tripping over my feet.  Before I had the chance to protest, Taylor pulled me up on my feet, stopped me in my tracks,  and said,

"Do you trust me?" He didn't wait for a response.

"Am I the experienced hiker or are you?" Again not waiting for a response.

"Robin you've got to trust me even though you can't see where you are going."

He wasn't trying to be pastor-y or profound, but the weight of his statement silenced me instantly.  It hit me how that is such a picture of my walk with Christ.  I balk when I reach a trail head that I don't recognize, but I have to trust Him.  Trust that He knows the way better than I do and even though it may be hard, it is good.  It can even lead to an easier way down in the end.



So I decided that I would resist the urge to argue with my husband, and trust that he knew what he was doing better than I did.  And you know what?  We made it to the stairs.  And easily walked down the rest of the way.

A few steps into our descent, Taylor pointed to some colorful dots in a sheer crevice in the rock face.

Upon closer inspection, it dawned on me that those were some of the people we had seen up at the top.



"Aren't you glad I didn't take us down that way?" Taylor laughed.

Yes, yes I am.

Don't worry. They made it.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought for it never ceasing bearing fruit."  Jeremiah 17:7-8

Long, Tall Texan

You're probably thinking, awww, what a cute picture of Seth. But actually, in the Ince household, this elicited,

"TAYLOR! You've got to see this!"

Let me back up. I had just put Seth down for his morning nap. He is what is noted as an "angel baby" for those of you who are familiar with The Baby Whisperer; for the uninitiated, you can probably figure out what that is by the name. So obviously Seth is a great napper. He goes in his crib awake, talks to his "friends" on his mobile, squeals with delight, and then almost immediately gets quiet and falls asleep.

This particular morning, I heard him laughing, so due to my "FOMO" complex (that is Fear Of Missing Out - dubbed by my brother-in-law, Jason), I had to spy on him to see what was so apparently hilarious.

And. I. See. This.

Now you're probably thinking, what's the big deal?

And it wouldn't be a big deal unless you knew that this is how I put him in his crib originally (notice the placement of the "Sleep Sheep").

He turned completely in a circle, on his back, with one arm out of his swaddle! This may not seem like a big deal, but the cribs here are miniscule leaving little room for our ridiculously tall 4 month old.

So I sat in his room (in the dark) to see how he accomplished such a feat. Here are my discoveries:

I hope you're noticing how he doesn't take his eyes off of his friends :)

That is until he realized he had an audience. Related to Taylor Ince much?

Somebody is pretty pleased with himself!

So I leave him like this to begin his nap. (above)

Come back to check on him and he is like this! (below)

What am I going to do? Has my angel baby flown away?

Incorrigible.

Going.

Going.

Gone.

And this is how he was when I went to get him up.

Time for the Inces to invest in a circular crib...

Culture Shock Part I: The Blue Kitchen

Math is not my friend.

And it's all because of that guy in America who decided we wouldn't be on the metric system like everywhere else in the world.

Thanks a lot.

He is the bane of my existence in Edinburgh.

The math comes in as part of my job. I never thought I would need to use math as part of my job and have avoided it at all costs. I was totally that kid who complained during math class.

When am I ever going to use this?

I'd like to take the time now to apologize to all of my former math teachers who had to answer this question (or at least hear it) innumerable times over the course of their teaching careers because, it's true. I hate to admit it, but I do need math.

Wow, that was a really big step for me.

No, I am not getting my PhD in electrical engineering. No, I did not get a job as a banker at Royal Bank of Scotland. No, I am not teaching Seth his numbers...yet.

I am just a mom trying to keep my family fed.

And for those of you who know Taylor's metabolism, well, this is not an easy task.

So the question of the day in the Ince household is not, what's for dinner?

But, will we eat before 9 pm?

This is not because I am a particularly slow cook...anymore (I can hear you laughing in disbelief all the way from Charlotte). No, it's because my recipes call for cups, ounces, pounds etc, and I'm pretty sure they've never heard of those in the UK. It's maddening! I've resorted to having my computer in the kitchen with me while I fix dinner. I either have to google a conversion calculator or skype my father-in-law when it says I can't convert grams to cups. (Thanks Popsie!)

Secondly, the oven is, of course, in Celsius not Fahrenheit, and even when I calculate the difference, it still messes up my food.

Case and Point:

This is supposed to be banana bread.

Sad.

Here is my assortment of measuring utensils:

Thank you IKEA for anticipating my dilemma (though I still haven't figured out what DL is used for).

Yes, this is a blender. What?! It's the only thing in my kitchen that has measurements for ml!

Side note: This blender is basically the UK version of a Vitamix. We got it from a resale shop for 15 pounds. Score! Except for the fact that it takes up way too much space.

These yellow ones make me the most crazy as I thought it was a cup, 1/2 cup etc for cooking with dry ingredients. Not the case. So basically I use the big one to get the flour out of the jar. Please somebody send me some measuring cups!

The silver ones actually measure T and t etc. Needless to say I had the wherewithal to bring those with me from the States. Thanks Becky - I smile every time I use these cute spoons!

So mostly this post was to let you in on some of the culture shock, to show you how my foggy brain is being challenged, and especially to post pictures of our flat since y'all keep emailing me for pictures of our flat. It's not homey yet hence the dragging of the feet.

The kitchen is the only room that is presentable at this point. Though, the blue curtains are definitely not acceptable and will not be living here much longer.

That's right. You see a washing machine in the kitchen. Where the dishwasher should be.

But that's a whole different post.

Chopping blocks courtesy of IKEA make for an optional kitchen island or offers extra seating when bar stools are added. We can seat 10 in our kitchen - great for having students over for dinner!

Come visit us.

You could eat in this very kitchen.

Soggy banana bread, but you could eat it in this very kitchen.

In Edinburgh.

With this ridiculously cute baby.