Greetings from London! We hope everyone is having a great week! Well, it's been six months since we moved over here. Things started out a little rough, but they quickly got better. We've definitely learned a lot about different ways of life. The world seems a lot smaller now - we can always get home within a day. We sure do miss everybody, but we are getting to travel so much and see the world that it gets us through it. We are having a great time - things are just very expensive over here - but we won't regret this experience.

The weather is crazy - over the past couple of weeks, I've worn anything from long pants and a jacket to shorts and a t-shirt. It's weird to be wearing a jacket in the middle of July! The 10-day forecast is now showing no rain, and the highs in upper 70s everyday. I think Jill misses the hot weather and laying out and all, but since we don't have an air conditioner, I'm kinda glad that it hasn't been any hotter. I wouldn't want to live like this forever though - I like the beach too!

My sister (Ashley) and her husband (John) came to visit us. They met us in Scotland on Saturday morning, we stayed until Monday night, and then we all came back to London for the week. We had a great time!

We started off by walking down the Royal Mile - this famous road stretches between Edinburgh Castle and Holyroodhouse Palace. This is an amazing street - the architecture is incredible! We toured Holyroodhouse Palace at the end of the mile. There have been royal births, deaths, and even murder in the Palace - it was a favorite stay for the early kings who did not want to stay in the castle a mile up the road.

We took a cab to the top of Calton Hill, which is elevated at 100 meters (328 feet). This is in the center of Edinburgh and the view was spectacular! Jill and I also climbed the 143 steps to the top of the Nelson Monument (built in 1807 as a monument to Admiral Lord Nelson) - she beat me to the top. Ashley and John decided to stay down below. The National Monument is also on Calton Hill. Building started in 1822 as a memorial to the dead of the Napoleonic Wars, but funds ran out and it was never finished. The picture to the left is a view from Calton Hill.

That night, we all went on the "City of the Dead Tour". This turned out to be John's favorite. In the 17th century, hundreds of Covenanter prisoners died in terrible conditions in Greyfriars Kirk. The chief prosecutor, James "bloody" McKenzie is buried next door to the prison. There have supposedly been many attacks and incidents (scratches, bumps, bruises, fainting) on this tour over the past few years. It is now claimed that the McKenzie Poltergeist has become the best documented case of its kind in the last two centuries. There have been shows on TV about this site.

Jill and I stayed on Princes Street, and the view was amazing. The Scott Monument was right outside of our window - this was built in 1846 for Sir Walter Scott. It is 61 meters (200 feet) high. We also had a good view of Edinburgh Castle.

The next day, we took a bus tour around the rest of Scotland - the Loch Ness and Legends Tour. We drove all through the Highlands and took a boat cruise on Loch Ness (we actually saw the Loch Ness monster - check out our pictures). We also saw Hamish (the hairy bull), Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Britain at 1344 meters), the Forth Rail Bridge (completed in 1890, 54,000 tons of steel, 6.5 million rivets), the Forth Road Bridge (completed in 1964 and held the record for the longest suspension bridge at 1.5 miles), and a number of castles, lochs, and mountains.

You know Jill - we couldn't get out of there without visiting George Street - one of Scotland's most fashionable streets. This street was named after King George III, and is the spine for the New Town. We walked around and went to an Italian restaurant for dinner that night. We also went on a "haunted vault" tour. There are lots of underground vaults in Edinburgh - the Flodden Wall once surrounded the city of Edinburgh - since there was no more room to build up, the vaults were created underground. During Medieval times, Edinburgh was a terrible place to live because of sanitary conditions. When plaque visited, some people were locked in the vaults to be sealed off from the rest of the city. Many people died gruesome deaths in the vaults. The tour was really neat and it ended up in the famous underground pub.

On our last day, we toured Edinburgh Castle. It sits high above the city on a basalt crag. It was a royal residence as early as the 11th century. It began taking on its present form in about 1650. Each day at 1:00PM, a gun (very LOUD gun) is fired - it has been fired everyday but Sunday since 1861 (except during the World Wars). The castle was really cool and there were lots of good views from it. Also inside the castle are St. Margaret's Chapel (oldest building), the Royal Palace complex (where the Honours of Scotland and Stone of Scone can be found), the Royal Apartments, and the National War Museum.

Right before we left, we decided to climb to the top of Arthur's Seat - it stands at 251 meters (823 feet). Even though we took the "easiest" path up, it was not a cake walk. Of course I beat everyone to the top, but I was exhausted. The views from this point were absolutely amazing. This was my favorite part of our trip. I'm just glad we didn't listen to John when he proposed that we climb the "hard path". There's a picture of Jill and I on top of Arthur's seat.

As you can probably see from our past updates, a trip would not be the same without a little extra added adventure. As we are approaching the bottom of Arthur's seat, we notice that it is not a heavily populated area, so cabs are definitely nowhere to be found. I called the two cab companies that I knew, and they would not pick us up because we were not at an "address" - apparently the "bottom of Arthur's Seat near the lake" is not a valid address. So we're pretty far away from our hotel and our train leaves in an hour - we still have to go get our luggage and go to the train station. Jill and I tell Ashley and John that we're heading down the mountain ahead of them and we would start walking toward civilization to find a cab and we'd come back and pick them up. We find a road, but no cabs. I see one in the distance, so I run down to get it - it's parked and the driver is nowhere to be found. Now Ashley and John are still coming down the mountain, Jill is by some road looking for a cab to pass by, I'm walking further but have no clue where I am, and time is running out. With little time to spare, I spot a cab - I flag him down and - I'm sure you see this coming - he's off duty. After a little negotiation skills by me (or a desperate plea of "I'll pay you big bucks"), he agrees to take me to get the rest of the crew, take us to our hotel, and then to the station. That was the best 25 pounds we spent!

We had a great week back in London - this is the first time any of my family had been to visit - you know how it is - you like to "show them around" and all of that stuff. I worked all week while Ashley and John did all of the sight-seeing and tourist stuff. They saw a play in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and took a special Stonehenge Tour - this sounds really cool - they got to go up and touch the stones, they saw crop circles, and went to several other cool sites - they really had a good time on this excursion.

We met them out at night during the week and had lots of good food - Indian, Thai, Pizza, Navajo Joe's (my favorite place for a steak), and of course, Mexican - did you really think I'd get by a week without taking Jill to eat Mexican? We also all went and saw the West End show, Les Miserables. This was a great show - when John and I like a show like this, you know it's gotta be good!

Jill and I met them Friday night after work at the British Museum - this place is huge, but not as big as the Louvre in Paris. On Saturday, we walked through Richmond, went by the river, and did a little shopping - July is one of the two "sale" months over here, so of course, we had to check them out. We took a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral and climbed the dome - there were 593 stairs to the top. Jill ran up the stairs like there was shoe sale at the top. I don't know how she did it. I took a couple of breaks along the way. Ashley took a few more than that, but we all made it. It was worth it - the views were great. We also toured Tower Bridge and its Engine Rooms. Finally, we checked out the British Art Museum - contains works from Picasso, Monet, and other famous artists.

I can't tell you enough how much I enjoyed their visit. I miss their kids though - they are growing up so fast. Kelsey will be five in two days - Happy Birthday! - and will be starting Kindergarten soon. Reilly will be seven in September and is about to start the first grade! I can't believe they are getting so old!!

Jill recently did a Children's show called "The Basil Brush Show". Basil and Brush are two puppets that cut up and do lots of funny stuff. At one point, Jill was one of the puppet's dinner dates - great, I now have competition with a puppet! She said they were hilarious and she had a great time doing it.

Congratulations are in order for Brandi and John Vickers, the new proud parents of Kenton Thomas. He was born on July 10th at 3:09pm. He weighed in at 8 pounds and he was 21 inches long. He's so cute and we can't wait to meet him - congratulations guys!

We are heading to Brussels, Belgium this weekend. We're taking a train tonight and we'll be back on Sunday evening. We're taking a quick trip to Birmingham starting the night of August 6th. My ten year High School Reunion is that weekend, and I have a company meeting in Atlanta the following week. We'll head back to London on the 11th. We will be pretty busy during this trip, but we'll be back at the end of August for a little longer stay. We'd like to give Steve a HUGE thanks for making all of this possible!

We have new pictures up, so check them out when you get a chance (new ones are London, Edinburgh, and the Loch Ness and Legends Tour - Scotland). Don't forget to click on the pictures for a larger view - and this is where you will find their descriptions as well - believe me, it is worth reading the descriptions (and it's very easy to just click the arrows to scroll through the album). As always, if you have missed an update, you can view our past updates here. We'll try to get another update in before we go home in August - if not, we'll either write it on the plane or we'll have it up soon after we get back. Our next visitors are Carter (Scott) and Kim. We have a lot planned and we're really looking forward to it! We love and miss you all! Take care and God bless!