January 1.

The trains don't run in Scotland on New Years Day, so we took a cab out to Balloch for an afternoon with Cory and Natalie and their families.

And I say afternoon, because Tim and I didn't wake up until 1pm, and only then because we could hear music coming from another room in the hotel. It was actually really nice to sleep in for once. We've had such a fun time, but all of the late nights, all of the drinking, all of the delicious rich food can take a lot out of you (especially, like Tim and Jake, if you are 30 or almost-30 and therefore very, very elderly.) Yesterday we hadn't done much in the afternoon, but we were out and dancing until so very late.

We had a really nice afternoon. We had an early dinner/late lunch at the pub. I had haggis tempura as my starter.

It was some serious deliciousness.

We had a few beers and then went back to Natalie's parents house. I cannot stress enough what wonderful hosts our Scottish friends are. We had a few more beers and Alex played guitar and sang for all of us, and we sang along to the songs we knew (mostly Simon and Garfunkel.) While we were there, the photographer (their across the street neighbor) came by to drop off the wedding proofs, so then it was a mad rush to shuffle through all of the photos of their beautiful wedding.

For Christmas, Natalie had given Cory a remote control helicopter - a replica of the one he hopes to be flying in a few weeks, when he gets his wings (we joked with him that we'd love to fly out to see him get winged, but we will be too busy partying in Hawaii.) Of course, the boys ripped it out of the package and began flying it around. Cory is hoping to get stationed in California, so maybe Tim and Jake can fly their planes with him soon.

The boys planning their aerial assault. (btw, these are the only two pictures I took today, so if you were hoping for more, I apologize.)

To make up, here is a photo of Tim and Jake with their own helicopters on Christmas Day. Doesn't matter how old they are - boys love remote controlled items. My mom is watching them to make sure they don't break any of her pretties. Though, if they broke one, it would most likely get laughed off. If Sara or I broke one, we all know that we'd be marched out of the house and made to sleep in the street.

We are getting to bed earlier tonight, and heading back out to Edinburgh in the morning. There's a lot to explore besides the castle, so that's how we'll spend our day. I don't think we're going to get out to the Loch Ness area - the idea of spending seven hours on a train the day before spending fifteen plus hours traveling back to Los Angeles is not really appealing. Next time we visit, I suppose.