Everyday in Atlanta G-A

Andy, Amy and Ainsley in Atlanta

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Location: Atlanta, Georgia, United States

We love our little girl and now have another one coming soon! Stay tuned...

10.22.2006

Meet our Godson

We feel very honored to have been asked by our friends (and Andy's Ph.D supervisor) Brian and Stephanie Brock to be the Godparents of their son Adam. We have gotten to know them over the past year and not only spend time with them as often as we can but go to church with them as well. We love Adam to pieces and look forward to watching him grow for the rest of our lives. The baptism will be November 19th so we'll blog about that once it's come and gone. But until then, a bit about Adam...he is 3 years old, was born in Germany, had heart surgery when he was about 7 months old, wears glasses and hearing aids (that is, when he doesn't hurl them off his head), loves it when you make faces at him, is fascinated with wheels, loves to hide on one side of a tree with you on the other and play peek-a-boo, has the cutest laugh in the world, gives great hugs and kisses, has a little dance he does when he's excited, is a big brother to Caleb, has wonderful, loving parents, loves to play with Andy (and me), is a beautiful child of God and so on...

Stirling and St. Andrews

Scott and Molly are a couple who just moved here in September from North Carolina (originally from Mississippi and Florida) for Scott to study at the Uni. When they got here they didn't know anyone and needed someone to help them learn the ropes (like every new arrival) so they were sent our way. We immediately hit it off and were glad to help. They soon began to get life in Scotland sorted and found a flat but couldn't move in for a couple of weeks so they stayed with us in our second bedroom. One day before they moved out we decided to all take a drive down to Stirling and St. Andrews to see the castles and look around the towns. First we went to Stirling Castle and were impressed by its size and the views. From the castle you can see the National Wallace Monument (in the above picture) as well as Stirling Bridge. If you've seen Braveheart then you know that Stirling is where the big battle between the Scottish and English took place and it's where Scotland gained its first great victory (many thanks to William Wallace who's a national hero here). While in the castle we sat in the seats where the King and Queen would have sat wayyyyyyy back in the day to receive their guests. You can just call us King and Queen Odle now if you'd like. After we left the castle we walked down the road a bit to The Church of the Holy Rude to see where King James was coronated as King of Scotland as a baby (John Knox preached the sermon, Mary Queeen of Scots was James' mother, etc.). Later he would become the first king of the United Kingdom (you've heard of the King James version of the Bible right? That's the guy!) We thought it was awesome to be standing right where he had been many many years ago. We're history nuts though so we love that stuff! Once we walked around town a bit and had some lunch then we drove to St. Andrews to show Scott and Molly the town because we loved it so much the last time we went (See previous blog about St. Andrew's...cathedral, University where many royals go including Prince William, birthplace of golf, etc.). This time we were able to go into St. Andrews castle to see it. It's a ruined castle but the remains are beautiful and the setting is nice too. It was a fun day and it made us feel like old timers here (one year down, two to go) being able to show some new friends around Scotland.

Castle Hopping



We decided to drive to four near-by castles for a little tour. We could only go inside one of the four so we were a bit disappointed, but we could still go to the castle and tour the grounds and gardens so we had a good day out anyway. Not only did our day include a few castles and a nice drive in the country but it also included lunch that was quite a bargain (one we like to tell about). The day started with the first castle, Drum Castle, which we couldn't go in but could walk around the grounds. We had seen the outside of this one before so we were kind of bummed that this time we still couldn't see anything else and left soon after we got there. Next we stopped at Crathes Castle and got to go in and have a tour. The castle itself was cool but what we were most impressed with at Crathes were the large walled gardens and the huge grounds that the castle is on. It is beautiful there. We really enjoyed that one. Next on the castle tour was Craigievar Castle but on our way there we stopped to grab some food for the road. We stopped at a grocery store to get a ready made sanwich, but went back by where their rotisserie chicken is and made a grand discovery . . . They had a whole barbeque chicken for 99 pence (99 cents if you're an American) so we thought we should share that. So we grabbed an individual bottle of diet cherry coke to share (unfortunately we found out the hard way that the British version tastes like cough syrup . . . yuck!) and then realized we would need some napkins since we'd be eating this whole chicken in the car by ripping off the pieces like savages. Well, they didn't have complimentary napkins for us so we went to the paper towel section and found the cheapest paper towels (a four pack for a pound [$1]). We were so excited...a whole chicken, a drink and a four pack of paper towels for 3 pounds! It was quite funny driving down the road eating a whole chicken though. We got a kick out of it anyway! Back to the tour . . . Craigievar Castle looks a lot like Crathes on the outside and we couldn't go in because it was closed for the winter already. We stayed long enough to take a picture and that's about it. Then we were off to our final castle, Castle Fraser, which we thought looked very cool from the outside but unfortunately couldn't go in because there was a wedding going on. But we did tour the grounds and the walled garden which were beautiful. We've attached a picture of each castle, including a picture of part of the gardens at Crathes.

10.18.2006

Happy Birthday Amy

My birthday was Saturday, October 7th so Andy organized a little birthday party. We met up with some friends at "Frankie and Benny's" for lunch. The barbeque chicken pizza there is my favourite. It was Don, Marieke, Patrick and Betsy (the Woods), Rich, Lorie, Nathanael and Autumn (the Cornells), Brian, Stephanie, Adam and Caleb (the Brocks), Scott and Molly and, of course, us. I was given cards, flowers, cds and chocolate galore! Needless to say, I felt very loved by everyone. After lunch we went bowling (except for the Wood family who had a previous engagement) which was so much fun. None of us had been bowling in ages. I ended up winning with a score of 121 (which tells you how great we all were if I beat everyone with that score!!) After bowling most people went home except Scott and Molly and Andy and I ended up at the Sanddollar Cafe on the beach (our favourite cafe here) for some hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. Mmmm... yummy. The fun didnt' stop there for us. Scott and Molly came over to our flat for dinner (Chinese take-away) and to watch the X Factor...we love that show (basically the British version of American Idol). After a fun-filled day I was tired but not complaining. I loved it. We brought the camera but kept forgetting to take pictures all day so there's only one picture to attach and it's of the group of us after we finished bowling (unfortunately without the Woods). Hopefully you can get a good look at everyone (click on it, it gets bigger).