Home.

I'm feeling a little homesick.

This usually happens whenever I talk to anyone in my family.

I spoke to my sister a few days ago, on Skype.

We only spoke for an hour, which for some people may be long enough but not for us.

Normally we talk for around 3 or 4 hours.

Seriously.

We can talk.

I am excited because our conversation was mainly centred on my trip home at Christmas.

I will be going home for a month.

I cannot wait.

My sister will be home.

My brother will be home.

My heart will be happy.

Here are some of the things that I am looking forward to.

(in no particular order)

1. My sister picking me up at the airport. I haven't seen her since September 20th, 2011. There will be tears.

2. Seeing my family. It is going to be wonderful.

3. Going on a little trip with just my brother and sister.

4.Snow.

5. Watching Christmas movies by the fire. So wonderful.

6. Christmas baking with mum.

7. Last minute Christmas shopping with my brother because he won't have any gifts yet.

8. Christmas Eve church service.

9. Wrapping presents.

10. Decorating the Christmas tree.

11. Eastenders Christmas special.

12. Coronation Street Christmas special.

13. The Queen's speech.

14. Watching Love Actually, The Holiday, Home Alone, Family Stone, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th street, Santa Claus, Elf...and every other Christmas movie!

15.Spending time with my two sisters.

16. Going for long walks around our favourite places.

17. Making soup.

18. Dancing and singing with my sister in the kitchen while our brother disowns us.

19. Giving gifts.

20. Making new memories.

I am excited.

December will be here before we know it.



Thankfulness.

Is is terrible that we sometimes have to be reminded to be thankful?

We have so much to be thankful for, the list goes on and on.

And yet, more often than not, I find myself be ungrateful.

I throw a little pity party for myself.

Yup, just me.

 No one else is invited.

Last week the Lord spoke loud and clear through my Pastors sermon.

Right to me.

God is pretty awesome when it comes to speaking directly to us and telling us exactly what we need to hear.

He spoke about the bigger picture and not losing focus on God's will.

He reminded me that I need to give thanks in the midst of any difficulties we are going through.

Seriously, you have know idea how much my heart needed to hear that on that VERY day.

God is so good.

So I go skipping out of Church ready to face anything and everything that comes my way being sure that I will smile on those things with my thankful heart.

And then it hits me.

Homesickness.

I was back at my pity party, by myself, thinking about my sister and brother, and my mum and dad.

My heart ached for them.

A bit dramatic, yes.

But this girl loves her family.

I was watching the show Brothers and Sisters.

Ok, there is so much in that show that I hate.

Yes, hate.

But..all the family stuff gets me everytime.

I don't think there is one episode that I have watched and not got teary eyed at some point.

I mean, it was such a great idea anyway.

Missing my family so I watch a show all about a family?

Yup, I'm an idiot.

Then I suddenly realised I really shouldn't be upset because I'm missing my family.

I should be thankful for the wonderful relationship that I have with then.

My sister and brother are two of my greatest friends.

I should be praising the Lord.

There are some days that I can't think of anything but sitting with my mum watching a movie, cooking with her, baking with her, making her laugh, crying on her shoulder, crawling into bed with her in the mornings.

Again, shouldn't I be praising the Lord for this sweet relationship?

So it's time for me to turn this frown upside down.

(Yes, I just said that.)

So I now smile when I think of my family. I think of all the great memories I have with them and I thank my Lord for them.

I will leave you with a verse that we all know very well but often need the reminder.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!    Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.   Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.    And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:4-7

Always, people.

Not sometimes but always.

I am going to work hard to make sure I do this everyday, over and over.

There is so much to be thankful for.

And so that I put a picture in this post I will leave you with my new hairdo.

...and a silly face!



Distance.

The baby brother called tonight.

It was so so good to talk with him.

He is off at ship just now and only has half an hour each week to call.

So we don't hear from him often.

And the big sister came up and had dinner with us.
Perfect evening.

Here are a few snaps from the last weekend he was home, at the beginning of July.

 Precious - my brother, sister and I.

Love this photo because we just look so similar. Both squinty in the sun.

Look at that blue sky! We sure do love him.

Fin let me have a go on his motorbike. Yes, the front wheel is off the ground. If you look really closely at the photo you can see that Fin has a pretty shocked expression on his face. I was very proud of myself - and also feared for our lives.

On the train having a starring contest. So funny. Not sure when we started holding our eyes open. Please note big sister laughing hysterically. Really, we all were. We are a little bit silly.

It was so good to chat with him, but I sure miss times like these.

I am so thankful for my brother and sister.

I am thankful that we get along so well.

My prayer is that no matter where we are we will stay close.

We went out for dinner when Fin was home, just the three of us.

It was lovely and we were talking about the future and our families.

We were saying how crazy it is that we don't speak to all our cousins more often.

Then we got thinking about our kids.

We couldn't imagine them not being the best of friends.

I pray that we are able to keep stay this close to each other, wherever we are in the world.

I love them both so much.



Was I really there?

On Monday we celebrated my 22nd Birthday. Wow. Don't think I really thought about that one. That really crept up and bit me in the butt. Yikes. Right now, I love getting old. I love being a year older. I love being 22. In 10 or 20 years we will see if I am still so excited about getting older. I had a lovely day with the brother and mother. The day before my sister and I went for a picnic in the town we went to school. It was so fun and very chilled out. Just what we needed. We were reminiscing about old school days. It was lovely.

Lucy, Fin and I also went to the movies on Monday night. We went to see The Lincoln Lawyer. I enjoyed it. But I really want to read the book. But you should definitely go and see it. We enjoyed it.

So here is my little problem, something that I am upset about. I have no pictures of all this. I had a special day out with my sister. No photos. I had a lovely day with my brother and mum. No photos. Birthday cake. No photos. Presents and cards. No photos. So I think it is time to do something about this. I want to have photos of these special memories and not just take pretty photos of flowers. When I spent 4 months in Australia with my family I had so many photos. Photos of the different places we went, and my family. But not lots of photos with me and those places and my family. I basically have a flipbook of the Californian countryside from my first trip over there, but not many of all the amazing people that I met. So from now on I am going to always carry my camera with me. I am going to take it to work with me, when I go into town to do shopping, when I go for a walk, when I am watching a movie with my sister, when I am making dinner, when I am sewing something cute, when I am making people laugh, when people are making me laugh...I am going to have all these things in photos.

You should check out this lady. I know that I am always linking to her blog, but really you need to listen to this lady. She says it really well right here. Ok, so she is talking about getting in the photo with your kiddies but there is a little bit at the bottom where she is speaking to me!!

So I am going to leave you with a little photo of me and my peroxide blonde, curly hair! (so I got my hair done a few weeks ago, it was SO blonde when I left. She said to me "it looks so natural, just the natural sun-kissed look." I looked outside, it was pouring with rain. But really, I love it now that I am used to it.)

Are you having a HAM sandwich?

So here I go again. I get into a groove of posting lots, then I don't...then I do...then I don't! Ah. This has something to do with me leaving the house at 7am and not getting home til 9PM! I really don't like this, at all. But that pretty much sums up my week last week. All my days filled with hours like this. When I have weeks like this I eat really bad, like baaaad. I maybe manage to grab a bowl of cereal before I go to work, but usually it is a banana. Then sometimes while I am at work I manage to steal some toast with banana (my faaaave!) And seriously, that is about it. Until the end of my day when there are left over desserts and we all have a little bit and sit down and chill out together. It is my favourite part of the day at work. We get to enjoy each other's company. I do love the people I work with. Sometimes it is really hard, but aren't we all hard to love sometimes? So there is my big excuse for no posts. I think it is a pretty good one, right?

We have had some fun time rounds here lately though. The baby brother is home for 2 WHOLE WEEKS!! He arrived home on Friday, late. I saw him after work on Saturday. Honestly I nearly cried when I saw him. I miss that boy a lot. I got a big bear hug from him, and made the most of it because I knew that I wouldn't be seeing many of those for these 2 weeks! I have taken a few days off work so that I actually get to see him. I know these 2 weeks will go quickly, so I am trying to make the most of it. I am the emotional sister. I cry a lot. When I'm happy, sad, scared...you name the occasion and I'll be crying. We were all out to lunch one day having a lovely time. A lady was sat opposite us, on her own, having lunch. I started crying. Yup. Everyone thought this was hilarious, and embarassing. I obviously thought it was pretty sad though. Anywaaay.

So. The other day we were out to lunch and I just new that I was going to be disappointed. I just had this feeling that whatever I wanted was NOT going to be on the menu today. And sure enough, I still haven't had a lemon chicken, mango chutney and rocket toasted ciabatta. Boo. So I ordered a ham sandwich. Sounds quite ordinary, right? Well my mother thought this was SO exciting. "a haaam sandwich? Did you hear that, Fin?" "yeah, whatever" - Fin has no interest at all. So wanna know why this was soooo exciting? Because for nearly 12 years I didn't eat red meat. Wanna know why? Well...we grew up on a farm (THE BEST!) and for a while there was a butcher shop down there. This didn't bother me. Until it did. I was looking out my window one day, and there was a delivery lorry outside. Then I saw it. Something that would change my meals for 12 years. I saw a little piggy over someone's shoulder...dead...skinned....still looking like a pig...but dead. I can still picture it and might be off meat again soon if I keep on thinking about it! So off I took my little 8 year old self downstairs to tell mum that I was going to be a vegetarian. She was not happy. So we had a little discussion and came to a compromise. I was going to stop eating red meat and just eat white meat. This meant I would still be eating chicken, turkey and fish. Fine by me. Because chicken was (and still is) my favourite. And this is the way it stayed for all those years. THEN early last year I was over at some friends and we went to lunch with more friends from Church. On the menu was roast beef. And I was being too shy to say no and felt that it would be too rude to not eat anything. So...I had some beef. I was terrified that I would throw up or something. But it was gooooood. And that was that. I am a meat eating girl again. And really, I knew that I would one day. After all, the Lord did intend for us to eat all these lovely things. Everytime I have been to California I haven't been eating red meat, well until last year. I was trying all sorts of yummy things!

I am going to leave you with a wee photo.



Photo from Google images.

There could be worse things to be surrounded by all day, everyday! It truely is beautiful.

A NEW year.

Happy New Year...a bit late! I guess I am still in shock that it is now 2011. WOW.

I have actually been off work and had lots of time on my hands. I have loved it. I have watched movies, spent precious time with my family, baked (of course!), spent hours talked to friends who are further away and had some much needed rest. There have been many times that I have sat down to post something on here but, as you can see, I am only now getting round to it.

A little reflection on 2010. In some ways this has been a crazy year for me. This time last year I was such a horrible mess. Probably not the best way to put. If you remember back to them I had just quit my job with the intention of pursuing what I believed to be the LORD's plan for me. At that point I hadn't really, completely thought things through I was just thankful to get out of a job and course that was not right for me and that was making me almost ill with worry. But I had not given a thought to where I would get a job. I remember meeting with my friend at the time and she encouraged me with Matthew 14:22-33. I had to step out of the boat with 2 feet and put my trust in the LORD.

Early in January I was still jobless, and getting a bit worried about it to be honest. Of course, the LORD provided a job for me that was 5 minutes from my mums house. I was SO thankful for this job. I think I cried for probably the first week I worked there. But it was a new job and different to anything I had ever done so I fully put it down to that! It has turned out to be a great job for me and I have made many friends there.

It has been a year of a lot of learning for me. Putting my trust in the LORD completely has been the best thing for me and I totally take comfort in knowing that He already has the perfect plan worked out for me. I have learnt to work on the LORD's terms, and not mine. In MY plan I would be in California right now. I have learnt that the LORD will work everything out, and if this is His will then He will work it all out in His time, not mine. That has been the biggest learning curve for me.

I was able to spend the summer with my Californian family. I really felt the LORD's hand over the whole trip. If you have read this before you will know that I went with the lovely Anna. She stayed for 2 weeks and I stayed on for longer. When I was booking the tickets my return date seemed to just come from nowhere, but I believe that the LORD guided me to that date. There were a string of events that all took place after Anna had left, even on the way to the airport with her, that I believe that LORD had planned. If I had of gone home with her then I would have probably missed out on the events that took place after this. What a blessing. The LORD definitely confirmed last summer where He wanted me to be and I have, with the help of many great people, been working on getting there ever since.

Honestly, I feel like I have been rolling down hill since then. Time has just flown by. I am soo thankful for this year and all the experiences that have come with it.

I am anxious to see what 2011 will hold!

♥

O Holy Night.

Merry Christmas (a little late!) I hope that everyone had a wonderful time, ate too much and smiled all day!

My day was just lovely. Every year on Christmas Eve we attend a Church Carol service at our local Church. I have to admit that it has hardly changed since I was little but it is still a joy to go to it! When we were younger, my sister, brother and I would usually be taking part in the service in some way. There are different readings and performances inbetween the different carols. It is lovely to see the different kids that participate now and see how the little kiddies that I used to watch in Sunday School have grown! It was beautiful. I always get emotional during the service because I always reflect on why we are here, and why we are celebrating.

After this my brother and I came back with our mum and spent the evening with her. Lucy came later on, she went out for a few drinks with her friend. I have to say here that it has been a joy having Fin home for Christmas. I love that boy and I love seeing how he is growing up and changing. He is a blessing. We were all sick on Christmas Eve, with colds. It was not nice. I was up late wrapping presents, making yummy truffles and cheesecake for Christmas day. So I was exhausted. I slept SO good. Could of slept all day. I woke up at 8:45am and all was still quiet in the house. I don't remember a Christmas when I have been able to sleep that late. Usually I have a sister or brother in my room whispering to see if I am awake, or doing what they need to wake me up! So I just lay there for a while enjoying the moment where I could wake up on my own. It didn't last long. Soon someone was in the bathroom, I heard the toilet flush and it was like this was an alarm telling everyone it was time to get up. I heard one door open, then another and Christmas greetings being passed around! I knew that I would be next. I didn't do a very good job of being my cheery self. I had a horrible head-ache and stuffy nose.

I finally made it to the living room where everyone was VERY excited to see what gifts they had received. I wrapped myself in a blanket and was ready to fall asleep again. But that's what little brothers are for, to wake you up even when you are not ready to! So he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. Great. Just what I was wanting to happen. And just so you know, I am about 6ft tall and my brother is 6ft 4or5 so you imagine how ridiculous this looked. I do find it very impressive when he manages to pick me up but doesn't mean I appreicate it!

I love watching everyone open the gifts I bought for them months ago and hoped that they would love! It was successful. I will share more about my gifts in another post.

We had a yummy breakfast of cinammon scrolls! They are a favourite for all of us! Suddenly we didn't really have a lot of time and we were all running around getting ready and deciding what to wear, well that was more me...I had no idea what I was going to wear! I got there in the end though. I blame this on feeling really ill and not wanting to get out of bed in the first place!

We then headed down to my Dad's house. It was crazy to be going from one place to another, and leaving mum behind...but that is something new that I am still getting used to. Lucy and I were cooking Christmas dinner. It was delicious. Seriously. We had a fun day. Our Granny and Aunty joined us and that was precious. I love spending time with them but don't do it often enough.

Right. Onto why I'm not sharing photos in this post. My laptop is doing something funky. I have this horrible green tinge on my screen and it is driving me nuts! When I look at photos there is like this green tinge throughout the photo. Best way to describe it is that it looks like someone has gone over my screen with a green pencil and rendered it in! So when I am editing photos I really can't tell what they look like and don't want to bore you with terrible photos. I have lots of photos to share from Christmas day from the people and prezzies to the meal. I will try and post these soon. I will probably just use my mum's laptop.

I am going to leave you with a Carol that I have been listening lots this CHRISTmas time. The version I have been listening to it by Natalie Grant. She has a really beautiful Christmas album. I should of directed you to it before Christmas. Sorry. The song is a Medley of Silver Bells, Saviour Came for Me and O Holy Night. I really touches me.

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Smile.

I love my sister and brother! When we are together we are either laughing, arguing, smiling, annoying each other, crying or dancing. This photo below makes me smile. They are such a blessing to me. I love you, Sassy and Fin!

♥

Making memories.

At the start of this week my sister and I took at couple of days off to spend some time together, but also to spend time with our dear Granny. We are Gray's, so of course the day did not go as we plan. We planned to leave at 8:30am, it was probably 9:30am before we actually left. This is something that happened on EVERY trip that we took when we were younger. We had a slight detour to pick up a spare tyre, this turned into another detour as we had to go to Perth to get it fitted onto the wheel. This was actually pretty entertaining as it took 5 men to put this tyre onto the wheel. Now I am not going to pretend that I know anything about putting a tyre onto a wheel but after they told my sister and I that we would probably want to get out of the car and wait in reception because the "bang" might scare us, I was a bit scared. So we went to wait into reception and watched them beat up our little tyre. We had no clue what they were doing but we were more worried about the fire that was coming out of the tyre! After a little bit one of the 5 guys came to explain to us what they were doing.

After all of this we finally got on the road to Glasgow, at 11:15am. It was a really beautiful day, the sun was shining. We then got a call from Dad saying that he was on the same road as us and that he wanted to, and I quote, look at the tyre. We didn't really get this part. Why would anyone want to look at a tyre? To me, every tyre looks the same. But I am glad that someone appreciates the fine art of...tyres. After we let Dad get his tyre fix for the day we were on the road again.

We had lunch with Granny, which was lovely. It is so nice to spend time with her. I don't do it enough and she just loves seeing us. I have a lot of wonderful memories of summers spent with her in her house. I love to look through old photos with her everytime I go there. It is nice to laugh at old photos of young parents, and young grandparents!

Then Lucy and I hit the shops. It was lovely to go shopping with my sister with no real agenda other than to look around the shops and see what bargains we could find. We couldn't actually remember the last time we went shopping together. The weather was lovely for shopping, sun shining with a little breeze. We didn't last very long though, only 4 hours. Our last 20 mins were actually hilarious. Lucy needed a pair of jeans, so off we went on a mission. We were very tired and not really prepared properly for our mission. But, we did leave with a pair of jeans!!

After this we were done. We went back to our Granny's with our purchases, sore feet, yawns and laughs. She had a lovely meal prepared for us and was also planning the night's activities. The activity we wanted to do most was: NOTHING! We were pooped. I don't think she quite believed us because before we knew it our cousin was over for the evening. Luckily she was just as exhausted as us and we just chatted then chilled out in front of a movie.

Have you ever seen An Officer and a Gentleman? Please tell me that you have. This was the first time that I have seen it. When I leave for work now I go with the hope that an officer will come and sweep me off my feet. Well, not really but you get it. If you haven't watched, you have to. I am a hopeless romantic.

You know when you are so tired that you get hysterical? Well that was were the 3 of us were at at 11pm on Monday night; my cousin, sister and I. We had a lot of fun together.

We aslo watched Eat, Love, Pray. I am kind of mixed about this. It was fun, but there was lots of stuff that I didn't really agree with. There was a really funny scene with Julia Roberts and her friend trying to get into a pair of jeans which was very similar to a real life scene with my sister trying to get into jeans the day before! It was fun to see a movie with my sister though and we did enjoy it. It made me want to go to India and Italy!

Well, that was our fun trip. We bought the same dress (when we were younger our mum used to dress my sister and I in matching outfits. I think she thought we were twins. I am pretty sure she would know that we were born 20 months apart though? I'll have to ask her about that.)
My sister took a cute photo of the two of us but I don't have a copy of it just now. I will post in when I get it. My brother, sister and myself are all going off in different directions, to different countries even , and this makes my Granny very sad. I was really challenged this week to spend more time with her and pick up the phone more often. She misses us. I miss her.

I can't wait for my sister and I to go on another trip, and maybe next time we can drag our baby brother with us!

Back in the Summer of 2004!

I am finally finding time to sit down and blog about my summer. Sorry it has taken me so so long. It was a pretty exciting summer filled with fun, friends and family.

The first time I went to California was way back in 2004 with my sister. We were invited by friends we met at a wedding in Scotland. Long story short, we met a lovely couple there who invited my sister and I to spend the summer with them. We were very excited about the opportunity to go over there having loved the time that we got to spend with them while they were here. So off we went, I was 15 and my sister was 17. We all hit it off straight away and had a wonderful summer together. The last week we were there we went to their Church Beach Camp. My sister and I were both really, really dreading going to this camp. We had no idea what it was going to be like and didn't really know anyone that was going to be there. Little did I know that this would be a life changing week with lots of learning. It was so hard to leave them when we came back to Scotland. We didn't really know if we would see each other again.

We shared with our Church what we had experienced that summer. We were able to show them the Beach Camp baptism video. This really moved them and they were encouraged by this. We wanted more kids from Scotland to be able to experience what we had. So we pitched this idea to the Elder board and they loved the idea. The Church were happy to pay for the flights for the kids to get over there. In 2006 we were all set to go over, myself and another guy who attended our Church. At the last minute her pulled out so I went over by myself again. Of course, I had another great summer there.

I come from a small Church so for the next few years there really wasn't any kids that were old enough to go over. Until last year, 2009. My baby brother was now 16 and I thought it would be great for him to experience this before he finished school. And a close friend of mine was also in her final year of school. So we got ourselves oganised to all go over. I was so excited that finally I was going to be bringing more students over with me. It was a wonderful summer. They both learnt a lot and got to share their summer with two wonderful families who fell in love with both of them. I was able to go along to Beach Camp with them and help with the childcare there.

This year we were fortunate enough to send another student over again this year. I went over with her and was able to go along to Beach Camp with her. Anna is such a beautiful young girl, inside and out, and it was a real joy to have her there this year. She has a such a sweet spirit about her.

This year I was blessed with a lovely group of girls. They are all such sweet girls and loved having the opportunity to spend each evening with them at Beach Camp.

This summer I was so happy to spend more time with my very special friend. It is very hard being so far away from someone the is so dear to me but I am very thankful for the friendship that we do have. I have so much fun with this lady. She is such a blessing. Love you, boo.

Every year that I return to California I always make new friends. This year was no exception. I was lucky enough to share a tent with this girl as well as LOTS of laughs. She is a close friend of my lovely boo so we were sure to have a great time together. And we certainly did. The Lord definitely blesses us through friendships, and that is exactly what He did this summer. We had a lot of fun together this summer. I miss seeing these lovely faces each day.

For some reason I seem to have NO photos of my dear family over there, The Allens. They know how much they mean to me. They are famly for sure. I was blessed with many laughs, long talks, hugs, grandkids, "taking the mic", delicious meals, and even more special memories made. I love you dearly and miss you lots.

I will leave you with just a taste of what it is like when Karen and I are together. Lots of faces that look like this.

"Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart." Philippians 1:3-4