We Went to Scotland!! (Pt 1)

 We went to Scotland!  This trip had been planned since summer of 2024!  All of my siblings and their spouses and my parents were able to go, so there were 14 of us touring around together.  It was so much fun!  My dad served his mission in Scotland from 1966-1968.  We also have Scottish ancestors on both sides of my family (Dustin found ancestors from Scotland, as well!).  So there were lots of reasons for us to do this trip as a family.  We have been talking about it for years, and I am so glad we were finally able to make it a reality!  Monica spent many months planning out a wonderful itinerary, so the rest of us didn't really have to do much, other than book our hotels and cars when she told us to.  She worked so hard and it really paid off!  We crammed a lot in to our seven days and I don't think it would have gone as smoothly with 14 people if she hadn't have planned it out so well.  

It took Dustin and I a bit to get there.  We had some major delays that made us end up with a flight change and then another flight change after that.  We had to come and go to the airport multiple times over a couple of days (luckily we live so close!), which was exhausting and stressful, and we were sad to miss the first day with my family, who had all arrived on time with their flights.  But, in the end, we did finally make it to Scotland and we had a little tender mercy that our flight was returning home a day later than everyone else, so we ended up doing everything from the first day on our last day.

Our poor boys had to be our chauffer's to and from the airport every time we had a complication.

We finally made it on an airplane, 24 hours later than planned!

We arrived in London for a short, 4 hour layover--just enough time to take an Uber to Windsor Castle and tour around for a couple of hours.  It was Mother's Day in the UK!  So lots of families around and the weather was beautiful and so were the castle grounds.

After one more quick flight, we were in Scotland!

We got in around 9:30 PM and then had to get our rental car figured out (having a delayed flight caused a lot of other things to have to be switched around).  By the time we left to meet up with our family in Edinburgh, it was around 10:30.  It ended up being a blessing because there were not very many people on the roads with us as we figured out how to drive from the left side and on the left side of the road.  It was a little scary at first with lots of screaming and laughter, but eventually, Dustin did get used to it and it felt pretty normal.  We got to our Airbnb close to 1:00 AM, and even though we were totally exhausted and jet lagged, I jumped in the shower because we had been living at airports for a couple of days.

It was at this point that I earned this award:

  I had brought a shower gel that I had found at home, and took a super quick, freezing cold shower (because I couldn't figure out how to get it hot), and then went to sleep.  I woke up about four hours later with my entire body itching like crazy and covered in hives!  Even my lips and tongue were itchy and swelling.  I figured it was either that old shower gel or the towel from the Airbnb, so I had Dustin give me a blessing and I hurried and showered again and dried with a towel I had brought from home.  Then I fell back asleep for another hour and when I woke up, my swelling was down and I wasn't as itchy.  Monica had woken up by then and answered my call for a Benedryl and after taking that, I felt mostly normal for the rest of the day.  By that night and a second round of medicine, I was back to normal and didn't have any more problems with it.  It was super weird!  I'm not one who typically has allergic reactions, but my body definitely didn't like something in that shower!  I received my award a couple of days after we got home from the Award Fairy (Monica).

Even with getting very little sleep, we were up bright and early so that we could spend as much time as possible exploring Edinburgh.  After a delicious breakfast, we met up with all of our family at Edinburgh Castle for a self guided tour.  Everyone kind of wandered the castle at their own pace and met up with each other here and there.  It was actually really fun that way because we'd end up visiting with different people all along the way.  Most of the week was that way.  Luckily, my family is all so easy going that we all had fun switching around who rode in cars and eating meals with whoever happened to want to eat where we were, and it was a fun way to spend time with everyone.  And sometimes, we were just all together, and that was awesome, too! 

We all planned for a typical Scottish Spring, and brought rain gear and warm stuff, and we ended up with the most beautiful weather!  It didn't rain at all and although it was chilly in some areas, the sun was out!  The local people we talked to told us we were very lucky and that this wasn't the norm.  We were grateful for great weather!

After the castle, we all found places to eat lunch and dessert (I can never get enough European pastries) and wandered the cute Edinburgh streets.  I had a haggis and pork sandwich.  Very Scottish!

Dustin drank a butterbeer from the café where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter (at least the desk where she wrote Harry Potter--the actual café' burned down a few years ago, so they built a new one and placed her special desk in it).  You had to buy something to eat in order to see it, hence the butterbeer.  Plus, we really like butterbeer.

Between the 8 of us who were getting pastries together, we were able to sample most of these and they were amazing!

Our next stop was the Scott Monument, built to honor Sir Walter Scott.  Everyone but my parents and Jen and Jeff came up, but the rest of us climbed the 287 stairs to the top (in actuality, I think we did a little less because they had the very top level closed, due to the pigeons having taken it over during Covid...).  The views from the (almost) top were stunning!  

Lurker

Our next stop was St. Giles' Cathedral and then an underground tour of Edinburgh.  The Cathedral was beautiful and we got to stop and sit and listen to a lady playing the violin.

So fun to be there with my family!

The tour of the Underground of Edinburgh was very interesting!  We learned a lot about the history of the city.

We had a little time before dinner, so Dustin and I wandered a cool cemetery with Nicole and Matt and then walked to Gordon Ramsey's Bread Street Kitchen for dinner, while we talked to Maren on her P-Day!  Dinner was yummy, although what Dustin and I ordered was fine, but we expected more from Gordon Ramsey, haha.  A few of us walked back to our Airbnb after dinner and got to see a beautiful view of the castle while we walked.

The next morning, Dustin and I started out on our own for a cemetery in Lasswade, which was about 25 miles south of Edinburgh.  In his research, Dustin had learned that his Affleck ancestors were born and buried in Lasswade.  So we decided to go check out the cemetery and see where they were from.  My family was all going to Rosslyn Chapel, which happened to only be about 10 minutes away.  We wandered the cemetery, but didn't see any Affleck names.  We walked around the grounds and stopped at a monument near a home and when the dogs started barking at us, the owners came out and we visited with them for a bit.  They were living in the original Parish home and the husband had just finished writing the history of the Parish, so they had a lot of useful information for us.  They were even able find Dustin's ancestor's birth record on a website they knew of!  Pretty amazing and we felt like the Lord was in the details.

We drove on and met up with my family at Rosslyn Chapel (a chapel featured in the Da Vinci Code).  I ate the most delicious scone with clotted cream that I've ever tasted and we got to see the cool church and then the beautiful countryside as we drove on to our next stop. 

Cute sheep everywhere!

The Montgomery Castle!!  Technically, it is now called the Eglinton Castle, but our Montgomery ancestor married into the Eglinton family and became the Earl of the castle.  It is now only a ruin of a castle, but you better believe that we claim it!  Haha!

Ach, it is the Montgomery Countess, herself.

Making cool shadows.

After some family pictures and playing around near the castle, we walked the beautiful grounds and then found a restaurant nearby for lunch with everyone.

After a drive through Dumbarton, where my dad had served on his mission, we stopped at another castle for a minute before driving on to Luss, and Loch Lomand.  On the way, we had my parents in our car, so we heard fun stories of my dad's mission and living in that very area.  Pretty cool!

  Another claim to fame in that area is that our 3rd Great Grandmother, Mary Wilson Montgomery, was born in Scotland, and visited the area of Loch Lomand as a child.  Behind the lake is a mountain called Ben Lomand, and when she immigrated to Utah and saw the mountain above North Ogden, she thought it looked like the mountain of her childhood and she named it Ben Lomand.  The name stuck and it is still called by that name today.  So, after visiting the beautiful church in Luss, we walked the shores of Loch Lomand and saw the original Ben Lomand in the background.

Ben Lomand is right behind us.

James decided to jump in.  It was a really big ice bath for him!

"On the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomand."

This was a Viking Hogback Stone estimated to be from 1200's.

We ate dinner that night along the route at an Indian Restaurant and it was delicious.  Everywhere we went, there were Indian Restaurants, and curries on every menu.  We arrived in Ballachulish late that night and stayed in a cool old hotel there.

Dustin and I got up bright and early the next morning to go on a hike with Monica and James.  It was so beautiful!  It was so green and mossy and felt very Scottish.  This valley is called Glencoe, and it was really beautiful everywhere we went.

We got back just in time for a delicious Scottish breakfast at the hotel.  So yummy!

The stairs in the hotel were super loud and rickety.  We felt like a herd of elephants walking down them.  But it was a beautiful hotel and one of the nicest ones we stayed at.

A church near the hotel.

Our next stop was a hike in Glencoe called the Hagrid's Hut hike.  This was where Hagrid's Hut in Harry Potter was located.  They have since taken the hut down, but everyone recognized the area (except us, of course, because we've only seen a couple of the Harry Potter movies, haha!) 

At the Glencoe Visitor's Center we found some fun souvenirs, and my dad insisted on buying all the men a Scottish hat to wear.  We've had enough matching girl things over the years of our lives, that it seemed only fair that my dad finally got to do matching with the boys.

Next stop: Fort William--for lunch, lots of souvenirs, and a cute little church to walk through.

All of the girls and my dad bought Oot'N'Aboot shirts because my dad has told us a story our whole lives, where on his mission his landlord lady used to say "Oot'N'Aboot n aruund the tune fir messages" which means "Out and about and around the town for groceries."  When we saw the shirt, we had to buy it!  And I love it!

Us, the Noonans and the Hanchetts all decided to go to the Glenfinnan Viaduct at this point, where the Hogwarts Train goes in the Harry Potter movies.  (My sisters are all huge Harry Potter fans--I am definitely the odd man out on this one).  The rest of the cars went on to Portree, where we would be staying for the night.  We debated adding in a couple more hours to see the Viaduct, but once we got there, we were glad we did!  It was very cool! We made a quick stop on the way at a Scottish Aldi (Monica's favorite store in Illinois) and bought a lot of Scottish junk food for our drive.  Dustin and I love trying all the different treats in the countries that we have visited!

We all found Harry Potter type wands along the trail that we then threw over the bridge into the river to see whose won in a race.

By the time we saw the Viaduct and attempted to see some Highland cows, it was getting dark when we pulled up to the Eilean Donan Castle.  Monica had been watching a live camera at the castle for many months and she was so excited to see it.  We got there right at sunset and it was gorgeous!  When we remembered the live cam, we hurried and called our kids, who were 7 hours behind us in Utah, and texted any family back in the States.  They jumped on the website and we did a bunch of tricks for them on the camera.  Luckily there weren't that many people there to witness the cartwheel attempts of a bunch of middle aged women.  Avery screen recorded us on her phone and then took a screen shot of us in front of the castle.  After a late night Indian dinner in our cars (the restaurant was closing and would only let us get it to go), and then a close call with a road closure, we finally arrived very late that night to our Airbnb in Portree, on the Isle of Skye.