theinfamousmissbeth

  There is much talk among experts today about the need for children to spend more time outdoors engaged in physical activity. When I was little, I spent most of my time outdoors. After school hours I hit the door, changed clothes, and I was outside until dark. On weekends, from dawn until dusk you could find me riding my bike, making a covered wagon, marking off corrals for my horses, and chasing after my older brother and his friends. There were two city parks within walking distance as well. Many summertime hours were spent in the pool at one and using the climbing equipment and the ginormous slide at the other one. The best part, however, was the open field across the street. It covered about 6 city blocks, had small berms, trees, and tall grass. Lots of games of chase and hide and seek took place there as well as fort building and time spent just sitting and thinking. It seems that it was just a "normal" thing to do, back in the day.  I have created a "fi

On our recent trip to Scotland, our driver and guide for our tour to the Highlands, Ewan, spoke often of his family. He and his wife live in Edinburgh and have one child, a little girl, who is two years old. He expressed concerns about her future in terms of where they live and where she receives her schooling.   Isle of Seil, Scotland At one of our stops in a small fishing village, I crossed the road to get a closer look at a primary school building .As I stood admiring the simplicity of the school building and the playground, Ewan crossed the road and came to stand beside me.  He expressed his wish that his "wee one" could go to school in a small highland village such as this one and learn to appreciate and feel that she is a part of her culture. I didn't offer any "sage" advice at that time but I began to think about what would be the top three things to tell a dad who wants his daughter to grow up strong and happy.  I came up with the follo

Our Scotland trip continued as we joined a group on a guided tour. The company, based in Edinburgh, uses 16 passenger buses so the group is small and the guides are native Scots who are well versed in the history of the country.  I'm just going to go ahead and give a shout out to Rabbies Tours. If you are ever in Scotland, Ireland, England, or France I recommend looking them up and seeing what they have to offer! Our driver, Ewan, greeted us wearing a smile and a kilt! He was a native Highlander and was really friendly and funny from the get go. We had people from Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and Germany on our bus. He urged us to quickly become acquainted with each other as we would be spending the next 5 days together and the bus wasn't going to get any bigger. He was a super tour guide as he used sound effects and carefully selected music to enhance the stories he told us as we traveled into the Highlands. He also had a bathroom rating scale for each stop. Now

The hubby (henceforth referred to as Bumpy) and I just returned from a 10 day trip to Scotland. This was our second trip to the land of my ancestors and it was packed with adventure!  It is such a peaceful place, read that as,  grown men and women are not on the television. calling each other names and people are not blowing each other up. Just had to get that off my chest.  A piper in the Highlands An observation from this trip: I discovered that Scottish folk, as well as Australians and Canadians, use the word "lovely" for almost anything you can imagine. Even when they are talking about the crappy weather, they might say, "Oh, it isn't very lovely today." Clothes are lovely, people are lovely, dogs and cats are lovely, children are lovely, cars are lovely, the grass is lovely, and fish and chips are lovely. You get the idea. However, if you are from the southern United States you know that the word "lovely" can refer to things that are n