Welcome to my blog

Several friends and family members have been interested in hearing about my experiences as Tux and I adjust to our new life in Scotland, so I decided to create this blog. This way those who want to catch up with me can log into this site at their leisure, and I won't be flooding people's email Inboxes with updates and photos. Please give me feedback on what you read either by posting a comment here or sending me an individual email. I'd love to hear from you.

I'm new to blogging, of course, so I'm sure my initial posts will be pretty elementary. But hopefully as I play around with it more, I'll get better at creating interesting posts.

Tux and I have been here almost 2 weeks now. We flew out of LAX 2 weeks ago today. Hard to believe. Many/most of you received my group email letting you know I had made it here to Tarland without any issues. The home Lynn has rented for us is great! It is a relatively new home and is warm and cozy. We live on a street named Morven View because it looks out on to a mountain called Morven. (Seen in the photo above.)

Lynn has done a terrific job making Tux and I feel at home. She has lined up visits with various friends - everyone has made me feel very welcome. Today I'm off to play tennis with Lynn's friend, Frieda, who is a member of a tennis club in Aberdeen. I'm looking forward to picking up a racket again - though it will be Lynn's racket since mine is still in transit. Then we'll be meeting up with Lynn and Frieda's roommate Marie for an Indian curry dinner.

Lynn, me and the dogs have been on several great hikes already. Tux absolutely loves his new surroundings! Can you blame him? Especially since he is allowed off leash on most hikes ... that is, if Lynn and I feel he won't go running off chasing something. The photo is from a hike we did near a small fishing village just north of Aberdeen last Saturday. We have several hikes just outside our doorstep here in Tarland - I've only been on a couple so far but will discover the others in no time, I hope. This is one of the benefits of living out in the countryside. The surroundings are absolutely beautiful - quite a change from the streets of Tustin.

I promise to write more later ... with some of my observations of the differences between life here and back home. I hope you will enjoy reading my posts periodically.