Week in Review

Seeing as we haven't posted since Sunday, I thought I'd take a quick look back at the week that was.

Sunday evening we got confirmation of our first out of town visitors.  Although several fought for the honor, the distinction will go to Pim and Sandra, who will be in town the weekend of March 28th.  We're really looking forward to seeing them again and getting a chance to show off Aberdeen and surroundings.

Tuesday evening we went down the street to His Majesty's Theatre to see a traveling Russian production of Swan Lake.  Fiona had given me the tickets for Christmas and I was really looking forward to it.  The venue, as always, was great, especially from the floor seats we had, although the heat appeared to be on full blast.  The overall production was average, but was highlighted by an amazing performance by the prima ballerina.  We both agreed it was the best we had ever seen.  We had never seen Swan Lake before so we had fun trying to interpret the story.  Comedic relief was provided by a small child three rows back who kept asking (loudly) at every break point before intermission if it was time for ice cream.  The tradition at His Majesty's Theatre is to serve small cups of ice cream during the intermission of plays, ballets and operas.  Seems kind of strange to me, but it grows on you.

It's been a bit of a rough week at work, so we haven't been out and about in the evenings too much.   We've been pulled into this new show (at least it is new to us) called 'Who do you think you are'.  It follows minor British celebrities as they trace their family tree.  Most people find these wonderful and totally unexpected characters in their ancestry.  It's given Fiona the geneaology bug.  She is preparing to do some digging to see what pops up.  With the ancestors being Irish-Welsh, we're now well positioned to go to the relevant places should we need to look up records, etc ...  I've seen the results of an equivalent process done on my Dad's side of the family by a distant relation.  She had managed to track them back several hundred years.  She published a book with the results that is really fascinating.

One of the downsides of expat living is the transience of the people in your lives.  For me it is always been easier to meet people because I could make friends through work.  After each move, Fiona has always had to go out and make new friends, always with good success.  But the business moves people around and she's had to deal with good friends moving away.  We have a feeling that the world economy will be moving more of our friends this year.  Fiona finds that hobbies help her meet new people and keep busy, so she's adding another one to the list of knitting, photography and languages.  She's taken up painting.  Several months back she completed her first painting at a course with friends.  She has since bought some equipment and started painting on her own.  Her second piece was completed last week - photo attached.  I think she has a talent for it.

It's Casey's birthday today.  She'll be five.  She's already working on the sleeping in part, but I think we'll take her for an extra long walk today and throw in a pig's ear to make the day special.  She's working her usual charm offensive on the friends and neighbors here in Aberdeen - making friends has never been a problem for her.

We found ourselves looking at a house across the street that's for sale.  We even went to a bank site and looked at mortgage rates.  A little silly to be doing that in this economy and with my work situation being what it is, but we really like Aberdeen and could live with a long term posting here quite happily.  I guess we've said that before, raving about both Calgary and Houston, so maybe we're just easy to please.

No big plans for this weekend.  I think we'll try and find another nearby hike on Sunday - maybe even stick to the assigned trail this time.  I also might try and watch some of the Six Nations Rugby on Sunday (Ireland vs Scotland).  I still haven't figured out the intricacies of that game, although I think I've caught on to the whole cricket thing....