Happy Birthday Granny Vi!

My aunt Sara's mom (my Granny through marriage), Violet White turned 99 years old on July 30th. She was born in Ireland and had one brother and three sister-she is the last one living. She is amazing; while her body is not as agile as it used to be, her mind is sharp as a tack. She also is very good at bossing people around and at 99 gets away with it!

We went over in the morning to bring her cards, gifts and a birthday cake. I've never seen so many cards for one person's birthday in my life and perhaps at 99 I'll receive that many :)
We went over and had our dinner with her and lit the candles on her cake(no, not 99!) and had champagne and cake for our dessert. Being a bit jet lagged, I was nodding off but we all had a great time. We plan to have a family dinner party for her on Sunday at Jenn's house in Lenark

Sara and I are staying with her sister, Jenn, in Lanark which is in the Clyde Valley(Dale)-(where the Clydesdale horses where developed) and is approximately 20 miles south of Glasgow. It's a lovely area and I explored the local area on my run this morning.

A long day of travel

I started out Tuesday morning from San Diego at about 11:00 am. I had a long layover in Denver but my friend, Jeanne, came to meet me and we had a nice lunch and a great time catching up. I had about 5 hours before my international flight but after 3 hours delay due to our original plane having mechanically difficulties (best not to get on that one!) and then more delays while waiting for another plane and torrential downpour in Denver we finally boarded and were off.....8 hours later!

The good news was that I got upgraded to business class after having the very thought earlier in the day how nice it would be to be in first class on a transatlantic flight.........I was VERY happy with business class.

The bad news was that since we were delayed so long, I missed my connecting flight to Glasgow and was re-booked on the next flight so now so bad.

I slept 11 hours last night and overall feel good, a bit groggy but that's to be expected.

I have arrived!

"Here's to the First day of the rest of my life!"

Welcome to the first real entry of my travel blog. This will be about my journey as I travel around the world stopping at various places along the way; Scotland, Spain, Italy, Thailand, Bali and New Zealand....who knows were else I may stumble across.

So, here I go! I'm totally sleep deprived with all there is to do with preparing for a trip like this and also so excited to embark on this journey that I've truly been thinking about since my house sold last September. It took some time to get to the point of where I am now......leaving the country and really making this happen.

So first, I should explain the "Antoinette" Some of you may know that my given name is Antoinette. I've always loved the name but let's face it, when your in kindergarden or first grade that is a mouth full! I was having dinner last May with my aunt and uncle and we discussed how I could re-create myself as "Antoinette" on this journey especially since people I will meet won't know me as "Toni" so that will be easier. Hopefully I can remember to introduce myself as Antoinette(let alone spell it)

So, I should be off but will back up a bit in later entries to fill you all in on my life the past 6 weeks.

Tune in! Love and Peace