A Little Time Traveling - Scottish Festival

Fun fact: About a billion years ago I was a bagpiper. I was part of the bagpipe band at my high school and we had a wonderful time participating in parades, performing all over and competing at Scottish festivals. 

The bagpipes that I used belonged to the high school. I had to give them back when I graduated and I haven't owned any since. It's a very sad state of affairs, so if anyone out there has an extra couple grand sitting around that they don't know what to do with, would you mind sending a set of pretty, new bagpipes my way? Thanks, that'll be great!

Anyway, it's been forever since I've played with anything Scottish, but now that we are living back in my childhood hometown and are right close the annual Scottish festival, I dragged my family out of bed early on a Saturday morning and took them out for a little Scottish immersion. 

Apparently I need to expose my girls to this stuff more, as massed bands got underway and all the pipers started playing, my Princess put her hands over her ears and started to whine, "Mooomm, it's tooo looouuuddd!!" This is something I will have to remedy, prepare yourself for some more bagpipe music, Ms. Princess. 

Me and the girls getting our Scottish on at the festival. 

We wandered the booths for a long time and the girls loved looking at all the different things. And then Marquis handed Princess a knife, and my feisty, Scottish, red-headed girl girl smiled and took it. She was way too happy about that knife. Sweetheart loved them too, but more because they had sparkly jewels on the ends than because they were knives.

We spent a lot of time looking at the pond, too. 

We ran into my sister and her husband there and my sister graciously let me have a bite of her Scottish egg. If you've never had one before, a Scottish egg is a hard boiled egg covered in sausage and then deep fried, which sounds really weird but is crazy amazing, despite (as said in So I Married an Axe Murderer), "I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare."

We had a grand time at the Scottish festival, but I have to admit that it was really weird. I spent so much time there as a teenager that it was like taking a little trip back in time. We walked past one of the bagpipe judges and I actually still got really nervous. Other than that, it was a lot of fun and I think we may have to make this an annual event!