Hassells in the Highlands

Recently there was a Family Day at Dounreay.  Dounreay is the nuclear reactor site here in Scotland and is where Mike has been working for this past 15 months. It is the reason we came to Scotland.  (And by the way - he was extended to complete another task, which means we will be home in December.) “Family Day” means that the site was opened up to allow for friends and family members to walk around the site in the company of an employee. We all had to be accompanied because Dounreay is a highly secured area.  It is heavily guarded. Men with automatic weapons are posted at the gates. Highly trained dogs patrol the perimeter and barbed wires cover the tops of fences. People going in and out must have security clearance and they must enter a pass code and scan their badges to get through the gates to actually enter the property. This is not a place one can just wander into. To get pictures of the place, you must park in the lot that is a quarter mile away or stand on

Summer. Where did it go?   It was going to be a busy summer and I knew it would go by very quickly – and it did!   In some ways, I feel like I missed it, because looking back, it looks like a blur. It was a blur of visitors and traveling – and yet I was still able to be very present in the midst of it.  And because of visitors and traveling, it has been a LONG time since I posted. But not from lack of things to write about, that’s for sure! I could surely bore you with the details of each and every adventure, or just try to convey a few interesting and/or fun things that happened along the way. I choose the latter. But just for a quick recap, the last 5 months have looked mostly like this: April – 2 weeks in 5 cities in Italy with Wes and Cristy Bratton and Steve and Glenda Schlahta May bank holiday – 5 days in Marsailles, France Early June – Mike and Heather Erhart stayed with us for a week Mid-June – Mom came to visit. She was here for almost a week and th