Glasgow River Festival

Shelly (my partner) and I were invited to participate in the Urban Beach Volleyball Tour in Glasgow at the River Festival this past weekend. The top four women's and top four men's beach volleyball teams were invited. Here is the venue from our motel room. You can see the court next to the Clyde River in Glasgow.


Because it was such a big event with sponsors and such, they gave us free "clothing" to wear. When we showed up, they handed us bags with two different colors of bikinis!! There was quite a bit of mixed emotion on what was going to be worn.

Saturday, it was round robin, so we played everyone. Half of the girls wore bikinis, I wore a bikini top and shorts that matched. My partner and I didn't play the best on the first day, but it was pretty amazing. They had set up a beach volleyball court on the edge of a parking lot. We were surrounded by booths and boats and fire engines and every 30 minutes or so, a tour bus would drive by!! Here is some if the action. I am getting ready to pass the volleyball.


That evening after a hot shower and a bit of TV vegging, we went out to an Indian restaurant and had some curry. Indian food was new to Tim and I, but everyone else that came loved it! I didn't like the spicy HOT appetizers as much, but my main course of chicken was great (Only because after I ordered, Iain (a volleyball buddy) yelled across the table, "MILD, make hers MILD!")

Sunday, we played the semi-finals and the finals. Well, I did it then- I showed off my body. The shorts came off and there I was, playing half naked in front of (what felt like the whole city of) Glasgow! It seemed like everywhere I looked there was another wide angle zoom lens! One photographer told Tim, "look Amy is playing in a bikini! Do you want me to get photos? I can get some from the front and the back!" Tim said "Yeah, that would be great!" I think I know when they had this conversation, because at the beginning of the match, when we were announced onto the court, I looked over toward Tim and a small group of people around him were laughing! Here is the match, I am on the left. Don't look too close at the cottage cheese on my bottom!


Unfortunately, we didn't play 100% and lost that match, but I can truthfully say I played in a bikini! We ended up winning the 3rd place match though. It was great to end strong! If you're going to finish the weekend 2-7 in games, you might as well win the last two. I don't have pictures of the third place game because Tim was referring. Isn't he cute in his little referee outfit? He got to keep the hat.


Tim wants everyone to know that he missed playing in the tournament himself by one lousy point (he had 63.5 points and the fourth-place men's team had 64.5 points) He figures he got jobbed by the officials in the qualifying tournaments, so he officiated this one in revenge. If you can't beat 'em...

After the final, it was really neat, because they brought out a podium for an awards ceremony. Here some Scottish bagpipers are "piping in the players".


The closing ceremony presented another conundrum for me. All but one of the other players was wearing their bikinis and I figured I would skew the picture if I didn't match. So here is a picture of ALL of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams... the things you do for a £25 check (that's, like, fifty bucks!). Haha!

Here are all of the girls on the podium...


All in all, it was a lot of fun and one this is for sure, I can pretend like I was professional. After all, I played in a bikini!

University of St Andrews

One day my boss came in and said that there was a photographer from the university that wanted to take pictures of her instruments. She didn't want to be in the pictures and I didn't really know what they were for, so I didn't mind.

A few months later, I got message from a friend saying that my picture was on the university website! What! So here is the picture, don't I look SO scientific!!

website: www.st-andrews.ac.uk

If you go to the website and don't see it, sometimes you have to hit refresh (a few times). Even though, periodically people remind me about it "Amy, is that you on the website, or Amy, have you seen yourself on the website!" I had completely forgotten about it until today, I started up Internet Explorer and guess what the first thing that came up was... I feel like a celebrity.

Diving Seagull

Today, Tim and I decided that since it was such a beautiful day, we would take a long lunch and go for a walk. After Tim bought a few treats from Fisher and Donaldson (THE local bakery) we walked to the sea coast to watch. It was So windy that the incoming waves were being blown back to sea!!

As we were sitting on this bench on a hill, I looked out over the sea and saw tons of seagulls circling around in the middle of the water. I saw this big splash and thought a fish jumped! As I looked closer, I saw more and more of these big splashes. The seagulls must be throwing rocks into the water.

*Side note: One day my friend Joe and I were daring and wanted to walk under these cliffs while the tide was out. He spotted a seagull's nest, saw there were babies in it and started to go closer. When he got pretty close, the birds started swooping in and dropping rocks on him. GO AWAY!! He did get a small peak at the babies.*

Anyway, Tim and I soon realized that these birds weren't dropping rocks, but they were actually DIVING in the water! They would swoop up and then accelerate straight down, splashing as they went in! A few seconds later, they would come bobbing to the top. I didn't know seagulls like to swim!! Maybe there was a ton of food floating there or maybe they could see little fish close to the top. We just figured they were just cooling off from the HOT sun (It was 70 degrees today!!)

We will go back and see if we can get any good pictures.