Update...

It's been ages since I've posted here and a lot has happened so, time for a wee update!

I'll start at the beginning of 2010. Dave's youngest sister - Katie - was married on 27th Dec 2009. Dave flew out to Kansas for Christmas and I joined him in time for the wedding. Unfortunately the journey was rather eventful thanks to the weather in Chicago and the attempted Christmas day bombing in Detroit on a plane which had originated in Europe. This led to hightened security, with delays in London and a storm in the midwest i was stranded in O'Hare airport when I finally arrived into Chicago. Thanks to Dad Hartnett, some divine intervention and Dad's graduate student, Jackie, who was home in Chicago for the holidays, a last minute flight from Midway Airport was arranged and I ("the package") was collected by Jackie (whom I had not met previously and we identified each other by description of clothing relayed through Dad via O'Hare pay phone)and whisked by road from O'Hare to Midway in driving snow. Southwest airlines were to save the day and my very delayed flight finally successfully landed into a snowy Kansas City airport, on its second attempt, around 30 hours following my departure from Scotland. I spent a deleriously jet lagged night in an airport hotel before being collected by Clints parents in the morning after a breakfast of Twinkies and Nescafe and driven to Manhattan in time for the wedding.

Katie and David Koop were married in a lovely service at Katie's church - Faith Evangelical Free in Manhattan and a reception duely followed in the town. Unfortunately the adrenaline wore off during the reception and I missed most of the shindig, opting for an early exit to enjoy 12 hours in the land of nod. Meanwhile the dancing and celebrations continued in what I am lead to believe was a fabulous night. Katie and David have since reached their 6 month anniversary and are enjoying married life living in Lawerence, Kansas.

 Following the wedding we headed out to Estes Park, Colorado with Mom and Dad Hartnett, Becky and Owen, Melissa and Clint and (then) new baby Robbie. Much fun was had skiing at Eldora and snow shoeing at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Our cabin also had a hot tub which provided soothing relief to the bruises sustained on the slopes.

Dave decided that it would be appropriate to smuggle some Cuban cigars into the US from Scotland to celebrate Robbie's birth and the boys partook in Scotch drinking, cigar smoking and grilling outside in the snow to celebrate and strengthen their brotherly "man-bonds".

Dave and I decided to stay on in CO for a few more days after the rest of the group departed. We moved base to Boulder and had a few more days skiing before getting stuck in a storm system moving down from Canada and had to stay an extra day as we feared our trusty mini may not make it in blizzard conditions along I70 back to Kansas. The weather was too bad to ski so we went shopping and visited the Boulder Dushanbi tea house for lunch. The tea house was awesome - shipped in from Asia and rebuilt in downtown Boulder. I was pleased to see some western additions however - the bathrooms were decidedly American! I really like Boulder as a town - it has a lot of culture and character and the "outdoors" lifestyle resulting from it's location at the foot of the Front Range was quite appealing. There are lots of little deli's and coffee shops and, minus the architecture, it almost has a slightly Alpine feel to it.

Following our return to Scotland, we were blessed with one of the best ski seasons Scotland has ever seen. We've had snow in the mountains here until mid June and Cairngorm even managed to open a limited lift system for solstice skiing!

Dave started up a framing business in Blairgowrie and has been trying to get this off the ground. He is very good at the work but unfortunately business has been slow. I guess the recession has not been helping. The last few weeks have brought him a little video editing work and he is currently off in Glasgow for 2 days on a job. I have continued to pull extra sessions doing locum GP work on top of my partnership work in Blairgowrie. I hope as Dave's business becomes more successful I will be able to reduce the hours as it's been a busy and draining 11 months so far. Although the week days and  evenings have been filled with doctoring I have been trying very hard to keep my weekends free for kayaking adventures.

I've had a great few months on the river and have had a few opportunities to push my skills further. I guess the highlight this year has been the River Etive. I've managed a few weekends away camping out overnight and hitting a different river each day. Unfortunately midge season has kind of curtailed this for the moment. Wednesday nights, on the evenings I havent been working evening surgeries, has seen some awesome playboating on the local River Tay. The tailies are coming along nicely and i'm starting to get there with the cartwheel. I'm hoping to get some more big volume paddling in on the Nile again this summer and Dave has plans to join me. He isn't excited by the whitewater so probably wont raft or kayak but is hoping to land himself a 100kg Nile Perch and has arranged some fishing with a few locals.

We've also had a few visits from relatives this year. Aubrey Hartnett popped over from her semester in Granada, Spain for a weekend. We took her to Edinburgh and the coast for a whistle stop tour of Scotland's finest. Mom Hartnett, Melissa and Robbie also visited for a week.

Well, that's all for now folks. Hope everybody is keeping well Stateside. We love to hear all your news so do keep us in the loop .