50th Birthday Rocks!

Happy 50th Birthday to me! Lots of people dread their big 5-0 but not this gal! I feel good, I'm an active participant in life, I love my family, I love my work. My life is so blessed & so rich with love, friendships, contentment, enriching hobbies-I love life! 50 is great! Leann surprised me with a Hostess cupcake, complete with a candle, a nice card, sweets from the WI State Fair & my very own birthday sash & tiara! How amazingly thoughtful! I wore it to breakfast & got some friendly well-wishes. I even tried the haggis! Shock-a-roo for me! I don't eat weird stuff so this is rare. Haggis is ground up organ meat & spices. It actually wasn't too bad.

We set out this morning to tour Rosslyn Chapel. It's a gorgeous church founded in 1446 by Sir William St. Clair that took 40 years to build. We could only take pictures of the outside but that is extremely impressive! Inside, it is small but completely covered in elaborate stone carvings! There is something different to see every where you look. I took some interior pics off the internet.

It has ties with the Knights Templar & the Holy Grail. It was also used in the film, The Da Vinci Code. Tons of tourists flocked to this chapel since. There's an interesting story about 2 pillars inside. A professional stonemason carved one pillar, which is beautiful, then in his absence, his apprentice carved a much more elaborate, impressive pillar. When the stonemason returned, he flew into a jealous rage, hitting the apprentice on the head & killing him.

There's also so much symbology in the carvings, including some pagan references like the "green man". It was all so impressive for such a little church. It's still used as a functioning church today!

We then took a drive through Edinburgh, past the Holyrood House, where the British royalty come to stay when they visit. I wish we had more time to explore here! It looked gorgeous from the drive by.

Then we walked up the hill to Edinburgh Castle- more on that in the next post!