We are, as you may have guessed, the Ryan Family. And this is our little corner of the information super highway. We are a blend of cultures, and language. Paul is a native of England, who had been living in Scotland for half of his life. Frances is a true-blooded American – right down to her family's "Germans-from-Russia" immigrant roots – who lived briefly in Scotland (we had to meet somewhere, right?).
His primary language is English, her native tongue is American. What's the difference? Well, he says tom-ah-to, she says to-may-to. He writes organise, she writes organize. Because of this, you'll likely notice that we use a mixture of both languages throughout this site. You'll get used to the oddities; we have!
We were married in May 2005, and are now settled in Frances’ native
state of Washington. After a brief stint in Seattle, we are now living
in the Palouse Region. While the
Palouse is nothing like Paul’s hometown near the coast of the North Sea
in northeast England, or Frances’ hometown in the Central Washington
Cascade Mountains, it is certainly a place that we are happy to call
home.One of the most common questions we are asked is how we managed to meet, with 6,000 miles of land and ocean between us. Well, it was pretty simple – at the time we met, we were both living in Edinburgh, Scotland. (You could be forgiven for thinking we met in a chat room, like so many international couples in contemporary society.) If you want to know more about our fairytale meeting and subsequent courting, click here.