Our news

Well, I was doing pretty good on updating this blog... then nothing for a month and a half!  All I can say is I am sorry and it has been really busy around here, and I have been really tired!

But those are just excuses, and it is time, past time to update and let you all know our news.  I am sure most of you know it already though!

Yep!  We are expanding our family by one!  The new baby is due December 10th!  We are very excited, Lily and Oliver most especially.  Lily has already named the baby... Buttons.  She is hoping for a girl!  

So there it is, our news, and the reason I have been tired and have found it hard to stay on top of life for the last few months!  

I am happy to report that my energy levels are coming back up, and just in time for summer!  Yay!  

Here is a picture of the baby

This was taken a few weeks ago, baby mickle number three!

Have a great day!

Easter holidays part 2!

Finally!
We flew over to Dublin from Edinburgh on Sunday morning.  Greg had rented a car that was similar to the one we have here at home, so we just barely fit into it with all the people and luggage!  It was a little tight!  We drove to our hotel and then checked out the city a bit.  We got on the hop on hop off bus and headed to the Guinness brewery-priorities!  The factory was pretty cool, but it was by far the most boring thing we did on the trip as far as the kids were concerned!  They did very well though, there was a lot to look at, a lot of Guinness history and facts to read, very interesting.  It was finished off with a lovely pint at the very top of the factory with beautiful views of the city.  We were lucky enough to get a few chairs with a table to sit around and enjoy our Guinness.
We spent the first night in Dublin, the hop on hop off buses gave us a lot of information about the city, we did the whole circuit to get back to the hotel.  The next morning we took the kids and walked to St Patricks Cathedral.  It was neat to go I side the church and walk around.  The kids had a lot of questions about the statues.  There was a little park in the green area surrounding the church that the kids got to play in after.  Then it was back in the car and on the road for county cork, where emerge renting a cottage for the next few days.  We saw a lot of tower ruins driving along the road, I thought it would be similar to scotland, and it was a bit, but the ruins were the main difference, there are so many!  We got to our cottage with a little backtracking and once stopping for directions, sat nav was not very helpful at the end of the journey!  But you have to get lost in ireland at least once, it's part of the deal.  Our hosts were lovely, they lived right next door, and the cottage came guarded by two very friendly dogs, Lily and Oliver had a blast playing with them.  Sharon got to drive on the wrong side of the road and took us into a nearby town (we accidentally took the long way to ge there) for a few essential groceries.
Tuesday came and we decided to take this day and go down to the blarney castle.  What a neat estate!  The gardens were beautiful.  We walked around then up to the castle, and up to the top, up the old winding stairs (possibly the scariest I have done yet) to kiss the stone at the top.  I had no idea you are  expected to hang yourself off the castle walls to kiss this thing!  I couldn't do it, the kids were too little, but Greg did it!  We met nana and papa at the bottom again and had a lovely picnic lunch, had a bit more of a walk, then headed back to our cottage.
Wednesday came and we decided to check out the coastal village of Kinsale.  It was a very quaint village, we got there on a day that they were holding a farmers market, we bought some awesome olives to snack on.  We had lunch at a lovely cafe, then let Oliver pick which fort we would visit.  He picked Charles Fort.  It was fun to walk around ruins that we're not a castle, a lot of differences.  We got there just in time for a guided tour, our tour guide was very good.  An interesting fact, the fort had a 100% failure rate!  They saw only one battle, and surrendered!  When we left the fort Greg went the wrong way and we ended up in front of a very quaint little pub, so we had to stop and have a pint before heading home!
On Thursday we had another busy day.  We took a drive over to Killarney, where we toured Ross castle, and a manor house.  Ross castle was a wonderful example of a restored tower castle.  The tour was very interesting, and we learnt a lot about the tower castles.  At the manor house we first went to visit an example of early irish farms.  We saw three, a small farm house, a medium farm house, and a large farm house.  They were all very interesting, and all had a women working in the kitchens, full of information for us, as well as fresh bread and butter for us to try.  The manor house had beautiful gardens, right on a lake.  We took a tour of the house, very large and full of beautiful things.
Friday morning we had to start our drive back to Dublin, but first we stopped off at the castle that was in the small town we were staying in.  It was castle Fitzgerald, another tower castle ruin.  Then. Headed on the road.  We had one more stop at some beautiful castle gardens along the road, and got back into Dublin with just enough time to take the kids to the leprechaun museum.  They loved it!
We flew home on Saturday morning, and Bob and Sharon flew home on Sunday.  We had a fantastic trip, and saw a lot, but there is so much more to see!  

Easter Holiday Part 1 Pictures

Here are a few pictures from the Scotland side of our easter holiday with Nana and Papa.

 With Nana and Papa at the Aberdeen Beach.

 Uh Oh its the loch ness monster!  at least the one floating in the pond by where we had our picnic lunch.

 The ruins at Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness.

 The castle gates at Stirling Castle

 Lily and Oliver holding court in the great hall at Stirling Castle

 The Falkirk Wheel.  This wheel moves boats up and down the canal system.

 Lily posing outside the Wallace Monument.  We climbed to the top!

 Oliver and Greg by the Wallace Sword.  I think this was the highlight for Greg!

 At the top of the Wallace Monument

 Outside Edinburgh Castle

 Lily had her face painted like a butterfly at Hollyrood Palace

Oliver went with a dragon.

Easter holidays part 1

We had a wonderful time with nana and papa here in Scotland and in Ireland!  The kids were off for spring break, and we took full advantage of it.  We saw and did a lot in just a few days.  While we were here in Scotland we took Bob and Sharon on a drive through Aberdeen with a visit to the beech, up to Loch Ness searching for the monster (no monster sighted this time, but the kids want to go back and give it another shot!), then a drive down to Sterling to see the castle and Wallace monument, over to Edinburgh for a tour of the city and a visit to both the castle (we even saw the one o'clock gun go off), and a visit through Hollyrood palace (where the queen stays when in Edinburgh).  Whew!  All that in 5 days!
It was great, because we hadn't been to a lot of these places ourselves yet.  At Loch Ness we took a boat ride on the loch to get to the castle ruins, had a look around the castle and watched a short film on the history.  Very cool, kids loved it, the hard part is keeping Oliver from climbing on all the rock walls!
We had never been to Sterling before, so it was good to see that castle and read a bit more history.  Our time is limited with the kids to how much we can actually read!  They like looking at the castles and hearing about how people lived in the olden days, but they are too young to appreciate the more detailed history!  We also went and walked up the William Wallace monument, which is a tall tower.  Again there was more history to read, as well as the spiral stairs the medevil castles seem to love!  We made it to the top though, and what a view!  It was also very windy, so we didn't stay at the top for too long!
In Edinburgh we had been to the castle before, but thought it was neat enough to bring nana and papa! We had to see the Crown Jewels after all!  We bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus tours they have there, and they worked great!  Oliver loved riding the bus, they are double dockers, with the top half open to the outside.  He loved it up top the best.  We walked down the royal mile and met nana and papa at the palace.  We hadn't been to the palace yet, so. It was something new for everyone.  They had a few Easter activities going on for the kids, including an egg hunt with clues and a prize at the end, face painting and eggs decorating!  The kids loved it.  The palace was really interesting to go through and see the different rooms, read how they were used, and still used today.  It is full of beautiful old furniture and things, so much history!
That night nana and papa watched the kids and Greg and I went up to the royal mile to take a tour of Mary Kings Close.  We couldn't do it with the kids as they are too young.  It was really neat to go down and learn how people lived in the city in the 16/1700!  What close quarters, I am very glad to be alive when I am and not back then!  We were very lucky that we got to do it.  Then we walked up to see the castle at night, beautiful.  To round it off we found a pub and had a pint and listened to live music, so all in a very nice night!

Spring Holidays are here!

Spring holidays are here, our kids got out of school last Friday for two weeks!  They go back on Monday the 21st, when they will start term four and Lily's first year of school will be almost over, already!  Where did the time go?
Nana and Papa landed today for a visit.  We are doing a grand tour of Scotland and Ireland!  There is a lot to see and fit in to a short time slot, but we are up for the challenge.  Tomorrow we are going to drive up to see Loch Ness, maybe we will get lucky and see the monster!  You never know.  On Thursday we will head down to stirling, where braveheart took place.  Then we will go into Edinburgh, my current favorite city in Scotland.  On Sunday morning we are flying to Dublin, we will be spending the night and going to a night of food folklore and fairies!  I am looking forward to it!  Then we are off to county Cork for four nights in a cottage.  What fun.  Then back to Dublin, then back home just in time for Easter Sunday.  Whew, what a few weeks we are in for!  Bring it on!  It will be great fun, I have never been to many of these places before and we will have lots of new stories to tell.
I will keep you updated with a few posts (hopefully) on our trip.

Lily's fist dance recital

Last week on Thursday and Saturday Lily had her first dance recital!  It went very well, and she had a great time.  I didn't get to watch, as there had to be a supervising adult attending the child in the dressing room, but Greg and Oliver watched on Thursday night and said it was a wonderful performance.  I will buy the DVD so I can see it.  We were very proud of her.  I expected a few nerves or even for her to want to back out, but there was nothing like that.  The dance organization does a really good job with the kids, and it has lifted her confidence even more.  The hardest part of the whole thing for me was doing her hair!  Those little buns were hard to get right!

Greg gave Lily some roses before her dance on Thursday, she felt so special! 

 Lily in her dance costume, minus her ballet slippers!  She was an owl for the show.

Lily with her brother, they are growing up fast! 

Spring in Scotland

Well, Spring has officially sprung, and here is Scotland that seems to mean that the weather can be either beautiful and warm, where you don't even need a jacket, or freezing to where you need all your winter gear back on.  Or some days you can have all the seasons in the space of two hours!  It takes some getting used to, and a bit of organizing to make sure you have the appropriate clothes on the kids before sending them off to school. 

Not too long ago the field across from our driveway was empty and we took walks around it, but now the farmer has moved in a flock of sheep.  This makes me ridiculously happy to look out the window and see the sheep in the morning!  They are big fat sheep, I am hoping they will have lambs for us to look at before long.

 This is a picture of our house with the daffodils in front of the windows.  It is a very nice place to live, and I am very happy to live out of town a bit for the space and character of the place.

 A close up of our daffodils.  They look so happy and spring like.  There are plots of daffodils and other flowers popping up all over the city, like little fairies went around and just decided that under this tree, and in the middle of that field… would be good spots for flowers.  They are in the most peculiar places sometimes, but it does put a smile on your face when you see them pop up with all their color.

 This morning we woke up to a very frosty and foggy morning.  Can you spy the sheep?  They were so still this morning trying to stay warm.  Hopefully we won't have too many more mornings like this.

Have a great springy week everyone!

It's been a long time...

Like over a YEAR!  I doubt anyone even checks this anymore!  But I do miss it, and I am disappointed that I can't come on here and see everything that happened this last year!  So I am going to try and do better, way better.
Here is what has happened in roughly the last year.  Firstly we moved, to Scotland.  We left Australia last march for New Hampshire, and the kids and I were in the US until July, when we flew into Aberdeen for what I am told was an unusually warm and nice Scottish summer!  I am hoping that the next one is as nice.  Greg found us a terrific house here, in the country, but 3 minutes out of town, perfect!  The kids both started school last August, Lily is in P1, Oliver is in Nursery.  As far as we can tell P1 is considered first grade here, but we would consider it kindergarten, with a bit extra.  Lily has settled into school life very well, as expected.  She loves going and seeing her friends, and is now sharing about her day when she gets home.  Oliver is getting ready to go to P1 next year, he is in half days (sometimes that is not long enough for us both!)  He has all the teachers wrapped around his finger!  We are happy with the school here, and the local community, it feels very comfortable.
We had what was for us, a long winter, with very short days.  I found the short days to be the hardest part, especially when they were full of rain, clouds, and wind.  Apparently it likes to snow here, but not this year, so everyone tells us we were lucky to have a mild winter.  I would have preferred snow though, at least then you can go outside!  Ahh, but winter is over and spring is here.  There are sheep in the field in front of our house, all the daffodils are blooming, our days are longer again, the wind is taking a break, and the sun has been shining.  We are looking forward to exploring the castles and forests that are all over this area on the weekends.
Here's to being back to blogging, see you in a few days!