Sunny Days

There have been plenty of hot, sunny days in England this year (there has also been a lot of rain). On sunny days, we love to spend our time down at the river. There are always plenty of people there on a nice day and we always run into friends. I guess it is kind of like the "community pool." All the kids walk through it splashing, floating in tubes or trying to catch things in their nets while the parents picnic on the lawns. It's kind of old school - I love it.

We also like going to a local park swimming. Yes, there are actually outdoor swimming pools in England. This park is especially nice because it has three pools, a train for kids to ride on, a great playground and it is near Costco. Woo hoo! Win, win for everybody... 

We also like to hang out at home and spend time in our little paddling pool in the backyard.

Surprisingly, our neighbors also have an in-ground, proper outdoor swimming pool which is pretty rare in England.  Occasionally, they invite us over. So you see, even in England you can enjoy swimming in the sun. There just isn't as much sun, so you take advantage of every day and appreciate every minute.

Horse Back Riding...finally!

Abby has wanted to take horse back riding lessons since the day we moved into our house here. She saw all the horses that live out behind our house and made her mind up that she wouldn't rest until she learned how to ride. Sammy heard Abby talk so much about it that she adopted it as her dream too. Well, the time has finally come. Here are the girls in their helmets, ready to ride on the first day. 

This is our little riding group. They did it with some friends of ours. Abby had such a difficult time finding a helmet that would fit her head. Every helmet gave her a headache but it did not dampen her enthusiasm. We are still looking for the perfect helmet that will fit that big head of hers...poor girl!

Sammy learns to get on her horse. Her horse's name is "Biscuit." She is the smallest rider and therefore has the smallest pony.

Go Sammy and Biscuit!

Abby's horse "Pickle" checks her out.

Abby is on and can't stop smiling. She just loves riding! They have all their lessons in a large barn until they can prove that they can control their horse and feel confident enough to ride outside. The girls can't wait for that day.  I just love looking at all the horses.

Wee Trip to Scotland

We spent 10 fabulous days in Scotland at the first of August. It was so much fun. Here is Alexandra and Abby in Dunkeld on the first day of our trip.

Here is the whole gang - we went with our good friends, the Austins.

We rented a huge newly renovated cottage outside of Perth. The owner of the cottage said he believed "the house should entertain you."  That it did! It had a theatre room, ping pong and pool tables, 13 t.v.'s, a huge kitchen and an outdoor wood-heated hot tub. I have never seen a hot tub heated by wood before. I loved the smell of burning pine all day long. It really heated up well. A lot of times it was way too hot so we had to add cold water from the hose to cool it down. In the picture above, Charles and friend Chris are adding cold water to cool it down for the kids. Seeing Charles stirring the water to mix in the cold made me think that we were about to add our children to a giant stew, all we needed was some celery, carrots and spices. Mmmmmmm... 

We visited Glamis Castle, the home of the Queen Mother,  where they were having a kids' activity day. The girls had their faces painted, got to hold all kinds of reptiles, and hear stories about the castle.

Here is a view of Glamis Castle from the front. Glamis makes me think of glamorous and yes, it was! We toured all through it and were very impressed. The girls loved the formal dining room the most and were picturing themselves having dinner with the queen there. The table was set and the girls were quite confused about which fork they would use first. They agreed that they would have to use their absolute BEST manners at this table.

There was a bird handler at the castle. They were showing off all kinds of large birds like eagles, hawks, buzzards etc. Sammy got called out of the crowd to hold a hawk. She was pretty proud of herself.

Sammy's face was painted like a squirrel.

This is a view of the castle from the pleasure gardens behind it.

Our cottage even had a t.v. over the bath tub. The girls loved this. They enjoyed it because we won't ever have one in the bathroom at our house....

We went strawberry and raspberry picking. We could not believe how big the strawberries were. The farm where we picked the fruit was nestled up in a very hilly, green area. It was beautiful.

We took a train from Fort William to a little town called Mallaig, a busy fishing port and ferry terminal. There were lots of cute shops and restaurants to explore in Mallaig. We loved just climbing on the rocks and looking at the view.  This is the same train line that the steam engine the "Hogwarts Express" goes on as seen in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's if you live in the U.S.)  Stone."

We had the best weather. It was so hot for most of the time we were in Scotland. In the distance you can see the islands of Rum, Eigg, Much and Canna. I don't know which two these are though...

The train ride we took was 84 miles round trip and took us past Britain's highest mountain (Ben Nevis), and deepest loch (Loch Morar). Above is the 21 arches of Glenfinnan viaduct as seen in Harry Potter. 

This is another view from the train. Amazing!

View from the train

Here is some random mountain up in the highlands that we decided to stop at and attempt to climb. The mountains are so huge and rugged yet they are even more beautiful because they are covered in a carpet of green!

The tiny people are from our group. They were attempting to climb the mountain. The girls were running up.

A beautiful stream where we were hiking

We also went to the lovely city of St. Andrews. These are the ruins of a cathedral dating back to 1158.

We went to the famous West Sands Beach in St. Andrews better known as the beach from the movie "Chariots of Fire."

There is that famous stretch of beach where all the guys are seen running in the movie!

Here is Alexandra in her "Chariots of Fire" cameo!

This is some random castle we found on one of our hikes.

Hiking

The view from the top

Our hikes always reminded me of the "Lord of the Rings" movie with green moss covering all the rocks.

We went to the Highland games in Aberfeldy. Sammy watched this bag piper for quite a while and would copy his every move. It was so cute! We watched big burly Scottish men in kilts in competitions carrying extremely large heavy stones as far as they could (known as the stone put). We also watched the caber toss.

The other highlight of the trip was a special viewing of the movie "Brave" in the ballroom of Blair castle. A very cool venue for a great movie! We drank lots of "Irn Bru" - Scottish soda that tastes like bubble gum and used as a hangover cure. We also had deep-fried haggas and Scottish rock candy and every flavor of tablet made.We loved Scotland and would love to go back and see more!

My Little Sammy

Sammy turned six in July. We had a party and of course played the ol' shaving cream on the shower cap game. There ain't a party at our house when we don't play it...

It was a belly dancing party. Each girl got a belly dance hip scarf with jingly coins and an anklet (again with jingly coins). They also got lots of bracelets and sparkly rings. We did their hair and painted on sparkly flower and butterfly tattoos! It was a hit. They loved it!

They didn't stop dancing...

Even Alexandra joined in.