Well, it's not quite a full month since I last posted here, but it feels longer as the days have been busy. But not too busy to enjoy the sun and warmth over the past several weeks. We have been blessed with wonderful weather this summer! Living in the north of Scotland, there are far more days that are cold, dark and wet. So it makes the nice days (and weeks!) extra special - especially when they happen at the same time as the school holidays! :-) The children have spent soooooo much time outside and just love it! There's no need to go away or spend lots of money - plenty of fun and good memories to be made close to home! :-)
At the beginning of the holidays (or perhaps just before they started) we had a meet-up in Golspie with other homeschoolers - mostly from Caithness. It was sunny (as is obvious in the photos!) and the kids had a great afternoon. It *was* cold and windy down on the beach that day, but the time at the park was perfect.
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| My 3 boys - enjoying their picnic! :-) |
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| Fun at the park |
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| Very chilled out Elijah! |
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| A relaxed Benjamin too! |
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| Clement looking hot after lots of running around. |
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| Benjamin |
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| Fun with friends |
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| Abigail - who seems to be getting taller & taller! :) |
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| My girls! |
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| Deborah loves the sand |
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| Yes, I said it was windy - the sand was getting in their eyes. |
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| Benjamin and Clement |
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| Working together |
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| Elijah looking cosy! |
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| Can't have too many trips to a park in one day! ;-) |
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| But most days, the kids just have fun and hang out at home! I love this one of Deborah & Benjamin together! |
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| Deborah is working on a loom band bracelet here - concentrating too hard to notice me! ;-) |
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| Last week the children even braved getting wet in paddling pools! :-p Though I must admit that the boys found it too cold very quickly and came in. But the girls spent a lot of time out there. |
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| Painting in the garden = less mess indoors. :-) |
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| Last week I took the kids for a walk down to the bottom of the town where there's a park and we had a picnic by the shore. A bit of a muddy seaside view, I must admit - at least when the tide is out! ;-) But it's still rather special to have the sea within walking distance. |
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| Enjoying their picnic - in the shade this time. |
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| Very green and lush by the duck pond. |
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| Elijah & Deborah feeding the ducks. |
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| Clement, Abigail, and Benjamin feeding the ducks. |
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| A Moorhen - there were a couple of nesting families of them there. |
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| Elijah at the top and Clement at the bottom - Elijah *loves* slides. The bigger the better, of course! |
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| Climbing boys |
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| Biggest 4 |
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| "I'm a big boy, mummy" said Elijah. He wants to make sure I know he can do things by himself! :-P |
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| I love planting random seed mixes in the window boxes on the kids' playhouse. You never know what flowers will appear. I was pleased to see this sweet pea this morning - I didn't realise it was there! |
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| I'm not sure I ever shared a photo of the garden shed Peter built in Edderton over the winter/spring. He had to remove an old garage (the size of the concrete area around the shed) and then made this lovely shed instead! He drew the plans up himself (similar to the playhouse he made the kids a few years ago). It certainly makes the back garden there a lot brighter - and the new fence helps too! |
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| And I always enjoy the view from the front windows of the house in Edderton! It's very peaceful to look out when I'm getting the house ready for guests - though I'm usually too busy to pause for long. |
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| Elijah's favourite colour is orange, so he was very excited to see these flowers open up in the front garden a couple of weeks ago. They *only* open when there is full, intense sun! |
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| Enjoying some fish and chips for dinner one evening last week. Peter had been doing some clearing out of his dad's house in Dingwall in the afternoon and time got away. So we got fish & chips and ate it in the park there. It was a lovely sunny evening. So relaxing and nice to get a rare break from cooking dinner! ;-) |
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| Fish & chips |
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| The biggest three looking in the pond - a few minutes before Deborah managed to slip in! [oops] At least I had for once actually packed a spare change of clothes for her, which was very handy! :-) Though she *didn't* enjoy the experience at all. |
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| Elijah loves trains! I remember Abigail & Benjamin having lots of fun in this train when they were small - back when we lived in Dingwall. |
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Well, that's all for now! Still several weeks of the summer holidays left (I think!) - so time for more fun & adventures yet to happen. Though some of the holiday bookings in Edderton are a bit more busy in August (like someone coming for only 4 nights, and then more guests arriving the day they leave - in the middle of the week!). So that will be a very busy week with 3 change overs happening in the space of 7 days!! But otherwise, hopefully a bit of time to relax before we start a new year of homeschooling! :-) And then, less than 13 weeks until baby is due to arrive. I must admit, I really look forward to the sickness and nausea going away then. But for now, looks like I've got another 13 weeks (or so) of it yet to "enjoy"! It IS worth it though - Elijah is my daily reminder that 9 months of sickness gave us a wonderful blessing and joy! :-)
