We're moving!!

My blog is rather "behind the times", as life has been busy and I've failed to update it! I figured I'd write a post about it when it was certain, and then the weeks swiftly passed with various delays and nothing much happening.

So at last, I can finally post here and say we've bought a house in Bishop Auckland (County Durham in England - over 300 miles away!) and plan to be moving soon, God willing. We had hoped it would happen some weeks ago, but we only finally completed this week, which means the soonest we've been able to book a remover to move us is the 18-20th of October - when I'll be just over 38 weeks pregnant! Yes, a bit "eek" to be happening so late on, but my babies are usually at least a few days late ;-) so hopefully this one stays put until we're moved in!

Here are some photos of the place we hope to soon call home! :-)

Front of the house

Lounge

Kitchen

Dining room

Stairs

Another huge reception room, which we plan to fill with Peter's books! ;-)

Here's a post I shared on Facebook a month ago to explain our move - saves time to just copy & paste what I said before! ;-)

I wasn't on Facebook in 2003 (maybe it didn't exist yet?!), so no "on this day" memory to pull up! ;-)But 13 years ago today I landed in Scotland, which has been my home ever since. I've always loved the country, and having been here since I was 21 (and with all 6 of my children born here), it feels like a good bit of my lifetime has been here. 

BUT, God willing, we are relocating to the North of England soon! :-)We're in the process of buying a big Victorian house (seen in photos here) on the outskirts of Bishop Auckland, in County Durham. Our offer has been accepted, deposit paid - just waiting for the solicitors to sort out something about a land title (something that got omitted when it sold last time) and hopefully it won't be much longer before we're able to complete and get the keys! The plan is to *hopefully* get moved & settled before the baby is born (due in only just over 8 weeks), as it's much easier to do things when pregnant, than with a newborn!  

Over the past couple of years we've thought about the possibility of moving to the area, as we have good friends here (who Peter has known since he was a child). Since Peter's parents have both passed away, we're not tied to the area in the same way as we were previously. But it wasn't a set plan - just something that we thought might happen eventually. But then we spotted this house! ;-)We thought it was sold to someone else twice in the past month, but when we realised we had another chance, we went for it! It seemed too much of a bargain to let it slip by, and soooo much space (twice as big as our current house!). It's more than 2/3 of what was originally a very large Victorian house (small bit at the back corner is an attached neighbour's house), but it's still massive - 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 4 reception rooms, large kitchen, utility room, etc.

Apologies for the wordy post here, but just a quick update of what's happening here! Lots of changes and a bit of an adventure, but feeling very excited about this new chapter of our lives!

This is the page I put together to sell our own house - we accepted an offer on the house within a week of advertising it!! :-) It was an amazing blessing to get such a quick sale for it! And the people buying it don't have to sell their own place first (as they're just renting) so that makes things a bit easier - still to complete the sale after we move out, but we've formally accepted the offer.
https://tain5bedroom.wordpress.com

And should anyone wish to buy our lovely holiday house ;-) that is also on the market, though no offers for it yet. Only one viewing, but hopefully someone will come along and be interested in it too! 
https://edderton2bedroom.wordpress.com


One final set of photos, of wee Fergus who is growing up so fast - only just over a month until he's 2! 

And here's Fergus making sure he doesn't get left behind! ;-) He's packed himself in a box! 

Well, that's all for now. I'll try to update when we get moved - or at least post when baby #7 arrives! :-)

PS
Apologies for the messy formatting! Blogger seems to get more confused each time I write a post, and I just don't have the time to make it tidy tonight! Sorry!

:-

Blog Catch-up Part 1

It looks like this year will be the most neglected my blog has ever been since I started it! :-P Not sure I've ever ended up with so few post by half-way through the year. I mean, I'm certain it's never been so blank! And I have no promises of making it better, but will try a brief update and catch-up of at least some photos, etc. I might split it across more than one post - but here's a start at least! :-)

So, in May we spent two lovely weeks down in Yorkshire on holiday. It now seems a very long time ago (I guess it was quite a while ago! lol). We had a fantastic house to stay in (with a book theme too - Storybook Cottage). The children loved it there, and animals to enjoy outside on the farm - very peaceful. And we got to spend quite a bit of time with our friends the Mohons, which was really nice - always the highlight of our holidays down there! :-)

After getting back from our holiday it was all go getting things organised in Edderton at the holiday house. There's always plenty of gardening to do after the winter, so that kept us busy for a while. And then it's been booked solid since the middle of June - with a run right through until middle of September! Though we did just get 2 weeks cancelled at the last minute when the people weren't able to get away to come up - but I was rather glad of a wee break in the middle of a very busy summer! ;-)

It's been a rather chilly, cloudy, damp, and lack of sunshine summer up here - again! :-/ I have to admit, when you grow up in Texas, you are rather in need of a bit of brightness! Not that I expected Scotland to be sunny, but after a long dark winter, you always look forward to summer being a *bit* better! ;-) And then when summer is so dark and cold, it's a bit of a disappointment. The first several years I lived over here, it was quite warm and nice in the summers - not bad at all. But this must be the 3rd summer in a row where you might only get ONE proper day that's decently warm (and by warm I mean just being around 21c - which isn't even quite 70F!). Anyway, we got one day like that - one day only this summer. Oh well! Guess that's life, right?! :-)

We've been enjoying a break from homeschooling over the summer - though it's gone by too fast. Can't believe we're already back to lessons in just over a week!! But it's good to get back to normal routine and all. I think I've got everything organised (as in, a few new books bought, etc) and we're ready to go!

Oh, last month I got my results back from my Open University course - good marks for my final essay and I passed the course. So that was nice and means I've officially finished the first year of a BSc Psychology degree! :-) Just 2 more to go! NOT that I have any plans to finish it in that time - IF I manage to do it, it will be at a much slower pace! I hope to be studying "The Science of the Mind: Investigating Mental Health" this autumn/winter - it's only a 30 credit course, but I've been told by those who have taken it, that it's easily as tough as a 60 credit one. But hopefully less essays to write, since the course starts the same month as baby #7 is due! :-) But the topic sounds fascinating and I can't wait to start it! 

I'm just coming up to 28 weeks in this pregnancy - still can't believe how fast it's gone by. But certainly each one seems to pass by faster than the previous one. (I still remember how slowly my first one seemed to go by! LOL) So, due in only about 12 weeks! Yikes! At least when it's your 7th baby, you've already got everything you need - so quite easy to be organised! ;-)

So, time for some photos from our holiday. Certainly not all of them - I took too many. 

The amazing stairs in the holiday house we stayed in - painted like the spine of books! :-D

All 6 of them!

Mummy and a tired Elijah

Fun at the park in the Danby Visitor's Centre

Dressing up fun at the Oriental Museum in Durham - absolutely fab place!

Durham Cathedral

A huge model of the Durham Cathedral - made out of Lego bricks!! Yes, the kids absolutely loved it!

And they got to put a brick on the next section of the building project! yay!

A lovely day at a country park with friends

Picnic with friends

Abigail and her friends

National Railway Museum in Shildon - Fergus thought it was fantastic to see these huge trains in real life!

So, that's all for now. I'll *try* to get a few more holiday pics posted sometime soon. But this will have to do for today!

Spring Birthdays, Baby # 7, etc.

This might be the longest I've gone without updating this blog - or at least, not sure I've ever got to the middle of May and had only written one post here! [oops!] I guess I've been busy with my studies, and a few other things. ;-) 

Right now we're having a lovely holiday in Yorkshire - our favourite place to go! :-) Eventually I hope to update my blog with photos from what we're doing right now, but figured I could go back in time and catch up on my blog - while I have a few spare minutes. I have added my Instagram feed to the top right of this page, so that gives a bit of "real time" stuff, when I'm otherwise neglecting this blog.

So, first things first, meet:

Baby # 7 (or as some of my friends would say, Baby G - since we have children with names A to F so far), but that doesn't mean the name is set - esp since we don't yet know the gender. But anyway, due to arrive around the end of October (likely to be a November baby) - I'm 15.5 weeks now.

Baby #7 at 12+ weeks :-)

In March Benjamin turned 9! They grown up SO fast!

He really like Minecraft, so I attempted a cake with that idea - tho as always, they don't turn out as well as I imagine they will. Anyway, he wanted plastic toys on top - so that was easy enough.

Building Lego!

Opening presents

Elijah building a Duplo rocket

Fergus like Duplo as well - tho he's quite keen on proper/big boy Lego too! ;-)

This wee guy *loves* to sit and look at books. Most of the time they're Thomas the Tank Engine ones, of course! ;-)

As I said, Fergus likes grown up Lego bricks! He'll spend ages sticking them together.

My 3 little boys! :-)

In April, Clement turned 7!

Opening presents

Books are *always* included as a birthday present - and usually the present that gets the most time spent on it! :-D

Balloons - the best part of a birthday! ;-)

Always Lego too! ;-)

And yes, for Lego mad Clement, it had to be a Lego brick cake! :-)

He was very pleased with it!

My little boys - the best of friends!

Bedtime book reading with daddy!

Sometime in the last several weeks we had a lovely walk about half an hour from where we live - near a castle and with beautiful scenery.

Stable grounds behind them

Collecting fun sticks and branches

A stick bigger than Elijah! ;-)

Enjoying the view

Yes, the Highlands are beautiful!

Stopping for a snack and to enjoy the view.

Fergus loved looking at the very tall trees

"Trees! Trees!" says Fergus

A rest and drink in the back of the van, before it was time to go home again.

So, that's me caught up with the past! ;-) We're currently on holiday just now. It's great to have a break and get away for a bit, and catch up with our friends here! :-) I finished my Open University course (psychology) course a few weeks early so I wouldn't have to think about it while on holiday. Hopefully I didn't rush my final essay too much - it's worth 50% of my course grade! [eek!] But I have good marks for the other 50%, so as long as I pass this, then all is well. But it takes a couple of months before they give results. I've thoroughly enjoyed studying - so much that I've already registered for my next course (which starts in Oct) before I'd even finished this one! LOL But for now, I'll enjoy a summer free of studying, because I'll be busy enough doing the holiday house in Edderton! When we get back home next week, it's just over 3 weeks until the house fills up - and is pretty much booked with different guests through to September. So yeah, a wee break right now before busy again! And then baby arriving in the autumn, God willing. So plenty to keep me occupied with - which probably means this blog will continue to be neglected! ;-)