Au Revoir!

just a few pictures we took with Mike leaving for France for awhile. He is deployed there and enjoying not being in the Middle East for this deployment.

Hedgehog

We had this little friend take refuge in our bungalow behind the house, the kids found it among the toys of theirs and wanted to keep him for their own. After we explained that he was covered in fleas and other nasty bugs. They had to say goodbye, but we took one picture to help them remember their little friend.

School Days

Mason started 5th Grade

Mason in his taxi on his first day, he was so anxious to get going and get to school. The summer is way to long for his liking!

Carter started Year 4 and is in Red Class. He was nervous because he is the oldest in the school and is, "responsible to look after the younger children."

Taylor is in Year 1 and can't get enough school. She is the one picking up her homework without any reminders and gets cross with us if we aren't helping fast enough.

Brennan wanted this day to be his first day, but he had to wait two more days! It was torture for him, he was so anxious!

Finally Brennan's big day was here. His first official day of school. This boy was super excited and was so good at school. He loves going on his three days in the week and begs to go on his 'home days' as well. He has never felt sad about leaving me when I drop him off. He is so independent and confident about school, I love it.

We had this gorgeous rainbow that I wish I would have the photography skills to capture its full beauty. I couldn't even fit the whole thing from any angle at our house, the kids were so thrilled to see the massive rainbow in the sky.

S'mores Story

There are certain things that are just better in America, marshmallows are one of those things we recently discovered on our camping trip through Scotland. Mike had brought home jumbo marshmallows from his visit to America in June. We were saving them for our special trip and wouldn't you know it, we forgot them! We were lucky that I had thrown in an extra emergency stash of marshmallows in the camping gear just in case we ran out of the big ones. So that emergency stash was our only stash, until we went to a local store in Scotland and bought some marshmallows. We learned really fast that marshmallows here in the UK--are horrible!! They melt to this weird liquid consistency and don't puff up at all, they get barely brown before falling off the roasting stick..and the taste, not yummy!
We decided that we would have a post camping trip s'more night once we got home. Boy oh boy!!! Those jumbo marshmallows are a whole new experience for s'mores. It was hilarious watching the kids try and eat this mass amount of marshmallow in their mouths. Brennan was by far the messiest, which was surprising with Mason in this family.

Last Night

We had such a great week travelling through Scotland and camping in all sorts of different conditions. It was adventurous and a great time with our little family and friends. The big boys had some lovely camping Root Beer floats our last night, because we were officially out of any S'more making materials.
We also had a lovely camping site just outside of Inverness, and we actually got a day full of sunshine! We had fun skipping stones into the sea and playing in the creek nearby. Then we took advantage of the sun and were trying to dry clothes. The shade came to quickly and rather than untying the line and repositioning Mike just put the van in reverse and drove the line to the sun again.

Isle of Skye and Dunvegan Castle

Although most of the Isle of Skye wasn't the most gorgeous place in Scotland, some scenes were gorgeous!! We only stayed on the Isle for one night, because lets face it, camping sites there were limited and they sucked.

A family picture on the grounds of Dunvegan Castle. This castle is home to the Clan Macleod and has been for 700 years! I wish I could have taken pictures of the inside because there were bits and pieces in there that were remarkable. As always I wanted to jump the rope that blocked off the library/study room and tear into the books that were trapped behind glass cases, just waiting for very curious fingers to flip through them, carefully of course.

This may have been my favorite little treasure at the castle. It was on the sea side wall and had barely noticeable stairs leading up to this gate. You know my imagination went wild with the possibilities of its use and who had crossed under this now locked and rusted gate. We had to climb the stairs and that was pretty risky just to get close enough for a picture.

The kids at the front gate on our way out. It did sprinkle the whole time we were there, but it wasn't bad enough to make the experience unpleasant.

Now for my other favorite treasure from the trip. These church ruins were the resting place of many chiefs of Clan Macleod and their families. It was amazing to see the family history that ran through these walls and the surrounding area with the cemetery.

More Scotland

This was the morning we left the first campsite. After having a couple nights were we listened to the rain and prayed it wouldn't float our tent away it was nice to see a bit of sunshine over the mountains.

We started in Glencoe, which is the town you will find shortly after entering the Highlands, and then from there we made a little circle travelling a bit west to the Isle of Skye. These shots are of one of the many Lochs we passed by. We always love the drive through Scotland, and this was no different!

Although we had been to this castle before, our travelling companions, the Schmidts, had not and it is a must see. Once our kids see a castle there is no way to tell them we aren't going in, so we made our way through this very cool and historic castle, Eilean Donan.

Mason was having so much fun picking up the rocks and throwing them into the surrounding Loch. It is always a joy to see how much he loves just being outside, walking around, and exploring with his family.

I'm not even sure why Brennan was pouting, but he suddenly went to the tree and stayed like this for a good 10 minutes, then he was fine. I love that most of his 'moments' include silence in a pouting position and not screaming.

Carter was again mesmerized by the bagpipes that were playing through the air. Carter, Mason and Taylor were sitting there for quite some time listening and loving the music. They didn't actually want to leave when we said it was time to go, we had to bribe them with donuts that were in the car.

Camping in Scotland=RAIN

We arrived in our first camping stop and set up in some gorgeous sunshine, but do not let that deceive you as to how the week went with our weather. The kids loved that we were right by a small creek, we as parents thought that wasn't as much fun. We were constantly drying items over the fire and we maybe should have just put the kids in swimsuits and let them at it, but it was also freezing! The kids did end up winning that battle of being wet and for hours they just played and splashed in the creek. I don't understand how their feet can become so red from the cold and them not complain!

Taylor was helping to build a fire pit with her rock collecting, all the kids helped and they felt awesome getting the perfect stones for the fire.
The joys of starting a fire with a bunch of wet wood made for some interesting nights waiting for warmth. The big boys had to go into the closest town for a small hospital visit when Jacob cut his finger and needed stitches, they took the opportunity to grab dry wood and fires only got better from then out.
potty training a kid who had been totally fine for weeks before this trip and suddenly regressed to taking a poo on himself=a really cold clean up in the creek. sorry Brennan
playing "Go-Fish" around the fire

We had to do the tradition braiding of hair while camping. When I told Taylor that this is what myself and her aunties would do when we went camping as a family she was all ready! It actually lasted all week which surprised me.
Building a rope swing was also done, the rope just wasn't quite long enough. At times we just had to look away because of how high they were flying on that thing, it was scary.

I couldn't let the boys have all the fun with the sharp toys in camp...and besides Jacob could no longer do it and Mike's back was acting up..what's a girl to do?

On our way

The Heather was in full bloom, we had a beautiful sunny day to travel in and the kids were awesome, can't ask for more than that on a road trip up north to The Highlands of Scotland to go camping. This adventure was just beginning!! :)