Oops I did it again...

How bad am I at updating? Terrible, I know! Feel free to reprimand me in any way you feel inclined to! I suddenly realised how bad I was when both my Sister-in-law and my Dad both asked me when I was going to update again. Oops!

Anyway, so here I am. Its been a manic few weeks. We've been away on holiday, been to a Ruby Wedding Anniversary 'do', my parents have moved house, my in-laws have found a new house and started a new job,  my sister has graduated university and landed herself a brilliant job, had two major announcements from family members and some sadness thrown in too. As I 'speak' I'm currently in Glasgow where my parents moved to. I am staying here for two weeks - having brought herself with to spend time with 'Ouma' and 'Oupa'. Himself, on the other hand, is still at home. He's working during the day and then spending his evenings doing DIY to finish off some projects that were started well over a year ago. The only way to actually get things done is to take herself and myself out of the picture completely... as toddlers and doing DIY quickly do not seem to go hand-in-hand.

The holiday was great. We joined my parents for a 9-day camping break in Northumberland. The campsite wasn't up to much and not to the standard we have enjoyed at other CCClub sites, however, the area was stunningly beautiful. When the weather co-operated (and sometimes even when it didn't) we did loads of walking, saw some stunning castles and beautiful views, went to plenty of National Trust properties, went to Alnwick Gardens - which was amazing, and even flew some kites! Oh, and I almost forgot.... we also went to Lindisfarne... wow what an awesome place that was! Here's a piccie or two from our hols.

My sister graduated university this summer having gotten a 2:1 in her Contemporary History with Journalism degree from Queen Mary University in London. My parents, brother and her partner Alex attended the ceremony in July. Unfortunately due to limited places being made available by the university Himself and Myself were unable to attend. We were there in spirit tho' and are really proud that she has accomplished so much. During the remainder of the summer my sister applied to various companies for jobs and finally started her new job on a graduate training programme with DeLloyds, one of the top five auditing/accounting companies in London.

After only 4 weeks of working for DeLloyds she found out that she was pregnant. Wow! What a shock that was! However, it was short-lived. After 3 weeks of complete emotional rollercoaster ride, she miscarried. Everyone's initial reaction to the pregnancy was a bit reserved due to the timing of it. We were all concerned about how her employers would react, however, they have been brilliant. Our reaction to the miscarriage is shock and sadness... we had gotten used to the idea of another little body in our family. I think my sister and her man were just getting used to the idea too. They are saddened and grieving - naturally, but I know that they'll come through this time too. Our heartfelt condolences go out to them.

The other shock announcement came from my brother (the one flying the kite in the picture above). It seems that he has decided to apply to the Army. That decision has completely suprised me as I didn't think it would be the type of thing he would be interested in doing. At the moment, his application is going well and he is currently working on his fitness for the physical tests. He has to undertake endurance and strength tests and has to make a certain grade for acceptance onto the next stage of his application process. We wish him all the best for this process.

Anyway, That's about all I have to share at the moment. I will try to update more often from now on!! Feel free to email me with your tirade or post on the comments section about how disappointed you are in my updating skills!

Friends Reunited

I have a little time to do another update post before we dash off for our hols, so I thought I'd tell you about the wonderful visitors we had... our lovely friends David and Tjits and their two girls came to stay for a few days having travelled all the way from Inverness!!  It was so good to see them as they are the couple that we really miss from our old Church in the Highlands.

It was great to have them round! Just to be able to chat to them without the constraints of the telephone and being able to see them face to face was brilliant; and served as a huge 'pick-me-up' to both Robert and Myself.  The girls all had a fab time playing together too!!

While they were here we took them to Golden Acre Park in Leeds for a bit of a stroll... and for the kids to see all the ducks! The weather was beautiful, lunch was delicious and the kids had a ball!!

Here's some piccies to prove it!

Dead chuffed with some of these photo's as they were taken with my mobile phone's camera!!  I can't believe the quality of the pictures it takes.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great time over the next week or so!! I'm sure we will be... and I'll have plenty more pictures to show you when we come back!

Update part deux

Our next major trip away was down to Charmouth in Dorset, where we rented a cottage with the parents-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband and their two boys.  Nine of us in one cottage for the week was rather fun! Lots of trips to the beach (which was only 5 minutes walk away), plenty of sightseeing and loads of walking kept us busy for the whole week.  Erin and her cousins particularly enjoyed building 'santastles' on Charmouth beach.

Here's few piccies from that trip

There are so many other beautiful piccies taken on that trip I wish I could share them all with you!  Keep a lookout for them as I'm sure they'll be appearing in future scrapping projects!

We are away on another camping trip from tomorrow (Friday 17th) and will be returning on Sunday 26th.  I'll update some more when we get back.  Think of us camping in the pouring rain up in Northumberland and pray that we get some decent weather!!

OMGosh! I'm sooooo sorry!

Wow, I really have to apologise to all of you for not posting for so long! There has been so much going on, I've not been able to keep up with it... nevermind blogging about it!  I will attempt to catch up on all the happenings over the next few days or so.

Let's start with our camping endeavours! Our first trip I have already talked about, but hadn't gotten round to posting any piccies. Want to see?? OK....

Erin enjoying the 'tampin' - as she calls it!

My parents tent, which we borrowed

Erin feeding the goats

Mummy and Erin on the See-Saw... I think Mummy enjoyed it more than Erin did!!

I shall update on the rest of our camping endeavours in another post as it seems that Typepad is objecting to me posting so many photo's!  See you later!

Honey, I'm home!

Oh My Giddy Aunt! How long has it been??  Well, the two weeks suddenly turned into 5 weeks... mostly due to horrible plasterwork that was lurking under all that 80's wallpaper.  Yup, you guessed it... 1930's horsehair plaster!! Ugh!! What a nightmare that was to work with!  Everytime we filled and sanded one patch, another patch crumbled... we did eventually catch up with it tho'... until we put a coat of white paint on, to find sooooo many more crevases suddenly showed themselves.  We also had to have the ceiling replastered due to finding artexing hiding behind the wallpaper - (I wish now that I'd had the money to replaster the walls too).  However, all the hardwork is now finished and is soooooo worth it.  The room looks FAB!  I'll have to take few pictures later on this week to show you, but want himself to get a few finishing touches installed before I take them.  Also, it needs a serious tidy up as I've just dumped my scrapping and art stuff on the shelves... Need to make another trip to IKEA for storage boxes. Not sure himself is going to be too pleased with that idea - considering how much I've spent at IKEA just recently!

The other reason that it's taken so long is that we've had loads of weekends being taken up with other stuff... like seeing friends, going camping, visiting family, going shopping... oh and the UKS Mad Hatters Cybercrop!!

Camping
The camping was seriously good fun!  Thanks to Tim, Tammy, Sarah and Jonathan for wanting to take us newbies along.   Six adults and 4 kids in 3 tents near Birmingham made for a really great weekend.  I realised that the last time I'd been camping was 14 years ago!!  Himself, on the other hand, had NEVER been camping. We borrowed my parents camping gear, just to try it out and see if we enjoyed the experience. Needless to say, we came back from that weekend away, completely hooked! Which meant we simply HAD to go shopping for a tent the following weekend.  Managed to get a great deal, but now need to get all the other stuff... before July when we go camping with the 'crowd' again.

Oh, ought to mention that we had our 7th Wedding Anniversary during the camping weekend too.  What a day that was... we spent all day in Cadbury World eating chocolate!!  It was a great experience... not particularly romantic, but definitely very delicious!

Visiting Friends and Family
What can I say about this?? You go, you stay, you chat and eat and drink and sleep. You do a few interesting things (such as Crich Tramway Museum and a lovely old windmill) and you get to meet a new little 5 month old friend, who was just gorgeous!!  Bronwyn was born 13th December to our friends Nick and Wendy... what a beautiful baby she is!! I even got to have a cuddle without her crying too much, which only made me broody again! LOL. I think I can wait for another one, but then I see a new little baby and it sets me off all over again!

Some friends from Inverness came to visit us too, in the past week.  What a joy it was to see them.  It was lovely just to have a good chat, do some shopping and see the kids playing together.

UKS Mad Hatters Cybercrop
Oh what a fabby job was done by the leadership team on UKScrappers again for this cybercrop.  Yet again the classes were fabulous and the LO's produced were gorgeous.  I temporarily moved all my scrapping stuff down to Tammy's house where the two of us spent the whole weekend producing yummy new Layouts. The menfolk entertained themselves and our little monster for the whole weekend. What bliss! No kids, lots of scrapping, lots of chatting and lots and lots of hot chocolate to drink.  Sooo looking forward to the next one!!

Well, that's about it I think.  I shall be updating regularly again, now that I have my PC back and the room all nicely decorated around it.  Hopefully I'll see you all around!!

PS. Pictures to follow as soon as I've downloaded them all from various cameras and mobile phones!

Connections

Just a quick note to say that I'm not going to be posting much over the next two weeks or so.  This is due to us finally starting the decorating process on the room that will be known officially as "The Study" (and un-officially as "my Scrapping Space"). Himself is most determined that this is NOT my scrapping room even tho' I will be doing my scrapping in it... it's a STUDY.  LOL.

So far the room has had it's cupboards ripped out and our PC is currently in a pile in the corner of our bedroom awaiting the day it can finally be put back together on it's new desk (which is currently sitting in the garage waiting to be assembled).  I'm planning a trip to IKEA for some other bits and bobs (including the 'scrapping' desk) to finish the room off.  All Hail the Glorious Empire of IKEA!  We shall make another pilgramage to the hallowed halls of flat-pack shopping sometime next week, so I'm hoping the room will have had it's wallpaper stripped and walls painted, floor carpeted and new light fixtures installed in readiness for flat-pack assembly to commence as soon as possible after the shopping trip.  Anyone want to volunteer to come and help??  Thought not!

Until, then I shall have to make use of his company laptop and some very kind friends computers to get my daily fix of UKScrappers, ebay and blogs!!

Watch this space for before, during and after pics... they should be good. Can't wait to get rid of this 80's wallpaper!

Onwards and Upwards

A mere 5 days after the accident himself has gone back to work.  I wasn't entirely sure that it was a good idea, however he doesn't do sitting around at home very well.  So he trundled off to work this morning in the hire car - a Mitsubishi Colt semi-automatic - which he has nicknamed 'the Dolt'.  He doesn't much like semi-automatic driving, but at least its a set of wheels!

So, in the spirit of trying to get back to normal, I can give you a belated update on events prior to the accident on Wednesday...

On Friday (23rd) I finally took the plunge after much umming and ahhing and had my hair cut.  It had been about half-way down my back but was really getting me frustrated and wasn't in such good condition, so decided to go to the hairdresser and do something about it.  Had it cut to an 'inverted bob' style with some lovely streaks of red in it too.  I think it looks great!  Although the picture that the hairdresser took at the salon doesn't really do it any justice. 

Also, the hairdresser bloke was determined to blow dry it straight.  Why can't hairdressers just accept that I have curly hair? Along with the fairly busy life, a toddler who's into everything and pure laziness I really can't be doing with a style that needs hours of straightening and styling.  The result is that my hair on the day it was cut looked like a strange half-arsed attempt at straight and slightly wavy when anyone who knows me will tell you that it's very very curly!  It looks much better now as I just wash it and leave it to curl in its own way.  Still I like the style and how light it feels.  Much easier to look after too!

On Saturday (24th) I went with my friends Sarah and Tammy (who are both cardmakers) to the Great Northern Papercraft Extravenganza at the Yorkshire Events Centre in Harrogate.  Wow.  It wasn't quite as big as I had imagined, but still took me all day to walk around and make my purchases.  There was so much fabby stuff that I was really struggling to decide what to spend my £50 on.  Wisely, I only took cash with me and left my cards very much in the care of himself as I couldn't really afford to spend too much.  I'm still supposed to be paying back about £200's worth of overspend from January!  I did manage to get a punch and pair of scissors (both of which I've been trying to get for months), a lovely selection of papers, a glue nozzle applicator for fine work and the really yummy pack of Basic Grey 'Scarlett's Letter' paper.

Some other random bits and bobs also managed to fall into my shopping bags too and eventually walked out with only a penny change.  Not bad for a day out and I'm definitely going again.  The next one is in September sometime, so I'm going to have to start saving up now I reckon!!

Wednesday (28th) was also my little brother's birthday.  I can't believe he's 22 now. Makes me feel old...although my Mum would probably laugh to hear me say that.  I have to say "Happy Birthday" to little-bro as I didn't get a chance to do so on Wednesday (what with the accident and all).  Sorry that we mucked up your big day mate... it wasn't intentional! LOL.  Have a great year and enjoy being 22!