SEPTEMBER 2006

September is a very busy month as it is Darrel's birthday on the 4th and Calums on the 8th.

For Darrel's birthday the kids bought him a mountain bike and make a chocolate crispie cake all by themselves (nearly!)

Calum had real problems waiting for Daddy to get home that night and was caught a couple of times in the fridge sampling the cake!!!

Finally the big day came - Calum turned two. He had a great time opening all the presents whilst singing 'hatty birday me" to himself. Then it was off to the computer to talk to Nana and all his cousins on the web cam - very exciting.

That night Geoff, Ruth, Sam, Katie and Pam arrived for the weekend armed with more presents. It was great having Sam to share in the birthday celebrations and help him eat his Bob the Builder cake.


The next day was a cracker so we decided to go for a cruise on Loch Ness in the search of the Loch Ness Monster. Darrel was very sceptical about finding it as he reckons he married it, but never the less he agreed to go looking....... It is a beautiful loch and with the great weather the views were spectacular - especially Urquhart Castle.

It was great having the Hoffys here and lots of laughs were had over the weekend. Little Katie is an angel and Sam and Laura formed a very special bond, and spent most of the time holding hands. (I dread Laura's teenage years......!!!!)

AUGUST 2006

There was huge excitement in Calders Cottage as Laura was starting Nursery. Very little sleep was had the night before and she was dressed with her bag on by around 7.30am!!!

I was very anxious as there was no way that I would go to a nursery with lots of other strange kids that "spoke funny", but Laura didn't seem to notice that none of her old buddies were there, and off she went in with hardly a goodbye to her mummy and wee brother.

Nursery is very different to Kindy and you just drop your wee person at the door and don't go in with them - even on the first day!!

Needless to say Laura has had a ball and has made some new friends and kindy is just about a very distant memory. She goes 5 mornings a week and is thriving on the very structured routine that they have.

Calum has also surprised us and can actually talk!!!! Now that his sister is not there in the mornings he gets a chance to speak. We were starting to worry about how slow his speech was but certainly not now. He has a very vivid imagination and spends a lot of his day shooting imaginary tigers out in the back garden. Needless to say is daddy is very proud of this bit!

WE MADE IT TO SCOTLAND ............

We were all very relieved to see Inverness Airport on Wednesday 17th May 2006 after two days of (thankfully) uneventful flying. We were delighted that Calum was exceedingly well behaved on the flights and didn't seem to have any pain in his injured ear.

John met us at the airport with his newly purchased 'family' car and told us that his old car was up sale at a very reasonable price. Needless to say it was the quickest care sale ever!!! We are now the owners of a turbo diesel VW Golf.

What a flash car.......

Off we zoomed to Skye where there was huge excitement seeing Granny and Granpa again, and also meeting Emily (John and Susie's new addition).

We stayed on The Isle of Skye for 4 weeks which gave us enough time to sort out a rental house etc.. As usual we all ate far too much due to Granny's great home cooking.

The weather was mixed but we did manage to have a few fine days amongst the wet ones. One was spent at Morar (on the mainland south of Skye) which was lovely as it was hot and the sandy beaches are amazing.

Finally it was back to reality and Darrel started working at Dingwall Tyres. After a great deal of searching we found a wee cottage to rent just outside Beauly. It is only two bedroom and has no dishwasher (shock horror!!!) but it has a great big garden for the kids to run around in. It was needing quite a bit of work done to make it habitable but finally it was ready and we all moved in.

Beauly is a lovely wee village with a great coffee shop and Deli which is very unusual for villages up here. It is about 10 miles west of Inverness and only 10 minutes drive to Dingwall and has a population of about 1000. We are living about one mile out of the village which is nice as it is lovely and quiet.

July was a very slow month with Darrel working big hours and us not knowing anyone here. Thankfully the weather was fantastic and lots of time was spent at the beach at Rosemarkie (about 15 mins away).

We finally accumulated some furniture as one beanbag between four of us wasn't really ideal, although I must admit that it was very cosy!

I found a great car boot sale in Dingwall and bought some great toys for the kids, as they were starting to get a bit fed up with all their toys still being on the ship.

Just before I went totally crazy due to not having a computer our gear finally arrived - YIPPEEEEEE..... It only took eight weeks for the ship to get in but then it was held in a warehouse in London for 4 weeks in order for them to work out where Beauly was!!!!!

Laura was totally delighted to see Emma and Molly again (her favourite dollies) and Calum was pretty happy to be reunited with all his trucks and diggers.

Darrel was especially glad when our kitchen stuff arrived as he was starting to waste away from the lack of crock pot meals - or so he reckoned!!!????? He is still whinging though as you can't buy corned beef here......