We have been loving the lighter evenings around here! It actually stays lighter for about an hour longer than we've ever been used to living down South which is pretty cool - going to bed at 10.30pm and it still being light out is kind of crazy!
It also means that even after By has finished work, we can still head out and enjoy the warmer evenings! Last month sometime we visited Strathaven Park and introduced Ella to the joys of leaves - she was loving it - until she tried to eat it! Everything goes in her mouth these days!!
She was also pretty keen to check out these little flowers - I think her forester daddy is definitely going to make sure shes a nature lover!
I had a birthday! and had a rather exciting amount of packages arrive all week long :) I'm pretty sure our postman hates us!
Ella helped me open prezzies, but mostly just ate the wrapping paper!
I got this amazing Nutella recipe book from my friend Jade, along with a batch of the best Oreo brownies you will ever taste - all the way from London! She knows me too well!
My mom and sisters are the best present wrappers around! and yes that's caramel and peanut butter flavoured popcorn right there...yummm!
We ate at Bread Meats Bread for a birthday treat - I had been wanting to check out this place for ages after hearing great things about it! Plus the fact that they did Poutine made it a done deal!!
No birthday meal would be complete without this little ray of sunshine!
She was having fun as usual!
and check out the size of those burgers!!
Mine was stuffed with a patty, a million pieces of pepperoni, meatball sauce and soooo much cheesy goodness - it was delish!
and you can't get better than sweet potato fries...but when they collide with poutine, now that is something special!
A week later, Byron's cousin James came to visit us from South Africa. It was his first visit to the UK so we wanted to show him what Scotland had to offer! We headed to Loch Lomond in an attempt to climb Ben Lomond...it was going to be Ella's first mountain climb! but sadly it was short lived, for her and I anyway. Half way up we got attached by midges, she got bit by some weird fly and she was crying her little eyes out so I had to walk the whole way down with her, singing every nursery rhyme under the sun until eventually 10 minutes from the bottom she fell asleep!!
I guess she's not a fan of mountains?!
By and James carried on up and snapped these pictures on the way!
Isn't this wild Orchid so beautiful?
Amazing views over the Loch...
and those luscious green hills!
We finished off our day with a spot of cream tea at a fancy hotel near the Loch. Although apparently not fancy enough to serve clotted cream! but the scones were warm and delicious...which almost made up for it, but not quite!
We headed to Ketchup for dinner because it's pretty family friendly and all the other meat joints in Glasgow we wanted to eat at wouldn't accept babies!
Plus I'm always excited to go somewhere with milkshakes on the menu! When the guy took our order I asked him if the milkshakes were thick, he said he could make them as thick as we wanted so we all said we wanted extra thick - well I'm pretty sure there wasn't even half a teaspoon of ice cream in mine, it was like chocolate milk - sooooo disappointing! I loved that they came in those cute milk bottles, but really if you can't make a milkshake properly then don't put them on your menu!
Ella was happy to chew on her giraffe while we drank our shakes!
Fortunately the food was tasty so it wasn't all bad, my avocado and bacon burger was so good!
and Ella approved of all the toys they had! especially this fun magnet wall - she even created her first ever little sentence ;)
We stopped at a fro yo place on the way back to the car to make up for the milkshake disaster! Brownie and coconut with white chocolate fro yo - it almost made us feel like we were back in Vancouver!
On Sunday afternoon we walked around the grounds of Chatelheraut because they're very pretty, and James said they don't really have such green wooded areas in Cape Town so he was loving it!
Ella enjoyed the ride on Daddy's shoulders!
On James' last day, we grabbed some tasty brisket sandwiches at Three Sisters Bake, and sampled some of their cake which I wasn't impressed with but our sandwiches were worth the drive.
Ella was a big fan of James, and would smile every time he walked into the room! It was so cute.
We went for a last minute little rowing adventure on a lake down in Renfrewshire...
Ella and I let the boys do the hard work!
Last
week we finally got some REAL summer weather! Like, let's break out the
rompers and not have to wear a cardigan over them sunny weather! So we
took a trip to Calderglen Country Park.
They have a mini zoo so it was Ella's first time at a zoo! I wasn't sure if she'd even notice the animals but she was a pretty good little tracker following them around their cages!
Although sometimes watching other children was more fun for her than watching these pigs!
She liked seeing the bunny! and the fish in their tanks were her favourite to look at - I think she liked all the colours!
She does love a sunny day! and ones spent with Mommy and Daddy are even better! Roll on more weather...and days like these!
