...almost home time already!

...it's 10:25pm here back in Glasgow and i am soooo tired so i'll give you a quick summary of the last little while...

( and in no particular order because i'm too tired to check my journal! )

* edinburgh was overcrowded, freakishly busy and rained ALL DAY, including sitting in the rain through the whole Edinburgh Tattoo! ( stayed dry under blanket mats and umbrellas )

it was still very cool though and the kids enjoyed it, we didnt care much for Edinburgh Castle though...

* courtney had bigger competition last saturday and only won one medal ( a fourth in her swords ) and then on the sunday she won another trophy! ( four firsts! )

* our two day Isle of Skye tour was AMAZING!!! soooo soooo beautiful up in northern scotland with so much history and beautiful mountanious scenery...loved it there!! and TONS of pictures too...i got a really lovely photo of a scotland sunset in skye on our first night!

* our visit with mary and ron in inverness for 2 and a half days was wonderful....and of course waaaayyyyy too short! they fed us all very well, welcomed us into their home surrounded in warm hospitality and took us up to newtonmore to see the house that my grandma was born in and lived there until she was 5 years old when her family immigrated to canada. also in newtonmore was the hotel that my great great grandparents owned and operated which is now The Glen hotel....so historical and lots of great little stories to share with you there...

* we had a terrifce dinner visit with rachael and her family who live in west kilbride - after last sundays competition- and brought them all sorts of canadian goodies....rachael gave courtney a bag full of scottish goodies!! dawn, racheals mom, and her husband michael prepared a lovely homemade dinner for us and it was absolutely delicious!!! ( thank you again Waddells for such a fantastic dinner and friendly welcome into your home! HUGS )

* our Ireland tour was awesome!! so much history there too...gotta love foreign countries...TONS of pictures there too...cant wait to show you everything!

* COURNTEY turned 10 years old while we were in Ireland ( thank you to everyone for all your birthday comments for her and all the emails too!!! she enjoyed reading them all over here! and thankyou to Grandma Liz who somehow managed to mail a birthday card for courtney at our hotel in Ireland to receive it ON her birhtday too!...and also a huge thank you to Kelsey and the Wog family for sending along a special birthday card and scottish cash with lynn--- you are ALL so thoughtful and it meant so much to us to have such wonderful surprises from people we love back home! ) ... on her birthday we went to see Riverdance - live - at the Gaiety Theatre....probably the most spectacular live show i will ever see in my life! it was incredible...amazing...breathtaking....i was just in awe afterwards...tyler was doing his own version of riverdance for the next few days which had lynn getting him to perform every chance she could!

* and then TODAY ( august 29 ) we spent the entire day - up at 5:45am, on way to catch the ferry at 6:30am, on ferry at 7:20am ) to go to the island of Dunoon for the Cowal Highland Gathering and world scottish championships...only our premier dancers ( 4 of them ) danced today and even though they all worked hard at their four long step dances, none of them were able to win any placings.

courtney had 29 kids in her 10 year old class, but she did win a judges placing ( 7th ) for her sword dance!!! ( yay courtney! )

the other girls had up to 44 kids in their groups...it was just insane to even think of winning a medal as they only gave 6 placings per dance with such huge groups of kids.

i tip my hat to our girls who still gave it their best shot and tried!

* and now....i need sleep....we have a FREE DAY tomorrow ( shop and chill ) and then sunday we are off to go see the famous St. Andrews Golf Course and some other last Scotland sights...

-sigh-

i dont want to come home yet....

( i am hooked on scottish fudge, butter tablet and nugat bars...better stock up! )

see you all soon!!!

busy day!

...well, i guess everyday here is going to be a 'busy day'...

we left at 9am to take another scenic drive up the hills / mountains to go to Inverary and then on to Oban. just beautiful. we saw lots of lochs on our tours ( lakes ) and it was so amazing...kinda a drizzling overcast day today, but still lots of great pictures!

did a little bit of shopping too...

tyler has been buying as many little 'stuffies' as he can find and courtney is into all the different treats and snacks she can find! i cannot find any scrapbooking stores here though...i guess we better move here so i can introduce the Scots to it!!! we went for dinner tonight in Inverary at George's Pub and Hotel.

THAT was very cool...it was so 'old brittish' in there...i was waiting for a bunch of knights to come in with their armour and swords and order an ale!! so cool...of course lots of pictures! there was a young lady inside also selling handmade celtic jewelry so i bought myself a beautiful new thumb ring!! and my mom bought courtney her very first ring too!! and not to be left out, mike even surprised me when he came back from the bathroom with his own shiny new celtic band on his finger!! heeheehee...

it was a good day!

we are off tomorrow to drive out to Edinburgh for the day...shopping and a castle tour during the day and then to the Edinburgh Tattoo in the evening...going to be just amazing!!

i don't think i will be able to blog for a few days after this as we won't arrive back to our flat until around midnite tomorrow night and then we leave at 10am the next morning to go to Dublin, Ireland for three days! ( aug. 20 - 22 ) so i will blog for sure when we return to Glasgow!

AND...miss courtney will be celebrating her 10th birthday while we are in Ireland on August 21...how cool is that?? ( don't worry family and friends...she has already made sure that she will still get a birthday party when we return home to Canada!!! )

LOL!

better be off for a good nights sleep...gonna be a long one tomorrow!!

be back in a few days!!

day 4 in Scotland...

hello from the highlands!

well, we had another very LOOONNNGG day of competing again today ( sunday ) in Kilmarnock. all 6 of our dancers cames away with some medals again today after lots of hard work and tough competition.

little miss courtney had another very successful day of dertermination and WON the overall trophy in her group again! She did 6 dances today ( fling, sword, seann truibhas, hullichan, johnny and laddie ) and won 3 firsts and 1 second!

AND today she also got to see her friend rachael from here in scotland that she made in Victoria last month at the Scotdance competition! they were like two peas in a pod and it was so nice to hear that youthful strong accent on such a cute little girl! we will be joining rachael's family next sunday after the competition for a visit and dinner at their house!

we all went for a fantastic group dinner at a restaurant called Frankie and Berry's here in Glasgow...it was great food and so kid-friendly, just what a group of 19 with 8 kids needed!

it was located beside the river Clyde so we got some great pictures of the kids near the water with the 'Armadillo' opera house in the background...so fun!

we are off tomorrow for a drive up to Inverary for some shopping and to take the kids to see the old dungeon / jail...they are so pumped on seeing that! and then we will continue on to Oban for lunch and some more shopping! we have only had one shopping day so far since our arrival so we are looking forward to a relaxing day of sightseeing, dining out and shopping tomorrow after a stressful weekend of competition!!!

tonight we all had 'happy hour' in lynn's flat and a few of us moms ran to do some laundry to keep us organized! ( mike only brought 5 pairs of underwear...what was he thinking???

heeheehee )

BTW...for those of you who thought we would get crappy rainy weather everyday here...it has not really rained heavy at all yet ( touch wood ) only a couple little drizzles in the early mornings from the mist off the mountains i guess...the weather has been great so far. just yesterday in Kinloch Rannoch it was windy and cooler, because we were surrounded in a Glen by mountains!

anyway...

i am off to bed because 7:30am comes much too quick around here!

'nite all.

( well, i suppose i should be telling you in winnipeg to have a nice supper since it's only 6pm there right now! - midnite here - )

day 4 in Scotland...

Greetings from Scotland!!!

well hello from Bonnie Scotland!

mike was able to hook our laptop up to the internet here in our flat in Glasgow so i can give you a quick little post and update...sorry no pics yet as we just got back and it's 10:20pm...we've been on the road today with 5 hours of driving!

our flights all went pretty good without any major problems ( with the exception of lori and alex's mishap ) but all is going great!!!

since i stayed up so stinkin' late the last two nights before we left, i really paid for it here! after being awake for over 42 hours, upon arrival we went out right after checking into our flat on thursday to keep us all awake and on scotland time. we ( being Walter our tour bus driver and the 19 of us from the dance school ) drove up to Aberfoyle for lunch and to visit the Wollen Mill and to see the sheep and then drove through the Trossachs ( a very narrow and winding road ) up and down the hills and mountains and let the kids run through the wild heather plants all over the hills! it was breathtaking and just amazing to see...so beautiful!

my grandma would have loved it!

yesterday we visited Crieff ( lynn likes to go there to visit Caithness Glass which is famous for their unique glass paper weights ) and shopped in the visitor centre. then we were off to Pitlochry for the afternoon for LOTS of shopping and a great little town to check out.

the homes and the business buildings here are like out of a Shakespere play...mostly stone or brick, kinda reminds me of Lord of the Rings Shires.....just like it!!!

today was the girls' FIRST dance competition!!

courtney competed in Kinloch Rannoch ( outdoors ) which is a very little town that took us 2 and a half hours to drive up to! again on those extremely narrow and winding roads...

and i must say that i still cannot get used to the driving on theRIGHT ( wrong ) side of the road!!

so bizarre.

anyway, the girls did great and between the 6 dancers, a total of 20 medals were won!

for the first time, the hosts of this competition had a new entry for 'best dressed dancer'. one little trophy for the pre premier dancers and one for the same of a premier dancer...guess who surprised us all and won for the premier dancers? yep, miss courtney! and the pre premier winner was also one of our dancers too!!! ( taryn )

courtney danced in four dances today:

fling, seann truibhas, highland laddie and the sailor's hornpipe.

she danced very well and won a first and 3 seconds!! she also won the overall trophy for her class!!!!

SOOOOOO EXCITING!!!!

on our way back to our flat we stopped back in Pitlochry for dinner ( mike and mom had 'high tea', a full scottish dinner )

and we returned home tonight at 9:30pm (3:30pm wpg )

well, i am off to get the kids to bed now as courtney has her second competition tomorrow in

Kilmarnoch and we all need some sleep!

BE BACK AGAIN ANOTHER DAY ( hopefully with some photos to share )

so freakin' crazy...

so, good morning...it's 4:37am and i have NOT gone to bed yet!

i think i can be honest with myself now that i am a complete night owl and my best production and efficiency happens when i am dog tired in the wee hours of the freakin' night!

it took 4EVER to finish packing up mine, courtney and tylers clothes for 3 weeks, ( mike packed his in about 3 minutes! )plus all of courtney's dance costumes and accessories, backpacks with entertainment and treats for the flights, gifts for friends and family overseas, dry food for in our flat where we will be staying the first 6 days....and the list goes on!

WHAT A JOB.

i think i hate packing as much as i hate shopping for clothes now!!!

BUT...LOOKIE...we are all set to go ( good thing because our limo picks us up in almost 4 hours! ) LOL!

...another thing i raced to finish up tonight was lynn's scrapbook album from the dancers...here's how it turned out. i didn't fuss too much with embellishing because i didn't want to take away from all the awesome tartan paper! I made this from scratch and used my Zutter Bind-it-all machine to put it together. I am happy with how it turned out and i think lynn will love it!

ALSO as promised...here are the dates for my September classes!!!

I didn't get a chance to finalize the class details but you can jot the dates down for now and when i get home sept. 1 I will be more specific!

Friday, Sept. 12:

Hall crop at Rossmere Golf & Country Club as host vendor ( lots of fun sales- coupon style! )

6:30pm - midnite

$12 includes snack, coffee, tea

Friday, Sept. 19

The Scrappin Studio HALL CROP at St. Saviour's Hall

( 690 Munroe Ave )

6pm - midnite

$10 includes snack, coffee, tea

( fun sales all night! )

Monday, Sept. 22

Home SKETCHES class!

6:30pm - 9:30pm-ish!

As always, tonight you will be making three 12 x 12 layouts to add to your album!

Class fee $20 inlcudes all basic supplies and some embellishments for all layouts.

( MORE DETAILS AFTER SEPT. 1 )

Friday, Sept. 26

Home class

6pm - midnight

Class TBA until after Sept. 1...

Please email ( or call ) to register for all classes and hall crops. I do my best to happily accommodate for welcome gifts, food for snack, door prizes, etc...so please remember that less than 48 hour notice of cancellation you will still be responsible for your class fee!!!

well folks, i am going to try and get a couple hours sleep ( should i even bother?)

oh well, hopefully i'll have some nappy time on the planes...

I think i am finally excited ( for REAL ) about going to Scotland now that everything is DONE!

we are taking out laptop with us so hopefully it works out there ( yay for wireless, ya know? ) and i will try to post while we're away!

i hope you enjoy the rest of august and if it ever stops raining you will have some warm weather again!!

see you all in a few weeks!!!

bon voyage!

:O)

( yikes...4:58am...hahahahaha...)

should be sleeping...

...yep...

it's 3:17am and i am asking my self the same dang question...

why aren't you in bed?

simple.

BECAUSE I CAN'T SLEEP!

so,

i've been scrappin' instead!!!

heeheehee.....

i made myself a couple travel journals for the trip ( which BTW we leave for in 30 hours....AARRRGGHHHH!!! )

...and i decided to make a nice scrapbook album, FROM SCRATCH, for Lynn, the dance teacher! I cut cardboard for the covers to 9" x 8" and covered them with papers. The patterned paper line I am using is called Thistle Hill by Tinkering Ink..Love It! I will try to take some pic's of it when it's complete later ( well, later today that is i guess! LOL! ) i took a bunch of photos in june of the dancers going to scotland and those photos will be in the album for the girls to give to Lynn on the airplane as a thank you gift for organizing and planning all the details of our trip!

ok.

tired.

going to bed at last.

i will post later before i leave for Scotland!!!

is anyone going to miss me?

:O)

( c'mon, show me some lovin')

"we're on our way..."

...today was a GREAT day!

after a morning cleaning appointment with the dentist for courtney and tyler, and then running a few errands, Gramma Liz came for a visit with us this afternoon for some iced tea, a chat and to give the kids some 'booty' for spending in scotland and ireland!!

thank you to my very sweet and thoughtful MIL! we enjoyed your visit today!

...courtney had her "Dance-A-Thon" workshop tonight at Lynn's...it lasted 2 1/2 hours and the girls were more than spent at the end of the night! this is the four premier dancers going to scotland...Courtney, Robyn, Alex and Caitlin. ( don'tcha LOVE that 'no whining' sign on the wall? ) heeheehee....

we have 2 younger dancers going as well, they are 6 and 8 years old and they are sisters!

a huge THANK YOU again to all our family and friends who sponsored courtney for this last event...you raised her $200 in shopping money to add to her funds for her trip!

( dang, i hope they don't sell Webkinz overseas....) LOL!

...AND a final note of reality check for this blessed trip...

we ordered the dancers track suits, tartan t-shirts, tartan hoodies, shorts and socks (all to be embroidered with a little highland dancer somewhere ) and we got all our goodies TONIGHT for the girls!! talk about excitement!! so, here's a little photo shoot of the new duds!

...yep, we're on our way!!!

ONE week to Scotland!

YIKES!!

( btw...the song playing was a summer request of the kids! )

the final week countdown has begun and we are gonna be super busy this week with finishing getting our butts in gear for our trip next week!

we went to get some money changed over to pounds for Scotland and some euro's for Ireland last friday...thought i'd show you what some of it looks like, kinda cool huh?

seeing it now puts another reality check in my mind that we are in fact going very soon!

there are so many things that need to get done before we go and my lists just keep getting longer and longer! i thought of another one at 2am this morning as i lay there with my brain in high gear...school supplies. need to get that shopping done before we go too as we arrive home the day before school starts. fun stuff.

oh well, i will tackle each days list as it comes!!! hahahhaha!!!

we went for our last weekend at the lake before we go this past long weekend ( sigh ).

i didn't go out until saturday evening as i did a wedding that day ( photography ) and joined Mike and the kids who were already there ( well, tyler came out with me ).

we had a full cabin as our friends Linda and Dave and their kids joined us friday to sunday and then my brother curtis and his girlfriend came out saturday to monday....i stayed an extra day with courtney, tyler and rachel until yesterday ( tuesday )....it was so hard to leave the cabin / lake and come home to the panic and lists waiting here for me!

although the weather wasn't the best, we all had a great time together...good food, good drinks, bonfires, fireworks, lots of swimming and jetskiing / tubing and courtney had her first sleep in a tent with rachel and carson saturday night!!

oh, sweet cabin...how i miss it already!!! ( sniff )

cutris and erith came out in their 'home on wheels' for a couple nights with us...the kids loved popping in and out and checking it all over...tyler has already made it clear that he wants a sleepover in it with them!!! LOL!! ( he LOVES the little bed up over the front seats! )


curt and erith made us bbq pizzas for dinner sunday night and they were awesome...another huge hit with tyler!

...and then yesterday, it was very hard to peel ourselves away from the welcoming fun of the lake and pack up and head for home...

...i am hoping to have a september newsletter done and emailed before we leave next week, some of you have been asking "when kim?? when will we be scrapping again??" heeheehee...glad to know that i am not the only one having summer withdrawl!!

i have been getting some new products in for the fall crops and trying to get septembers KIT together too...hope it all comes in with no delay...grrr.

most of you already know that i will be the lucky vendor at Lora Leigh's hall crops starting in the fall too and I am sooooooooo excited for that new adventure with her!

Lora Leigh's monthly hall crops are at Rossmere Golf and Country Club ( on Watt St ) and my first one with her there is Friday, Sept. 12...6:30pm - midnite. $12 ( includes snack )

and The Scrappin Studio's first fall hall crop is Friday, Sept. 19..6pm - midnite...$10...same location- St. Saviour's church HALL ( includes half time snack ). i will be able to once again offer another year of same price crop fees there and no increase has been made to my rental fee....YAY!!!!

i suppose that's all for now folks!

off to do more laundry and ORGANIZE some of this CHAOS in our home!!

hahahahahaha!!!!

:O)