Back to Scotland - Driving to the Highlands

I know I'm jumping around here. I'm sorry! I don't want the Scotland pictures to get buried, but maybe once they've been up for awhile, I'll change the dates and file them according to when the trip actually happened.

These pictures are the beginning of the second half of our trip. After exploring Edinburgh on foot, we rented a car and drove up to Inverness then onto Isle of Skye. These pictures are from the drive to Inverness. It was scary and Yui was a bit nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road, but it didn't take him too long to get used to the differences between Scottish roads and Canadian roads. K snoozed away in the backseat. It was a beautiful drive!

To see more pictures from this drive, along with descriptions, go to:

Driving to Inverness on Flickr

MOMMY Post, beware! :)

"You don't want him to [insert next milestone here]. TRUST me. Once he starts [insert milestone here], it's all over. Just be glad he's not doing this yet."

Ok. All moms who say this - do you not remember how exciting it is when your child is on the cusp of rolling, crawling or walking? Or the fear that maybe your child is not development normally when he didn't sit up on his sixth month birthday? I feel so sad for mommies who excitedly tell their friends that little Johnny or Jill is on the verge of crawling only to have their bubble burst by their smug friends that their life is about to get more difficult and they should consider binding their child up in an attempt to stop them from progressing.

Yes, yes, I know. They are joking. They're not serious. But why must this "been there done that" attitude be de rigueur for so many moms? Yes, we know that you have a child and that you've already gone through all this with your little one, *yawn*. Part of the joy of motherhood (yes, I just used the phrase "joy of motherhood." I'm hanging my head in shame.) is all of the firsts - the anticipation, the build up, even the worry. I try to wrap my head around why some moms want to take that away from their newer compatriots, but I can't.

This is going to be a theme. I can feel it. I should just write one entry about smug mommies and be done with it. But what fun would that be? ;)

Travelling

Now that I've tantalized you all with my beautiful pictures of rainy Scotland (there are more - and they are not all rainy!) you have to listen to me philosophize a bit. Lucky you! (And "you" appear to be one person. Hello lonely follower!)

As K's birth approached, we were told by everyone and their dog what to expect in the coming months. Our lives would be over, we would never be the same again, we could say goodbye to all the things that we love in life, especially travelling.

I suppose that getting this "advice" is a kind of rite of passage for new parents. The more experienced parents are eager to share what they have learned on their journey and perhaps more maliciously are happy to see that more people are joining their ranks and will now understand what it's really like. I appreciated the help that people want to give us and understood that for the most part it came out of a desire to share and assist. But in some cases it was so foreboding and downright scary that I just wanted to tell them to shut up mid-sentence. I swore I would never do this to my non-parental or soon-to-be parental friends. It's scary enough facing the end of your life as you know it without people throwing it in your face!

One of the things that we decided to do was take K with us to Scotland. We had planned a trip to Scotland in September 2008 when I was pregnant but because of Zoom going under and other sad events, we decided to cancel the trip. Distraught, although overdramatic, is a pretty good way to describe how we felt about cancelling this trip.

We had been told that travelling with a child would be very difficult and we wouldn't enjoy the trip as much. It was even suggested that we just leave K at home and go on our own. While I agree, it would have been very different had we gone just the two of us, we had such a good time with K. He made sleeping on the plane difficult impossible and he also insisted on sleeping with us and therefore stayed up to 10 PM with us every night. But we were able to see and do so much more than we expected.

I'm very glad we didn't listen to the naysayers. I know that a lot of it had to do with the fact that K is such an easy-going baby, but I also think that our attitude toward travel played a huge part in it as well. We enjoy it and we want to do it. So my advice to you, whoever you are, is to ignore all the advice that you get and do what you feel is best for you!

Calton Hill

One of our adventures in Edinburgh was wondering around downtown and Calton Hill. Calton Hill looks out over the city from the opposite end of central area to where the castle. Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, we could have just looked out over the city for hours. K, on the other hand, would have had other things to say about that though, I'm sure! :)

(Sure, he can take pictures of other people, but doesn't like it when he's on the other side of the camera! ;) )

A photo post!

Here are some pictures from around Edinburgh Castle!

We went to Scotland!

DSCN1556.JPG,
originally uploaded by jeneke.

One of the crazy things we've done in the last year was taking our first big family trip to Scotland. (It was the first big family trip, not first trip to Scotland. Well, it was that too. More on that later.)

We went for about 10 days. We stayed in Edinburgh for half the trip and the for the other half we rented a car and drove up into the Highlands - Isle of Skye to be precise. It was awesome. That sentence doesn't do justice to the trip, but it's the best I can must at the moment.

This particular picture was taken at around 5 PM. This is after being awake for approximately 756 hours. :p K refused to sleep on the plane (although he didn't cry - he just wanted to play!) which meant Mommy and Daddy didn't get to sleep either. We still managed to muster up enough energy to climb Arthur's Seat upon our arrival. Since we didn't feel like we had a tonne of time there, we didn't want to waste a moment of time!

Kelby didn't think it was fair that he didn't get to go with us!

Here are some more pictures from the beginning of our trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeneke/sets/72157623305094555/

Three months old

DSC_3433,
originally uploaded by jeneke.

Ok, this was about eight months ago. I obviously have fallen behind on my Flickr updating. :O My husband has all the good pictures, but they are on his account. I'll work something out!

New Arrival!

So we've had a new arrival since the inception of this blog! It's a little mixture of Y and I. Here's a catch-up of his first year, since I've been a bad poster and have not updated since his birth! Actually, I'm not sure if I can post a slideshow. I'll work on it.