Our Sunny Summer So Far

A summer like no other...

In Scotland, our seasons are not very well defined - cloud, low temperatures and a lot of rain are common in all 4 seasons. Summers are usually a mixture of grey cloud and rain with the odd glimpse of sunshine and temperatures are typically around 15 degrees Celsius.

Last summer was awful; it rained almost all the time. We spent most of the time trying to find fun things to do indoors...there was a lot of painting, reading stories and making dens!

But not this summer (I really hope I am not about to jinx things!) we have now had about 4 or 5 WEEKS of  warm/ hot weather and glorious sunshine. It has been above 20 degrees and even hit 30 degrees last week. It has been just WONDERFUL!!!  (I am publishing this a few weeks after writing it and the weather is starting to turn wet...booo hooo)

As far as I know, our great weather is set to continue so this allows us to plan fun OUTDOOR stuff. I've been 'researching' on Pinterest and been finding ideas for our Summer Bucket List (I have always been a bit jealous of the American and Canadian blogs I see where the families can play outdoors all summer and visit outdoor pools and water parks.) and am starting to put together a fun list of things to do over our 7 week holiday.

So far this summer we have... 

Back garden fun

 My beautiful boys

 

  BBQ with Granma and Colin



 Happy, happy Evan!



 Ice lollies on the backdoor step

  Me and my girl

Crazy Granma tried to see if she would fit through the tunnel...














..turns out she got a bit stuck!

 Egg and Spoon races

 

 Silversands Beach

It was a beautiful hot day a few weeks ago so we headed for the beach. It was really busy! Evan has taking a liking to eating spades full of sand so he was in his element here. It makes me feel sick each time I see him take a fist full of sand to his mouth - I honestly gag!  

Ian had (too much) fun digging a huge hole for the kids and collecting bucket loads of water from the sea. They made the hole into a boat - there was a lot of beach envy that day and a few kids (and adults) kept coming across to see it. 

Just look at the colour of that beautiful sky!!!

Here are some shots of my beach babes:

 

 

 

Sprinkler and Paddling Pool

 

Visiting Granny and Grampa at the farm

I love this picture of Evan peeking over the fence in Granny and Grampa's garden - he was looking for the cows. The view they have from the house is just beautiful.

 Heather, Hannah and Granny had fun doing make up

Grampa and David played at Power Rangers on the - I think Grampa won this battle!

 My gorgeous wee nephew Alec (almost 6 months old)

I know Grampa and David aren't smiling here but I thought it was a lovely picture of them having quiet time together.

Granny and Heather had a bit of quiet time too

 

We had lots of fun at the farm.

A day at Jupiter Artland

Another one ticked off the Summer Bucket List!

 

Today we had a wonderful day with our friends at Jupiter Artland near Edinburgh. We were blessed with beautiful weather (about 22  degrees and no rain!) which allowed us time to slowly explore all the art displays in the forest. Both kids were brilliant - they were sufficiently impressed and excited by what they saw and were happy walking round the 'curly-wurly' (just our name for them) hills. We even had time to squeeze in some lovely lunch, see the animals and have a run around.

A bit about Jupiter...It is a sculpture park where "works by many of today's leading artists, sculptors and land artists have been commissioned and then constructed in situ.The relationship of each artwork with its specific topographical location is a crucial feature of the artland, that is, art within the landscape."

The following pictures hopefully show all the fun we had!

 

This is the wall behind the gift shop. It's so cool, it's as if the mirrors are peeling off in different colours! Love Auntie Leanne's excited face in this pic - it is in stark contrast to Uncle Paul's serious look!

 A FOREST 

Evan fractured a bone in his elbow a couple of days ago - fortunately, it is not holding him back at all. He had as much fun as the rest of us.

SUCK

FIRMAMENT

Love the next photo - we're not sure why we all have a different slightly annoyed face! what were we looking at...?

 

 

 A lovely picture of Auntie Leanne and Uncle Paul



ONLY CONNECT (with the 3 Billy Goats Gruff...)

WEEPING GIRLS

I love the fact the girl and Heather are sitting in almost the same way - we didn't set this up. Heather really does not like getting her photo taken so it was amazing to get this picture.

TEMPLE OF APOLLO

Don't you just love Uncle Paul's glasses?

 

The view through the top of the temple

Me and my boy - he's blowing raspberries at me

XTH MUSE

OVER HERE
This is such a lovely piece and sadly last year (I think) it was vandalised and cut up. Fortunately the artist was able to recreate it.

 

CELLS OF LIFE
It is so difficult to capture how absolutely amazing these hills and water sculptures are. This picture is from the website.

Daddy and Evan made it to the top of one of the spirals

 

 

I love Daddy's happy face here

 

It is amazing how quiet it looks here - it was actually really busy - especially at the silver caravan at lunchtime!

Auntie Tracy can only take good photos - here's another one to prove it. hee hee

Uncle Paul trying to catch up with Heather as she runs (against the rules!!) round the spiral and trying to stop her falling in the water

You can just make out Daddy and Evan



 

Me and my girls - Heather didn't want her photo taken but managed to slide into the shot pretending to sunbathe!

Heather at the summit

LOVE BOMB
This is a very unusual and big piece. I think it looks like faces or vegetables but it's exotic flowers. We all had fun running round this one.

 

Everyone had gone to see another exhibit at the bottom of the field then had a race back.

 

 

Uncle Paul took the race too seriously and ran all the way up...he was shattered. He was trying to run like Auntie Leanne in this picture.

 



 

THE SCAFFOLD 

We climbed to the top of this one but there were lots of wasps so we didn't hand about. It is a spectacular view from the top.

 

 

 

 

Once we had finished exploring all the exhibits and said hello to the sheep, pony, lama and donkeys (we've no photos of these), we headed home for a surprise Birthday cake for Uncle Paul in the back garden.

 

We had a wonderful day.