Fun Times without "real" snow

I imagine all you who have had to shovel copious amounts of snow this winter will have a hard time imagining us longing for a "real" snowfall, but tis true. To prove to you how desperate the children are after watching videos and hearing stories of the great sliding hill at my sister's, here are our attempts at sliding here in our fair city:








We continue to enjoy our time here but are hoping to make it home for the summer (the children and I, that is...Shawn will be doing some research in Germany). Hannah and Jacob are in nursery school now every afternoon and are loving it. Alexander and Benjamin continue to love grade 1. Shawn continues to love his studying. And I am enjoying a couple hours on my own every afternoon and look forward to starting work for one or two days a week here next month....if there aren't any other problems. It has been a long haul to get me to nursing here, you don't want to get me started on that one! Anyhow, we are thankful that soon I may start my job. So without further ado, here are some recent photos for all those who haven't seen us in awhile.

Over Due Update

Hello all. Here is an overdue update as I noticed that we hadn't posted anything since Christmas Eve. Things have been going well for us and we continue to enjoy our time overseas. We are trying to make arrangements (time-wise and money-wise) to get the children and I back to Canada for a bit this summer. So keep checking the updated photos so you will recognise us if we do get to come home! The boys started back to school last week and continue to love it. Hannah and Jacob will start nursery school tomorrow and are very excited. I am a little concerned, however, that they may be all talk and no action when it comes to staying there on their own without their mom! Shawn continues to plug away at his studies and continues to love it. I try to keep him focused...with just a little nagging :) On my part, I will be starting work with the nurses bank in February, working one or two days a week. I am looking forward to FINALLY getting back into nursing. It has been a long time coming!
So that is us for now. I will try to take more photos and make sure to get them on here a little more frequently. So here are a few shots from the last few weeks.
To start us off, here is a new purchase we got today from a website. New golf clubs for the boys...they are pretty excited (although you wouldn't know it from the looks on their faces)!

On Boxing Day we went on a beautiful hike with friends and then had a lovely Scottish Christmas dinner with them as well as a family sleepover. We are very blessed to have many great friends here in Scotland. Here are a couple of pictures:

And Hannah and Jacob's prize gifts from Christmas time.

A family game on Christmas Day. Loopin' Louie is highly recommended:

Our Christmas breakfast....yummy cinnamon rolls:

And this one was just too cute. An impromptu pic of goodies from their Christmas socks:

And we finally got some snow the last week of the year. I know it must look kind of pathetic for all of you back in Eastern Canada, but we get pretty excited about our 1-2cm of snow! Here is Benjamin making a snow angel:

And throwing a snowball:

And Alexander getting ready to throw his: