Weekend Fun

Our great Royal Museum here in Edinburgh closed this weekend for a major refurbishment. They held a celebration weekend to mark the closure so we went over to see what was happening yesterday. There were tons of events going on including buskers on giant stilts, clowns and jugglers and face painting. The face painters did a fantastic job as you can see!
We also took in a display of Indian dancing which the children all really enjoyed as well as a pretty cool science show. Benjamin got to be a volunteer and hammer a nail and a wooden peg into some clay and they all got to sit on a bench of around 500 nails... pretty cool stuff! Anyhow, incredibly, I forgot my camera but was thankful for a friend who loaned me her camera to take a few pictures (thanks Colleen).
So here are some pictures of our day at the museum:

Benjamin and Hannah getting their faces done....wait until you see the finished product!


And Alexander and Jacob have their faces done:

Alexander....aka Spiderman

Jacob...aka Batman

Hannah....aka Princess Smiley with butterfly and hearts

And Benjamin...aka Tiger (he really was smiling a bit in this but it's hard to see with the paint)

One of our favorite activities at the museum is playing all the games like this one where you have to hit the button that lights up and see how many you can hit in 30 seconds
Here is one of the performers as Jacob and Alexander look on and Benjamin gets his face painted

Goodbye Shawn

Hello all, thought we might be due for a few more photos.... So here are Alexander and Benjmain with their new prized possessions sent from Grammy and Grampy from Canada. They know all the players and remain quite avid hockey fans....checking NHL.com daily and can shout out all the players and teams and standings.


As most of you know, Shawn has gone off ahead of us to Germany to start his research. Last Sunday we had to say goodbye until we go over to join nearer the end of the school year. We "celebrated" (I put that in quotes since we didn't really feel all that joyful that he was leaving us!) by a dinner out a restaurant on the Royal Mile. So here are some pictures of our night out:


We also walked Shawn out to the bus stop for him to begin his journey. Here are a few pictures just before he left:



And here are a few of Hannah and Jacob performing some original dances in our kitchen:




And as a last note, if anyone is looking for a nice place to go for a little break, why not choose Edinburgh?! I would love the company!
We are all doing very well here but I do get a little lonely in the evening when the children are all in bed. Shawn is doing very well in Germany also but is feeling a little lost as he didn't know German quite as well as he thought he did....his studies have been all reading thus far so to be put in a new country would be quite disheartening! I know he will catch on very quickly....now if I would just start my studies so that I am not equally as lost when I get there!