A Very Special Birthday

For Emily's birthday (Dec. 29) we headed up into the Scottish Highlands for a forest safari trip led by our kilted guide, Bob. I know what you're thinking: it sounds so exciting up until the "Bob" part... why couldn't he have at least pretended his name was "Angus"?
Yes, that's snow on the mountain ahead of us there and we're disappointed to admit that it's the closest we got to snow this Christmas.

Bob taught the girls a lot about the trees and animals in the highlands. The only thing that Emily remembers, though, is not to play in the "bracken" (ferns) because of the multitudes of ticks that live there. Bob's detailed description of tick diseases definitely made an impression on them!


The white tower in the distance was commissioned by Queen Victoria who spent her honeymoon up in this area. In the end, Victoria settled on Balmoral as a vacation home instead, but it's hard to imagine any place as beautiful as this.

Before returning back to our cozy cottage for cake and presents, we spent the afternoon at the Perth Leisure Centre's indoor waterpark - complete with waterslides, a play park, lazy river, and even an outdoor pool (brr!) It was a busy day but lots of fun for all of us and certainly a special birthday for little Emily who turned 3... it's hard to believe she's that old already!

To clarify: Emily had a chocolate caterpillar cake with mini smarties (like M&Ms) on its back - it's hard to distinguish on the video. We had to keep it simple since we were away from home.