Happy Days!

On Friday it was red nose day.  Ollie and I got our hair sprayed red, and we wore our red clothes!

 This is me ...

and this is Ollie ...

We look pretty funny!

After school we went and fed the ducks and swans in Holyrood Park ... a place where the king and queen, princesses and princes used to go hunting and ride their horses.

One of the swans bit Ollie on the finger when he was feeding it, but it didn't really hurt.  There was also one very rude swan that kept chasing and biting the others.  It was funny.

When we ran out of bread, we went exploring on the hill.  There was an old ruined church on the hill, and we could see lots of the city from up there.

Ruined church ...

It was very windy and cold ....

In this photo you can see Edinburgh Castle (far left), Holyrood Palace (under Amelie's bum), the Walter Scott monument on Princes Street and Calton Hill.  We were freezing!



On Saturday we went to the movies to see Gnomeo and Juliet.  We also took Ollies buddy Kristian and his mum.  Kristian and his mum are from Latvia.  They also came out to dinner with us at the Mexican restaurant.  We had a good time.

On Sunday we went to Emma's dads place at Dalgety Bay, just across Forth Bridge.  We had a lovely lunch and played a new game that Emma taught us called "Grab a Nana", it was awesome!  We also met Emma's friend from London, her name was Alice.  Emma and Alice were really nice and lots of fun.

After lunch we went to Emma's mum's farm.  We got to make friends with their dog (Tia), their 2 pussycats (Comet and Zues) and their 2 ponies (Doran and Merlin).  Ollie and I even got to go for a ride.   I rode Doran (the big white one) and Ollie rode Merlin.  We rode through the fields and near the woods.  Ollie was looking for foxes to wrestle, but they were too scared, and stayed in the woods.  Ollie says he can wrestle foxes because Pa wrestles foxes.  Emma's mum thought Ollie was a bit crazy to want to wrestle the Scottish foxes!  She said it is "probably not a very good idea".

I showed Emma what I can do on the horse.  I can turn it, stop it and make it go.

When we got back home, I also had a turn on Merlin.

After the ride was finished, I helped brush Merlin and got him some food.

We had a lovely dinner with Emma and her Mum and then it was time to go home because we had school in the morning.

It was a wonderful weekend!

From Amelie

Meeting the local wild life...

We've had a great week at school.  I've been learning about dinosaurs in my class, and Ollie says he has been doing lots of writing.  This week I got 8 points for my "House" and Ollie got another 5.  Our house is called "The Holyrood Royals".

On Saturday, something really exciting happened... it snowed in Edinburgh!  Here is a picture of Ollie with a doona wrapped around him in front of our window.

The church and cemetry next door and the Craigs were covered in snow.

Pretty soon the snow started to melt and got all slushy.  It was still fun to throw at each other though.

In the afternoon we went to "Our Dynamic Earth", which is a museum all about where the earth came from and how all the animals evolved.  One of the men that worked there gave me a really nice rock to have a look at, and then told me it was fossilised dinosaur poo!  Yuck!  He also gave me a little piece of metal to look at.  He said it was a metorite that landed on Antartica, and it was even older than the Earth.

Today we went on a bus trip around Edinburgh.  The top of the bus didn't have a roof and it was really cold!

We got off the bus at the botanical gardens to have lunch and a run around.  In this photo we are pointing at the Castle;

Dad told us that he would give 1 Pound to the first one of us that showed him a squirrel.  We saw heaps of them!

At first we chased them around but they didn't like that very much.  Mum and Dad told us to be quieter and they might come closer.  A lady gave us some seeds to give them and then they started comming really close.

Eventually they were taking seeds and nuts from our hands.  One of them even let me pat him gently.  His fur was really soft and his body was really small.

We wondered what would happen if Wookie was here to see all these squirrels?

Now it's time to rest up for another big week at school.

Bye!

Hunting for Monsters, Saturday 5th March

On the weekend we all went to the Scottish Highlands in search of the Loch Ness Monster.

We went through Inverness to Drumnadrochit, on Loch Ness to see Urquart Castle.  We learnt that "Inver" in Scottish means "Mouth Of".  Inverness is at the mouth of the river Ness.  Loch means Lake.

It was a beautiful day and we didn't even need our jackets.

We watched a movie about the castle which told us that lots of people were fighting over the castle, and in the end, it was the owner of the castle who blew it up!  He blew it up so that no-one else could use it.  Here is a picture of Dad and I at the castle.

When other people were trying to get into the castle, they used a trebuchet ... its like a big sling shot, which shoots big heavy balls at the castle.  They were so heavy that Ollie couldn't even pick one up.  This is the trebuchet, and the balls.

We looked at what is left of the castle, and even climbed up some very steep and winding stairs.

We looked for Nessie, but couldn't find her, Mum said that we were probably being too noisy.  I think she was looking at us though ... what do you think?

We didn't see Nessie in the water, but we saw her on the way back to our hotel.  We got our photo taken with her ... but this one definately wasn't real.

A busy week

Hello Everyone,

We have had a very busy week.  We would like to tell you what we did.

Last week when we were at the childrens museum Nana bought us a book called Greyfriar's Bobby.  It's a true story about a famous dog who lived a long time ago.  He was a little police dog who loved his master, Old Jock, very much.  Everyone liked Old Jock (whoes name was really John Gray) and Bobby a lot. One day Old Jock died and Bobby was very sad.  He missed his master so much that he wouldn't leave his grave and stayed there for the rest of his life.  Bobby lived for a long time after his master died and all the people around the church yard used to feed and look after him.  The local government even paid his registration fees.

When Bobby died, everyone was really sad.  They secretly buried Bobby next to his Master in the graveyard and they also made a statue for him out the front.  On Friday afternoon we went to see Bobby's statue and the shops around the graveyard that he used to go to.

 Here are some photos;

In the graveyard there was a creepy little shop.  The sign for the shop looked really scary;

On the way back from Greyfriar's Bobby, we stopped to watch a street performer (magician).  Ollie helped him do some magic tricks.  Ollie cut a piece of rope using his fingers like scissors.  He also said that i was so pretty that Ollie and I should go on a date!  He didn't know were were brother and sister.

On Saturday, we met some more of Nana's cousins, and had a really nice lunch with Patricia and Elizabeth.  Elizabeth lives in England.  Then, on Sunday, we took Nana back to the airport to fly back to Australia.  She is probably arriving in Sydney right about now.  She was really sad to go.

At school I am having an awesome time.  I've been doing cheerleading with my two friends Trisha and Jorja on Friday afternoons.

Bye,
Amelie

Tuesday 22nd Feb, The real first day of school!

Today was our real first day of school!  I helped Ollie get ready.

I am in Primary 3 and have 2 new friends called Trisha and Jorja.  Trisha has beautiful dark plaited hair (mummy says they are called corn rows), and Jorja has blonde beautiful hair.  Tomorrow we are going swimming with the school.  On Friday afternoons I am going to be doing Cheerleading at the school! I am also going to be doing Yoga.  I am so excited.

Today Ollie did "mini kickers" at lunchtime, which is like soccer. 

We do sports in the gym hall , today I played a game called toilet flush and some soccer.

My teachers names are Mr Forde and Miss Nelson.  Oliver is in Primary 2, he can't remember the name of todays teacher, but he will usually have Ms Duncan.  He can't remember the names of his buddy or his new friends, or the little girl who was sitting next to him ... but he says he is going to remember them tomorrow. 

Ollie's teacher said he was Super, and even got all his work finished.  My teacher said I was very quiet.

Ollie had a school dinner today, he had a hamburger, and he says it was certainly very yummy. 

Mummy and Nanna went for a walk / climb to the very top of the Salisbury Craggs today, here are some pictures.

Mummy said it was very beautiful up there, but hard work.  She didn't go to the gym today because she was too tired.  Although she has been 3 times so far.  She is trying very hard to lose some fat.

Monday 21st Feb, First Day of School (or was it?)

On Monday we were very excited to go to school.  We got up early and got ready.

When we got to school, it wasn't on!  It was a pupil free day .... bugger.

Because school was not on, Nanna took Amelie and I to a Toy Museum (the Museum of Childhood).  We saw a big ferris wheel made out of mecano that was bigger than me (Oliver).  We were allowed to play with some of the toys and Nanna bought me a toy plane.  Amelie got a bunny called Snuffles.

Sunday 20th Feb, St Andrews

On Sunday 20th Feb, Amelie, Mummy, Nanna, Daddy and I went for a drive to St Andrews.  At St Andrews we saw the University that Prince William went to, and then we had some lunch.

We also went to the beach and it was really freezing.

Then we went for a walk to the golf course, it is a very famous golf course.  Can you see Amelie in the bunker?

The bunker has sand in it, and if you hit the ball into the bunker, it is very hard to get it out!!

We also played tips with mum and dad.

After that we drove home to get  a good nights sleep before School.