And ...... Relax

It has taken me so long to get back on here to update and share our photos. Life keeps on rolling and it's been difficult for me to find the time to visit my little happy corner. But a change is coming and I am looking forward to that day. Hopefully only one week to go :-)

 With the Hamster wheel hurtling along at full speed, we were in need of a little visit to our happy place. A little Friday to Monday getaway which was nothing short of magical.

We can almost pin point the exact stretch of road where we begin to feel it.

The exhale.
The relaxation washing over us.

(It's just past the turn off to Ikea , where the scenery becomes beautiful and the sea shows us the way. )

Mis K brought her new camera with her and she made me so proud. She has a great eye for a great shot and never missed one opportunity. From here on out, if you see a pic with this yellow time/date stamped on it - It is a K pic.

When we arrived we immediately visited the town centre so the kids could visit their favourite shops and pick up some goodies/new toys for our night in the hotel.

It was my favourite kind of day, sunny and cold with snowy showers :-)

We enjoyed a lovely meal out and had a stroll along the "big" bridge.

K was feeling ca-ray-zeee and without a word of a lie, she almost went over the side of this bridge. Murray and I almost lost our minds!  It was one of the scariest moments of my life!!

The last photo of our crazy bear with all her teeth.

That top front tooth was out by bedtime.

The tooth fairy did a great job of finding us at our hotel :-)

Back to the safety of solid ground.

Exhale.

The next morning we woke to some more beautiful cold sunshine and we finally got our feet on the gorgeous sand of our favourite beach.

These two just made everything perfect. They are prone to a squabble or two but his weekend? They played and ran and shared and enjoyed each others company.

My mama heart was bursting at the seams.

A perfect mix of fun and serenity.

Changes.

I am sitting in my cosy kitchen. It smells of roast chicken and home. Family. Everything I love.

Instead of making me all warm and happy as usual, it feels like a punch in the gut.

So I do what I like to do best when I have this lump in my throat, I write it out. I always feel better once I have formed the words.

Around an hour ago I received a crisis call from my sister. She was distraught. She is in the process of moving home and had arrived at the storage facility and had no one to help her. This was the last straw in a long line of stress that she has endured the past couple of weeks and it broke her resolve.
There were tears.
Luckily she was around 5 mins from my hubby who was able to finish work and go to help her out. Isn't that the great thing about family? We can all be there for each other when we are needed. This is leaving me with that same lump in my throat and punch in the gut feeling.

My sister is  not only moving home, she is moving country. She and her sweet little family are headed for sunny Spain.

How can we help her when she is so far away?

It is a rollercoaster for us all. I am so happy they are finally getting their wish. Thrilled that my amazing, adorable nephew will get to enjoy this wonderful opportunity. Pleased for my sister who can rid herself of our scottish climate that she loathes so fiercly.

My heart is breaking too.

If one more person tells me that it will be great! Imagine the cheap holidays you can have! I may not be responsible for sharing the punch in the gut!

Holidays don't come cheap when they are costing you everyday moments with your family.

It is no surprise that my family are important to me.  Just have a look over on my labels tab, there are more posts on family than anything else. I have been blessed with staying so close to my entire family for my whole life. The furthest I have ever had to drive to see family members is 45 mins. The changes that are happening spread so far into all of our lives, it is a deep ache.


It isn't just that I will miss seeing them on Christmas, Birthdays, Halloween. It is the hundreds of days in between where we see each other, just because.

It will change the dynamic of our whole family. Because we all live so close it doesn't matter if we aren't spending Christmas with my parents or my sister, we will see them regardless. It is a 5 min drive, one of us will pop in to see the other. (usually them popping in to us, we had the kid card to play for a long time ;) )  But now if my parents are spending Christmas with my sister and Joe boy - we wont see any of  them at all.

It will be different, another change to get our heads around.

My sister will be spending a lot of time alone (due to her hubby's job) so I would presume my Mum will spend a lot of time over there, and quite rightly so. But I will miss her too.

I am grateful that it is "only" a 3 hour flight.
I am grateful that we have skype and that sarah and Joe are used to using this to keep in touch with their other family who are spread far and wide.
I am grateful that we will be able to fly over and that we are welcome to stay for some holidays!
I am grateful that I have lived for 30 years without feeling the pain of missing people who haven't even left yet.

I guess I just didn't see it coming.  We played our whole lives out when we were little. Our favourite game was "Sarah and LeeAnn".
Sarah was a high flying career woman, yet loving sister and aunt. She drove a convertable and loved to shop.
Lee Ann was a stay at home Mum who loved to bake, look after her child and make a home.

Never once did Sarah sell the convertable, up sticks and jet off to Spain!!?? (I'm sure there is a law suit in there somewhere!!) Maybe if she had given me 25 years notice, I could have been prepared!

Uh oh. More tears.

I feel like I have been treading a fine line recently. How do you support someone you love but be secretly sad at the same time?? If you keep that sadness a secret you run the risk that people think you don't care.

I care. I just want to show the happiness more. I'm sure my sister doesn't need to see the tears to know they are there.

I am so happy for my dearest ones to be moving into this new chapter of their lives. Please know that we are coming right along with you. Even if we are very far away, I will be there for a virtual hug a cup of tea and a shoulder to cry on. Murray can share inappropriate jokes by internet. The kids can send art work and postcards or something through the mail. And there is always skype to blow kisses and give virtual tickles to my favourite baby boy. We will always be right there from right here in our busy, messy little nest.

I will be sharing a virtual goodnight handshake with you every night x

Cruise control.

Murray and I are currently on a little road trip.

It's not every day that your childhood best friend gets married and invites you to their wedding at River Cottage. The universe smiled even more upon us as it coincides almost to the day - of our ten year anniversary.

10 years. Wow. We have officially been a couple for a third of our lives!

We dont escape get away , on our own, very often at all. And really, we wouldn't have it any other way, the nest is hard to beat! But sometimes it is nice to head out on your own with no definite timings in mind, just meandering our way through the days. It's nice not to have to know "if we're there yet".

It's good that we get on so well, it has been a pretty long drive but it's been relaxing and even fun.

One topic of conversation that kept coming up was how this trip would never have happened 10 years ago.

For a start it couldn't have happened! I loved my little car of the time because it meant freedom for me. I had been without a car for a while and lived in a teeny tiny village that was quite cut off, so my little white car was my ticket to freedom for my boy and I. But it was far from a road worthy road trip worthy car. When we drove through puddles the water came through the floor, the window wipers hardly worked and well only half of the seats had covers on. But it got us around.

The car we have now is solid, I love our car and it feels so safe to me after the disasters of last year!

I was also not the most adventurous of drivers, I would not have considered driving on a motorway! Oh no. And to drive hundreds of miles on a road I have never seen? Forget it.

But Sean makes it possible.

Oh how I love our Sat Nav!

Another thing we wouldn't have had 10 years ago was a working radio in the car but also a

CD player! And two ipods crammed with music.

 If I could speak to my 20 year old self I would tell her how far she would go in the world. A CD player in the car for goodness sake!

And Mr Peat's favourite joke of the day

LeeAnn - there's a huge Q up ahead.......

 Unfortunately my knowledge of motorways hasn't really improved much and I seemed to annoy a lot of people. I learned many new aggressive driving styles and gestures along the way.

But those grumpy folks couldn't take any of my excitement away because our car has cruise control! Set that baby to 70 MPH and we were just cruising along. It's like one step away from the Jetson's, people!

Just living the dream.

10 years ago we knew were going to be together forever, But I'm not sure even we could have envisioned how "richly" our lives would have improved.

We both have a job that we love, we have our own roof over our heads, we have two beautiful, intelligent , loving and fun loving children.

Our home and lives are enriched by our love of each other and by the family and friends that surround us.

Here's to 10 years of togetherness and to just cruising along for another ten years.... and beyond. xx

Belfast Baby!

We are back!! The girls have returned to the nest after an adventurous weekend! What a lovely girlie time we had together. But we did miss the boys a whole lot!

K loved the plane. She sat by the window on the way there and fancied herself a wee aisle seat for on the way home. She was a perfect little angel and we had great fun being "weally high in de sky"

K loved her magic lollipops , to help her ears.

Ta-da!! We made it!!

"Mummy! You need to Ta-da too"

The 5am start, kicked in hard!

Lady Heather with Lexi - Poops.

The reunion!

The girls were so happy to see each other!

Our girlie weekend continued with all of the best ingredients.

Shopping!

Some "GLEE-ful" dancing!

A teeny tiny bit of wine.........

.....and maybe a splash more....

What a great night this was.

With an ice skating non-event, some arson and a little bomb scare (ok ok Heather, I know, it was 5 miles away......) our weekend was certainly eventful!!!

It's safe to say, I will never be a city girl! LOL

I had a great time but we were both super glad to tip into our own beds on Monday night.

I think we have maybe been bitten by the bug, who wants to be next for a girly visit???