The Buckingham Blog

A couple of recent shots I really like.

it's been a while since I popped some of my photos on, and I need to clear the camera card, so here they are!

Daffodil

Grampian Eye

Aberdeen Harbour

Edinburgh Castle

Today was Krystal's 3rd birthday.  She was up again in the night last night so didn't get up until 8:10am.  She was so excited to see this pile of presents waiting for her. 

I think her face says it all in this photo when she opened her pink iPod.  She might only be turning 3, but she really wasn't needing anything, Kory has one and they both love music.  Getting one of the old style ones like his but in pink wasn't the easiest thing! 

We got all ready and headed to the cinema for 10am (yawn) to see a film about mermaids.  The write up made it sound like a rewrite of "The Little Mermaid" but it wasn't what we expected at all.  It was japanese cartoon.  They enjoyed it though, and I got into it as it went on!

We then headed to Pizza Hut for lunch.  We met a couple of the kids friends there which they loved and the food went down well too! 

We came home for a while after that, to make phonecalls to people who'd been trying to get us all morning and to chill for a bit.  Krystal was a bit huffy and tired, so we scrapped any plans we had for the afternoon and decided just to head to Johnstone Gardens for a walk and then to a playpark. 

Though this ended in disaster when Kory was on one of the wobbly things (you know like a horse on a big coiled spring) and made it go so fast it came back and smacked him in the eye!  

We came home, fed the troops (again!) and sang Happy Birthday and blew out the candles.   The cake was very yummy even if I do say so myself!

When we went upstairs to get ready for bed, Krystal wanted to try on one of her presents from Nana.  She got it last year in China and kept for her birthday.  I think it was meant to be for dressing up, but I love it!  Only not sure when I'd ever put it on her.  Only time I can think is on a holiday in the evening for eating out.  It's so pretty.  She was so funny bowing in it too. 

I think a good day was had by her, she's come so far from this...

Happy Birthday Princess Krystal

Julie.xx

When my Dad was up last week, he bought me a bunch of flowers.  After reading an article on taking shots in low like without a flash, I decided to try it out.  Here is the result....

On a site I use for my photos, this one made it to the "spotlight" page very quickly, so I'm rather impressed with it! 

Julie.xx

As I said there's been snow here in Aberdeen again, so here's some of my shots this past week....

 Sunday - the ice beginning to form on the River Dee

Monday - the ice thickens resembling Antarctica

Tuesday - Old bloke being daft going over to take photos.  He turned back, realised it was just too dangerous thankfully before it was too late!

Tuesday - Dad taking photos of the River Dee

Thursday  - the snow/ice is melting letting some water go downstream leaving massive icebergs at the sides.  They must be 3 or 4 ft high.

And a handful from last week...

This was from our park trip

Have a collection on the camera card again, so here they are...

Yeah yeah it's been a while.  I just didn't have much to say, so didn't bother.  I can't remember what we've done other than what's in the photos.  So here you go!

Trip to Duthie Park

We let Kory have our old camera one day last week, and Krystal got a camera for Christmas from Grandpa & Tricia, so in order to use them, we headed to the Winter Gardens as it was so cold yet we needed out the house.  They had great fun taking pics.

A strange plant above a door that looked like a moose!

Krystal's First Bike Ride

Last Sunday was the first day there was nothing on the ground and nothing falling from the sky since Christmas.  So James took the kids out on their bikes, Krystal for the first time.  From what I gather it was an *interesting* outing ending in tears over cold hands!

Dressing Up

With all the being in the house recently, the kids have taken to dressing up loads.  With talk of the upcoming swine flu jabs, the favourite is doctors and nurses where they inject one another!

Burns Supper

Today being Burns Day, I made the kids a burns Supper tonight.  James and I are both on a diet so we had something else.  Kory wanted to know if it could be Burns Day every week because he loved the haggis!

Other Stuff!

The face krystal pulls when she is angry!  it does nothing but make me laugh!!

Photo's I took of the kids for part of a project, but I like them.

Julie.xx

Yesterday on my way to the hospital, I went down to the River Dee as I'd heard it was frozen over.  This is what I found....

Some other photos from the camera of bits and bobs over the holidays....

Julie.xx

After the temperature dropping to -8C last night, we got up to find the snow still there.  No surprises there then!  The surprise came when  driving down to Brechin when the car thermometer was at -5.5C.  Eeeek!  While that's not unusual in Aberdeen, it's normally at night, not just after 10am!

Anyway, we were all frozen by the time we walked from the car to the train.  But as usual I made everyone pose for some official blog photos (ha ha!)  I even managed to be in one for a change to prove I do actually go on outings.

We found our seats and the journey began.  Kory and Krystal were very excited when Santa entered the coach we were in.  He seemed to take forever to get from the other end to where we were as well. 

He was actually very authentic - naturally fat, and his beard/hair certainly couldn't be pulled off!  Must have taken him ages to grow that lot. He might have washed his breakfast off his coat though! 

He chatted to the kids for ages too. 

His Mrs Clause was very funny.  I think he was being specific about which gifts he wanted to give each child, and she was getting annoyed at him.  I thought she was going to ram a croquet set up his bum at one point!! 

The journey back seemed to take forever, once they had seen Santa, we all just wanted a heat, we couldn't feel our feet at all.   

We came home and had some warm soup for lunch.  Then Kory was desperate to go outside and have a snowball fight.  Of course Krystal wanted to join in and then Coral was in on it too.  I know i'll have plenty chances when snow falls on weekdays further into winter, so I stayed inside! 

We had an early dinner, then James and Kory took Coral back to the airport.  Aside from the sub-zero temperatures, it was a nice weekend, just a shame Chad couldn't join us.  Which is the reason for quite this many photos today, so he can see what we did. 

Julie.xx

P.S.  This morning's sunrise over the snowy rooftops....

Nigg Kirk

Clouds and Trees!

River Reflections
(well was meant to be, but started to rain!)