Saturday 28 June 2008

Video From the big Birthday

Birthday Pictures





More pictures from Abigails first birthday.

One Year Old!

Hello everybody! Well, it's remarkable but true; Abigail is one year old! She celebrated her first birthday yesterday with her parents and Grannie and Granddad. The day started with a bit of balloon kicking.



This was followed by a normal afternoon. Then, after her afternoon nap (or lack of nap) Abigail changed into her party dress, which has waited for this day since she was born!


After the initial session of posing for the obligatory photographs it was time to tear into some presents.



Then dinner....





Then some more presents


A little more posing



And finally, Abigail wound down, watching her reading video with a new friend


Needless to say, she slept well last night!

Monday 16 June 2008

Finally, some news!

Well, after many months of trying, much frustration and several disappointments, we finally know what direction we are headed in July! We will be relocating to the Aberdeenshire area, as I take up a teaching post at Peterhead Academy.
We flew from Stornoway to Aberdeen on Thursday so that I could attend the interview in Peterhead on Friday morning. We spent the night with Russell and Rachel Gaunt, after meeting the new addition to the Renwick family. The interview followed a tour of school. There were three candidates and two of us were offered posts in the maths department. The setup seems very good and I'm hopeful that it will be a positive move for us. We are now beginning the process of looking for houses, with a view to buy.

There is now less than 2 weeks of school left, and it is 3 weeks until we need to move out of our current house, so it is a great relief to know that we have this much arranged. Thank you all for your prayers and concern on our behalf.

Sunday 8 June 2008

New Cousin



The newest member of our family - Jonathan Michael Renwick, Born 7th June 2008 at 12:52 am, 10lbs 7oz, 21 inches. He is beautiful and we welcome him into our lives and hearts.

We can't wait to meet him and see what Abby thinks of her cute cousin.

Saturday 7 June 2008

This is IT!

Okay this is definitely Abigail off and running now. She still has some balance issues and has no concept of breaking her fall! Which is making her parents nervous wrecks.

We also have some more exciting news Abigail has a new cousin! I hope I have the spelling right. Jonathan Michael Renwick, 10lbs 7oz, 21 inches, born 7th June 2008 at 12:52 am. All doing well. We are so excited and can't wait to meet him.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Life and Lewis

Well, now that we have all OD on our wonderful Abby (as if you could)we will take a moment to tell you about our life and what has been happening on Lewis.

Lets get the boring part over with. Our lives are much the same as they were at the last time I posted our news. David continues to teach in his probationary year and school is due to finish on the 27th of June (same day as Abby's 1st birthday!). He still has no indication of a job after the summer despite several interviews. At the moment he has no up coming interviews but is waiting to hear back from 5 applications that he submitted. There are several jobs that he will apply for soon but they do not need to be submitted yet. So we are very much back at square one in the job department. One thing that we do know is that we have to be moved out of our current rented accommodation on the 7th of July and the best we can plan at the moment is to store our belongings here on the Isle (in case we end up back here) in storage, return to the mainland and stay with family until something works out, we HOPE! We have been meeting with a group of christains in the gosple hall for the last few months. We have found their meeting more in tune with what we are acustomed and they also take communion every week. However, the mean age for the group is about 70! Of course they all love Abigail and think she is so well behaved. That's about it for us.

We are currently enjoying another glorious day (though very windy) here and have been experiencing great weather for roughly 6 weeks now. We've only had a couple of days of rain that whole time! The drive to and from Stornoway has been beautiful. The way the sun has been lighting up the hills is a sight to behold. The bog cotton is in full bloom and it looks like God has used it like icing (powdered) sugar to decorate and sweeten the landscape. This truly is God's country! What more can we say other than come see it for yourselves.............

Abby learning to read

I am sure some of you must have laughed when I wrote in a previous post that we were teaching Abby to read. We started when she was about 9 months and at 11 months look what she can do!

She can read - Clap, clapping, kick, smile, smiling and sometimes arms up. Of course she only does it when she wants too.




She has also been busy with her first words "KICK" and "POP" and after the earlier footage of her first unaided steps she decided it was far too scary and now won't go anywhere without one finger to steady her!

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Pool Video

Chillin' in my pool








It was such a great day on Sunday (hot and sunny!) that we thought Abby would like to paddle. So we got out a wee pool - aka her old baby bath - and she had a blast! She is such a water baby, I thought she might not have liked it but no worries there at all. We finally had to take her out when she had almost emptied all the water out.

Video of Grapes

Grapes of Wrath!




We tried Abby with some grapes recently - it turns out she loves them, so much so that she usually puts them all in her mouth at once. We think she is trying to impersonate the Godfather "respect the family" hee hee.

Hike up the hills





On Saturday just pasted (31st May) we strapped Abby to her dada's back and headed up the back of the croft to the top of the hill what a view! I guess I should have taken some pictures of the view but I only had eyes for my handsome husband and cute wee girl.

My wee laundry helper!






I finally discovered a way to be able to hang out the washing while Abby is awake. At the moment she is not letting me leave her sight which is making it very difficult to get anything done. I think I will need a bigger basket soon!

Monday 2 June 2008

Video of Swinging

This is the video of Abby swinging and bouncing at the Ness park. Sorry the swing clip is sideways, I don't know how to change it :)

Sunday 1 June 2008

Park up at Ness






Yes I know this is a lot of posts in one day but I am trying to get our blog up to date a bit.

This was a few Saturday's ago on the 24th of May. Again we decided to make the most of a beautiful, though windy, day. David had heard of a park up in the Ness area of Lewis that was meant to be amazing so we headed out in search of it. We actually started our drive by going right up to the most Northerly point of Lewis and saw the lighthouse there. Then we found the park where the pictures are taken. Following some swinging, bouncing and walking we then drove back to the Lighthouse and parked while we ate lunch. We walked a bit up there and David took some great pictures but I am sorry to say that I don't have copies of them to put on the blog right now. The flowers we think are some of the famous May flowers that bloom up here, we are told that they are a variety of orchid and bloom due to the sand that gets blown up from the beaches causing the soil to become very fertile. It was another fun day out.

High Chair






We decided to buy a proper high chair as our travel booster seat was not the most comfortable seat for Abby and meals times are getting longer as her appetite is increasing. The last picture was Abby after she had been playing with a "empty" fruit pot. If you look closely you can see the ring around her face from the edge of the pot! :)

Funny Pictures



These pictures are just funny! She looks like she is a teenager chillin' out - visions of the future.

Beach video