Thanksgiving Scottish Style

Thanksgiving was quite an event here at the Troup household.
As it is not a holiday here in Scotland, we had to squeeze it in work schedules and having a joiner, a decorator, a plumber, a plasterer and an electrician in the house all at the same time made it even more eventful! To through into the mix Kenna had a big meeting for work that afternoon, but Grannie Troup stepped in again and saved the day and came up to oversee the management of all the key Thanksgiving dishes into the oven at the correct time and babysit Isla.

It was a nice dinner and good to share with friends. Once again Scots are a little bemused that Americans cook SO much food and make dishes that are sweet to eat with the main meal (candied sweet potatoes, jello), but now that we're getting a bit better at "mixing cultures" pork stuffing and a Scottish Apple pie are main staples and will be part of Isla's "dual" heritage.

Among other toys that Alisdair has purchased from Bushwear this year, the clingfilm super industrial unit was a hit. Above we have Alisdair proving that EVERYTHING is better with a little clingfilm....including Charlie (and no, we usually don't put the dog on the kitchen counters)...Alisdair figured with all the rain we get, perhaps a small raincoat for the terrier wouldn't go amiss....Charlie wasn't as thrilled as Alisdair with her new outfit..


Alisdair has been taking on more "parental" responsibilities lately and today when Kenna came down from vacuuming the stairs, she found Alisdair sharing another key Scottish dish with the bairn...a cheese platter.... Unfortunately Isla has had SO many pictures taken of her, she now pre-emptively shuts her eyes for the flash....She is definitely daddy's little girl and is a HUGE fan of cheese....all kinds....so, a Ploughman's it will be instead of a cake on her 1st birthday!
We woke up to heavy frost this morning that never melted. We had ice INSIDE the windows in the kitchen and dining room, so Alisdair got the fires going and we made use of Isla's new hat from Grandma Maughan.
Never one to let a holiday go by un-celebrated, Alisdair surprised Kenna with a special Thanksgiving gift...a family of Bourbon Red turkeys...this picture doesn't do them justice for how big they are (and kudos to Grannie Troup for driving all the way to Aberdeen to pick them up and having the stag on the front seat of her BMW for the 3 hour return trip!)....it was a complete surprise and Alisdair was terribly proud of himself for pulling it off. "Operation G (for Gobble)" included a group of helpers, Mick (the destroyer) who came up and built the pen, Grannie Troup and her mates who had to find turkeys in Scotland that weren't destined for someone's freezer for Christmas. So far we haven't had any complaints from the neighbours, but we just let them out of the shed today (Sunday).
For Thanksgiving, Grannie Troup found Isla a nice new dress and Claire brough her a hat and this little bow. She looks very grown up and we thought we'd better take a picture of her first Thanksgiving. She enjoyed it all...the turkey, the sweet potatoes, the rolls, but wasn't such a fan of corn (Charlie got most of that).

The House

Here is the wallpaper and couch in our new room..you can see the vestibule through the door. That is being done too.
Here is Miss Isla eating her Blackberries again.
This is the mudroom...it's fantastic and i love the big sinks under the windows as well as the drying rack that is on the ceiling with a pulley system. On the left behind the coats you can see a door to a great little bathroom and shower, for the post hunting days.
For those who have asked if Isla learns anything at Baby Sign class. This is "All Done" and she does it when she wants no more of what you're feeding her.
This is her on the floor in her make-shift bedroom right now, with her favourite shoes, (thanks Kim!)

Friday Blogging

Hello! We only have a few minutes this morning before we head off to Baby Signing class, but I thought I'd post more pictures of what we have been up to. Isla got some new hats. We bought a great website called CobWebKnits and they have some fantastic hats! Turnips, Christmas pudding, Califlower, etc.. In this picture she is modeling her Scottish Thistle cap, while proudly sitting on our new carpet in our new front room (with old ugly, too long curtains). Our house is slowly coming together and we're hoping to have one room finished by tomorrow night.

If anyone wants to see the other hat collection, this is their site.
http://www.cobwebknits.co.uk/

It's amazing the things you find when you move. Here are Kenna's swimming goggles and remarkably enough, Isla didn't fuss when we put them on her. I had to laugh and thought the picture might brighten up your day too. Kenna went to the dr's on Tuesday and should get paperwork in the mail today as to when knee surgery number 2 is. They have turned into fairly minor "clean up" jobs as the doctor said that it's not worth doing major work. Good news is she can go swimming again.
This picture had isla in the bottom...but guess she got cut off. This is our dining room, but we had to put our couches in there as we had no other renovation free room...yes, the large light through the window is the SUN...(sometime we don't see much of here in Scotland in November)...but as you can see we have lovely cornices and woodwork in the house...now we'll just be doing something about the dark wallpaper and ceilings...
If you look close you can see there are three dogs in the dog bed...not that they all don't have places to sleep, but I suppose it's more comfy to sweeze three dogs in one bed that was made for a medium sized dog. I guess we should just be glad they all get along.
We have discovered that Miss Isla likes Blackberries.....a little tough on the washing (hence the Ikea plastic frog bib) but her faces are hilarious when she eats...she shuts one eye if something is too bitter. I will post another eating picture. Unfortunately I took her to the Health Visitor Clinic just after this and had to explain that she wasn't bruised...she just had some residual blackberry juice on her arm that I hadn't gotten off...

The New House!

Once again, we decided that rather do things slowly and un-stressfully, instead we would move house and Kenna would have knee surgery less than a week later. Nothing like a little challenge! So, as nature would have it, it was also one of the worst weekend for weather we'd had all year. Michael and Alisdair, luckily, are hearty sorts and the fact that it was like standing infront of a pressure washer due to the rain being so heavy and the wind so bad, it didn't put them off. Other friends came up to help and we managed to get everything moved in one day. Not everything is put away and we are undergoing some huge decoration/renovation projects, but the joy of a house that has lots of rooms means you can shut the door on a room or two,(or five or six) and still get on just fine.

This is the kitchen...not exactly tidy, but you get the general idea. It is a nice country kitchen that just needs a few decorating touches.

The backyard is fenced...and a huge reason we bought it. Isla, who is getting more and more mobile everyday, can be completely contained and for now it is handy to keep the dogs in check. We have three chickens, a small greenhouse and this little sunhouse too....you can see the flooding on the deck where we seem to have a pipe issue when I do laundry...but it's all getting sorted little by little.
This staircase and the cornices are another cool feature. As it was the old Bank of Scotland and the house was built in the late 1840s, there are a lot of nice features, like the huge staircase and the stained glass window. We are thinking of putting back in the old doorway to the back right where the ironing board is in this picture, so you don't have to cut through the dining room to get to the back of the house. As it was a bank and the bank manager's house there are things like servants quarters in the third floor with an old staircase directly to the kitchen, but previous owners took that out years ago. It's most unique feature is probably the massive safe that is actually in the neighbour's front room. The walls are over three feet thick and no contractor will take it out. We also discovered that there is no crawl space under our front room as it was filled with sand to keep anyone from trying to rob the bank.
This is the house from the outside. It is technically a "semi-detached" as the owners in the early 1900s attached a shop to the side that has since been made a house. I guess during the war, because it was a bank it didn't have to give up its iron fencing like most other properties in town.