Dinner and tour...

Mom and Dad had recommended we go into The Dome restaurant for a drink.  

The Dome ceiling. 

..I looked it up online and we opted to go for dinner. Dinner was delicious!  We shared a goat cheese appetizer with an almond crust and served with an almond pesto and cranberries and then I had grilled veggies and warm halloumi cheese on toasted bread, open faced, with a balsamic vinegar...so good. And Jays steak was so tender it was squishy (in a good way) with mustard mashed potatoes..very yummy. 

We walked into the restaurant and it was packed in the open bar area and the set tables were all roped off. So we went up to the bar and asked how we get seated. Someone came to see us shortly and said we got the last walk in table of the night if we wanted to see it and decide...I thought it was going to be by the kitchen or bathrooms, but it was just a regular table, just happened to be near the bar and near the aisle the servers use as a path...but a great table none the less. 

We also shared a sticky toffee pudding...you lucky people. Why are we lucky you say?  Because I WILL learn to make the best darn sticky toffee pudding when I get home and some of YOU will get to enjoy it!

After dinner we booked it to our walking tour "The Dark Side of Edinburgh". It was interesting, but as we walked up Colton Hill at 10:00pm and stopped for a story, walked a tad further and stopped again it got very COLD up there. So we ditched the tour half way through and are back at our hotel, in bed - even though downstairs on the main floor the bar and lounge are hopping!  A very popular spot!

Goodnight!  Tomorrow we decided to go up to St Andrews for a drive...and see the Edinburgh Castle. 

Edinburgh..Day 1 continued

Technically it's Day 1...since we haven't really slept yet. 

The drive to Edinburgh was uneventful and not at all beautiful - but it was quick and easy. The sky was grey for most of the drive and Jay said "I thought you said the weather was supposed to be nice?" I looked at him, probably raised an eyebrow and said "this IS nice!  Be thankful it's not 40 degrees and raining!".

We arrived in Edinburgh at 9:00am and thought we'd go to the hotel to see if we could, by some miracle, get our room early. No joy. Check in is at 2 o'clock which is better than 4 o'clock... But is no where near I'mfriggin'tired o'clock, which is what time it was. 

We had left our bags in the car anyway so we decided to do a little roam around. Now it is drizzling, no big deal, we're barely wet - it's not even worth putting your hood on. It's 9:30am (which remember is 4:30 am back home), we walk for maybe 45 minutes and Jay wants to have breakfast. We've just had 2 full meals in the last 6 hours compliments of Air Transat - but, I am my fathers daughter and so I say with a shrug "I could eat". We roam for a bit to find a suitable place and end up back at the hotel for brekkie where Jay shovels in an order of porridge, eggs Benedict, a chocolate croissant and 2 giant glasses of apple juice. To his credit I did not hear what usually comes next when he eats out in excess "I feel like a fat sack of fat - I haven't exercised and ate too much" - he must be in holiday mode..

We're trying to figure out how to kill the next couple of hours so we book a Thai massage...awesome. We book it for noon, finish our breakfast at 11:45 and walk over. I can literally see Jays eyelids fluttering closed with every step closer to the place. We go to check in and they say "I'm sorry, I misunderstood...we only have 1 spot available for noon - can you come back in an hour?"  I thought Jay was going to cry - or curl up in the corner and nap. 

Now we have another hour to kill so we walk around some more 

then decide to move the car from meter parking in front of the hotel to a day lot about 6 very weird and non-linear blocks away before we walk back for the massages. Well, I got lost twice using the itty bitty tourist map the hotel gave us before we pulled over and put the address in the gps. I mean seriously, it 6 blocks, should we need the gps?  Apparently my navigator is tired (the alive one). So we finally get parked, far from the hotel...enter the suitcases we left in the freaking trunk!!  Jeesa!  

It's already 1:05 and now I have to cancel our long awaited massages and we walk, through the park and around the city, rolling behind us our suitcases.  Arrive at the hotel at 1:20...no, check in will be 2pm (there is another room we can take, but apparently the room we're assigned is the nicest and worth the wait)...so we walk around the block to see if we can use the last 30 mins of our missed 60 min massages and yippee we can do an hour. 

I had THE BEST MASSAGE. I thought I was going to fall asleep during the head massage. Jay said he did fall asleep face down in the head sling and only woke up because he drooled on his arm supported below!  He wants to go back tomorrow. We had a combination oil and Thai massage...glorious. 

Back to the hotel and the room was worth the wait. 

Jay immediately fell asleep on the couch..

he's going on 3 hours now so I'll wake him as soon as I'm done. I face timed with my Mom for a bit and my battery was running low so as I was talking to her I was trying to get the adapters working for the chargers but couldn't so had a mini freak out...got off the phone with her and realized the outlet has an (unmarked in my defence) on / off switch. 

So I slept an hour and now it must be time to eat again, surely...God I love vacation!

Club class

...as we're sitting in our nice wide seats, I've already gone through our "welcome package" which includes a blanket, earplugs, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, slippers (!), earphones and moisturizer I hear the flight attendant start asking other passengers if they would like a sparkling wine or orange juice...I mouthed to Jay "sparkling wine or orange juice". He laughed and said "look at you Miss "I don't care how I travel"...seriously - for an extra $300 on a 7 hour red eye flight it's TOTALLY worth it. Too bad I'll miss it...about to take a Benadryl to knock me out!  So, as we cheers with our glasses - mine sparkling wine and his orange juice (both terrible and barely drinkable), you actually hear a clink because the glasses are glass :)

Wake me in 6 hours...

Turns out its a 6 hour flight...dinner was an hour long..first we got an appetizer, then salad and bread and cheese, then our meals. Jay got up to use the washroom between courses and sat down and said "I feel so bad...everyone else's is eating TV dinners"..I said "you think you feel bad now - wait until you put on your blanket and slippers!"  And don't discount the key lime cheesecake for dessert. 

I ended up sleeping 2 hours...the exact amount of time between the end of dinner service and beginning of breakfast service!  It was enough sleep though to get me through - we arrived at 6:45am Scotland time (1:45am home time) to a very exciting announcement that Doug and Kate welcomed baby Bennett Middleton to our family - finally a boy to carry on the Middleton name. Kate and I tried so hard to wipe it out in a single generation..

We go through customs with no problem, our bags are already at the carousel, we go to pick up the rental car and we've been complimentary upgraded to a BMW (M series, Jay says that's important)...so far Jay is impressed. 

So we get out to the parking lot and load the bags into the surprisingly roomy trunk and Jay walks around and opens the passenger door for me...now you have to know that Jay RARELY drives on vacation and we don't even usually add his name to a rental...so I said " wow, thanks - you must like this car".  He's half way around the front of the car when I go to hop in and see the steering wheel in front of me!  So I am the driver, on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, after 2 hrs of sleep?  I guess Jay didn't sleep at all on the plane...or so he says!

This is the best vacation ever Paige!

This is what Sophie said as we walked in from dinner at the Maccaroni Grill tonight.

Paige ate so much Mac n Cheese that she felt sick, but opened up her dessert stomach just enough to polish off some chocolate ice cream!

Before we left we went for one last visit to the water park area...this is my favourite video (and there are lots!)

We spent an hour or more today at the Cub Club too painting and making 'crap' (crafts).

I said to Jay today, I think that they make the beds here so hard and only Queens so that your back is sore and you go to the spa for a massage!!  So tonight, rather than share the Queen with Jay and spend the night tossing and turning I pulled out the pull out couch.  Last night when Sophie came into bed at 5am Jay volunteered to go and sleep on the bottom bunk in the "cabin" so Sophie could sleep with me...its gotta be bad when Jay squeezes his 6'4" into a bunk!

Lazy River?

Sophie is very serious about "winning" on the lazy river! 

As is Paige!  But I can't load 2 videos on the same post...

Niagara and Great Wolf Lodge

We decided yesterday after the Bobs and LoLo concert that we would trek straight to Niagara Falls and see the falls before we checked in at the hotel.
So, we came into Niagara and parked at the first place that we saw (rookie mistake) and it turned out to be the Sheraton Hotel and Casino - $22 flat rate for a little over an hour that we were there! 
So we parked, we left the parking garage and the next photos were all taken within about the first 50 ft down the road!

 (Notice Daddy the creepy Mountie)

We asked the attendant at the $22 parking lot if at least that provided in and out privileges as we left and he said "yeah you can come back later, but you have to pay again" (Thanks Buddy) and you know Jay - comments like "That's criminal!  That's ridiculous and That's ludicrous" ensued.

We went from there and checked into the hotel...its quite a place this Great Wolf Lodge.
This is our room, or at least the Girls part of our room.

The girls are having a lot of fun at the water park.

'Cause its Fall Time?

The girls have the cutest way of saying things..when we talk about it being "chilly" or the leaves turning, Paige will say "Because its Fall time?"

Some other cute things they've said recently:

"Mom, how old will you be your next birthday?
My next birthday I'll be 36
Is that really old?
No, its not really old...
Grampa's really old...he's got bad ears"

Bobs and LoLo (a Treehouse TV short) came on TV and we were going to be going to a little local concert they were giving so I told the girls
"That's Bobs and LoLo girls!  We're going to go see them!
We're going to meet them??
Yeah! (trying to be enthusiastic) isn't that fun!
We're going to meet them for real??
Yes!
They're really real people?"

Then, on our way to Niagara Falls this weekend I put on a Little Einsteins (animated) movie and where they go to Niagara Falls and Paige said "I want to meet the really real Little Einsteins when we get to where Niagara Falls lives"

We were walking in the forest the other day, which we love to do in fall and Paige asked if I brought a drink and snack:
"Yeah, I brought Chocolate Milk for you guys
Is chocolate milk your favourite?
No, I like chocolate milk, but I wouldn't say its my favourite.  Its Daddy's favourite...
But its not your favourite?
No, its not my favourite
Because you only drink wine??"
(oh crap)