Our Day by Design

Better late than never I wanted to do a quick recap of last year, just like I did for both 2010 & 2011 . If nothing else it reminds me of all the events I haven't written about yet! We had a fantastic 2012 with the arrival of our gorgeous son Holden. It's also been a busy year including Holden's first big trip!   January My niece Willow was born in Australia! I started my maternity leave . February Holden was born.     March Holden: One Month We celebrated my first Mothers Day. April Holden: Two Months We celebrated our 2nd Anniversary & Holden's 1st Easter. May Holden: Three Months My blog turned 3. June Holden: Four Months It was Grahams birthday on his first Fathers Day. I had a night away at Lucy's hen do, which started with laser quest! July Holden: Five Months My sister and family arrived for 6 weeks and we enjoyed lots of time together including a trip to the zoo. I was a Bridesmaid at Lucy...

Despite saying last year that I wasn't sure 2011 would come anywhere close to the fabulous 2010 we had, have as much excitement in it or that we would manage four holidays again, I think we did pretty well! January I carried on with my honeymoon recaps . February I met some of the blog girls and went to London for my br other-in-laws 30th. March I finally finished my recaps & all wedding related posts! We had lunch at La Potiniere . April We visited both Bratislava & Vienna .     While there, we celebrated our 1st   anniversary ! Followed by dinner at The Kitchin  when we returned home. I also went to a Hollywood Hen do! May We attended a weekend wedding celebration in Perthshire. We made a Travel Map with our paper anniversary gift. My blog turned 2 . We discovered I was pregnant just a few weeks after finding out my sister was too! June We went to Marrakech for a week where Gra ham tu...

M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas or festive season with your loved ones!

We are off to the sun in Marrakech for a week; spending our first three nights in the medina then moving to a boutique hotel & spa for the rest of the week where we will celebrate Grahams 30th birthday. See you all soon!

When I reached my 1st blog anniversary last year I wondered if I could keep it up for another year. Another year has passed and on my 2nd blog anniversary, I'm still here; so far so good and if you saw my drafts folder you would know there is still more to come! Next up is going to be recaps of the two weddings I was a bridesmaid at last year, some DIY which is long overdue and more of my travels. Thank you all again for following along, the lovely comments that you leave and for the wonderful friendships I have made { you   know who you are }; that was definitely not what I expected when I started writing about my wedding, but something that I now couldn't imagine being without. I cant tell you how excited I am that we are going to be able to attend a wedding very soon that would not have been possible without our little blogs. (All images by Craig & Eva Sanders )

Once we got back from Vienna on Tuesday lunchtime, we enjoyed our afternoon then got ready to go and eat at The Kitchin . Since we were both off the day after we took the opportunity to book a table and use the voucher we got from my parents at Christmas. I was really excited about going, having never eaten in a Michelin star restaurant before, and I really hoped we would get a glimpse of Tom Kitchin. Imagine our surprise when we arrived early for a change to see him going over the list of diners for the evening. While we enjoyed a drink and waited for them to finish setting up the restaurant, Tom came over to speak to us which was a little like meeting a celebrity and not really knowing what to say! Graham mentioned that we had just been celebrating our first anniversary in Vienna so we were delighted to find a hand written card on our table, wishing us a good night and a happy anniversary. The restaurant is lovely inside and has a viewing window into the working kitchen where we co...

Hopefully by now we are on route to Bratislava {after a ridiculously early flight} where we are spending a couple of days before moving on to Vienna. Im really looking forward to our trip as both cities are completely new to us; we plan to spend our time seeing the sights, relaxing and celebrating with a drink or two! We will be in Vienna on our actual anniversary; can you believe its been a whole year! I'm also looking forward to a full week off work and we still have a day and a half off at home to enjoy once we return. We are using that opportunity to visit The Kitchin for dinner. I'm not sure if we will have Internet access or not but since I don't plan to be online much I'll catch up with everyone when we get back next week. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

A couple of Saturdays ago {12th March} we were able to use one of our Christmas presents by having lunch at La Potiniere in Gullane. We were given a voucher from my aunt & uncle and my parents received the same and bought one for my aunt & uncle too so we could all go for lunch together, masterminded by my aunt. Since my dad and aunt had been ill at New Year it was really our new year celebrations. I'm fairly sure we confused the other diners by our 'Happy New Year' toast in March! The restaurant is quite small and just has 20 seats, which allows one of the owners, Keith, to serve as well as be in the kitchen; this makes it a lot more like being in someones house, rather than in a restaurant which is lovely. They bake two different types of bread so I tried the sunflower kind while we looked at the menu, along with a glass of prosecco for our toast. With such a small restaurant, they choose to only offer two choices for each course on the menu, with one meat &...

There have been a few posts on the subject of name changing lately and the choice women have; I thought I would let you know what I chose to do. I thought about it for a long time and went over all the options; I wasn't ready to lose my name but at the same time I wanted us to have the same family name, especially when/if we have children. My dad and his brother both had daughters so if we all change our names, our family surname wont continue. The same thing already happened with my grandads name as my mum and my aunt both changed their names, however, I was given that name as my middle name so its still here! Also all of my degrees and professional qualifications were completed before I got married so I never wanted to lose any of my original name. After ruling out hyphening {which was my original plan way before I really thought about it in any detail} I chose to take Grahams surname and keep my maiden name as a second middle name, effectively just adding Grahams name on, withou...

Last year I was given two blog awards from two lovely ladies but I'm only getting round to passing them on now; so thank you Hannah & Lisa-Marie and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to post about them! The first is the 'A Blog With Substance' Award from Hannah at Gator Tales . For this award you are supposed to sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience in 5 words.... Sharing; Exciting; Inspiration; Support; Friendship Then pass it on to 10 other blogs with substance: 1. Gator Tales 2. Bicoastal Bride 3. The Handcrafted Life 4. Conversation Pieces 5. Daydreams in Lace 6. My Spare Thoughts 7. Adventures of a Dizzy Girl 8. Rosalilium 9. This Girl Is... 10. A Chocolate Lover's Confessions The second award is the 'One Lovely Blog' award from L isa-Marie at This Girl Is... . The "rules" for this award are: 1.Grab the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link. 2.Pay...

2010 has been a fabulous year; I'm not sure 2011 will come anywhere close! Inspired by both R & Laura , I thought I would recap the highlights! January A busy month of wedding planning . February We posted our wedding invites & I had my first dress fitting. March I got made redundant ! Then I had my fantastic hen weekend ! Before I managed to get a new job in amongst tons of DIY ! April We got Married ! Then we went on honeymoon to Sri Lanka & the Maldives, where we got stranded because of the volcanic ash cloud , finally getting home 5 days later than planned! May My blog turned 1 . June Graham turned 29 . I started my wedding recaps . July Helen had her hen do . R & O got married . August We went to Italy for a week. While there, I was a bridesmaid at Helen's wedding followed by their UK reception. Then I met some lovely bloggers for the first time . September I made my sisters wedding invites & my nephew turned 1 . October We spent a week in th...