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I got to have some Auntie & Nephew Time with my little dude today :) We went swimming at the Beach Leisure Centre, got chips, and ran about on the beach for a little while. He wasn't getting bored in the slightest at the pool, which I LOVE, we were there for near an hour and a half, I'm pretty sure, turning in to prunes. So much fun :)

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I tried out some Black Bottomed Cupcakes from one of my Hummingbird Bakery recipe books yesterday afternoon cause I was craving some yummy goodies. They're chocolate cupcakes, with a cheesecake filling...or in my case, topping, and then cream cheese frosting on top of some of them. They didn't quite turn out the same as the photo...and at the time I was a bit disappointed with the taste, but having just eaten one now I've changed my mind; they're yummy! The frosting most definitely helps :)

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Pavlova.

The above must be read in an Australian accent...go on...do it...yeaaaah! It's so good, right!? Has to be done. Thank you Australian Masterchef and Scott Mills from Radio 1. For almost a year now, whenever someone mentions pavlova, I automatically repeat the word with an Australian accent, ever since hearing Scott Mills playing a clip from Australian Masterchef, with the contestants saying it a ridiculous number of times in just one episode. Mmm, pavlova!

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This is my I'm Running Out The Door In Two Minutes And Need To Take a Bench Monday Photo Bench Monday...yeah :)

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Naomi's gonna love me...

I love some late night Chiminea banter with some wonderful people :) Despite their abuse at my lack of jokes...

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When I got back from Glasgow on Saturday afternoon the sun was shining beautifully, so I lay my picnic blanket out in the back garden, read/shut my eyes for a couple hours, had a lovely relaxing bath, and then put my feet up and watched the second half of The Titanic...it was good.

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I took this photo towards the end of, what felt like, a never ending road...

This day had been greatly anticipated for months; assisting Roddy at a wedding down in Hartlepool, the day after the due date of his, and wife Fiona's, first baby, and therefore a small possibility of me having to take control of photographing the wedding last minute. Nothing like a little added excitement on a wedding day!

Thankfully the day passed without any panic of Roddy wishing he could fly at warp speed to get back to Glasgow. Despite horrific weather conditions on the drive down that morning, conditions improved for the afternoon, and the wedding was absolutely beautiful :)

The journey home, however, was rather long, with a slightly stressful stop at a very busy service station half way, but thankfully we had our hilarious wit, Roddy's random music, and a spectacular skyline to guide us back to Glasgow.

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 I love my Grampa :) He most definitely makes me laugh out loud! Despite being in his mid 80's, he is still totally on the ball with his wit, responding to my statements with something hilariously ridiculous in a flash. This is when he spotted the camera...

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I was far too awake at the time this photos were taken...well, that's a good thing considering I was having to control a motor vehicle, but still...running along a country road to get a good vantage point for a sunrise landscape at 5:15am is a little weird in my opinion.

I had no difficulty going back to sleep when I returned home after dropping Miss Cassia at the Airport :) And taking a slight detour on the way home for said landscape shot.

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Tonight was an early night sleepover at Cassia's as I was driving her to the airport the next morning for her flight to...PUERTO RICO!! She was going over there for a week for her brother's wedding (one of her six brothers, that is...), very exciting! So, at the time, 21:38, I thought it was too early for me to go to sleep...but looking back now, it is a perfectly acceptable time to go to sleep, when you're getting up at 4:15am the next morning! I didn't actually go to sleep till after 11...very regrettably.

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So...what I didn't mention on Friday during Alex and Matthew's Birthday blog post is that Matthew might appear in a few more of my blog posts from now on...I'll leave you all to work out why :)

This is an I Watched Hot Fuzz For the First Time Bench Monday...Matthew loves it, and, as a joke, he received 6 copies of it for his Birthday from his future flatmates...so there was really no getting away from it; I had to watch it at some point. We got Chinese takeaway though so it wasn't a complete disaster...haha. I'm just kidding, of course, the film was rather humorous, because Simon Pegg's in it! But Matthew's still gonna have to watch Die Hard, for the first time ever, in return for me watching Hot Fuzz...I know, you may be surprised I have allowed him in to my life when he has such a massive flaw as this...but, I have. Yay for a Die Hard Marathon! :)

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We went out for a very last minute walk on Sunday afternoon, before Church...loved the light bursting through the trees :)

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We had a hugely successful Curry & Quiz Fundraiser at Church on Saturday night, to raise money for the Youth Camps that run throughout summer each year. This photo shows 3 different scenes from the evening...the mass of dishes that is created from cooking for nearly 100 people *massive thank you to Tanya for the delicious curries she made! And the girls who helped wash up :)*, lots of happy, food filled people with pondering faces in the middle of the quiz, and the back room, where the children were running riot while watching Despicable Me (such a good film!).

I've not heard the official total we raised that night, but I hear it was a significant amount. Yay! Thank you, everyone :)

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Majorcreeps.com

This is Alex and Matthew cutting the cake at their joint Birthday celebrations on Friday night...after an interesting trip to Balmedie beach, for a BBQ, in some questionable weather conditions...but we survived the cold, and wind, and sea spray, and sandy burgers...and had lots of fun! :) The banter continued late in to the night, with some humorous birthday presents, more BBQ-ing, and lots of cakes! Yes, cakes...plural...I was happy!

I hope you both had a fantastic day! :)

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I got to look after this cutie for an hour or so one afternoon, while big bro, Fin, went with Mummy to check out the Nursery he's going to after summer...crazy, I know!! I can't believe he's gonna be 3 this July and he's going to Nursery. He's gettin' big!

As is the adorable Elspeth Catriona, but thankfully she's not too big just yet :) She's still a total squidge!

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This is my beautiful friend, Megan :) She's studying Spanish, and as part of her course she spent a year in Peru during our Academic Year 2011-2012. The other week she came to our Neighbourhood Fellowship to tell us all about her travels :) This included her showing us lots of photos (which, of course, I love!) of what she experienced while she was there, the lovely people she met, and lived with, and the beautiful places she visited. It was so great :) And she's an avid reader of the blog *Hi Megan!*, so I really wanted to get a photo of her on the night :)

Thanks again, Megan!

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So I've got 2 weeks of blogging to catch up on...Apologies!

I remember getting home at this time and thinking "I haven't had a cup of tea all day...I love a cuppa." So I made one...good story, huh. I can't actually remember what else I did that day...oh! I'd been out at a friends for dinner :) That was 2 weeks ago...crazy. Time is passing too quickly!

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Happy Bench Monday Birthday, Rachael! :)

My friend Rachael's Birthday is exactly a month before mine, and, unlike me, she's not so excited to get older each year, so each year I take great pleasure teasing her about turning a year older a month before me :) 

What's crazy is two years ago we were sat looking up the release date of the movie Fast and Furious 6, and thinking "2013...Two years!! We'll be 24 when that comes out! That's so far away..."

...and here we are, Fast and Furious 6 is being released this weekend...and the last 2 years have FLOWN BY! We can't believe it. But...only Rachael's gonna be 24 when we go see Paul Walker, driving fast cars...isn't that right, Rach? Heh heh heh.

Oooh...it's my birthday in a month! How exciting :) I hope it's a sunny day...

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This is Zazu, my friend Murdo's bird. It hates people...I'd hate people too if they trapped me in a cage, and I regularly had to sit and listen to a group of lads talking about who knows what until early hours of the morning.

He's a cutie though, huh? He was allowed out of his cage for a bit while we were all round last night. He spent a loooooong time just perched on the roof of his cage, cleaning himself, and then all of a sudden the wings went wild and he took flight around the room. I won't deny I had a fear of bird droppings landing on me...Good times!

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I'm kind of in love with this photo...I feel like it should be in a magazine. Haha! Cathryn's wearing a Harris Tweed coat from the 70's...Ah.mazing!

I had a lovely wee road trip to Edinburgh to meet Cathryn & Gareth for their Engagement Shoot :) We did a lot of walking around various locations. This shot was taken in the cute wee village of Ratho. I love a wee stroll along a canal, checking out the boats!

And before I headed back up the road I got to meet my friend Katherine for a quick coffee! So it was a very good day :)

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I had to make a tray bake for our Congregational Fellowship at Church on Sunday night, so I went to my favourite recipe books on Friday evening, and enjoyed a wee break from editing, looking at all their delicious goodies! There were a few things I considered making, but with a trip down to Edinburgh for an Engagement shoot on the Saturday I didn't have a lot of time to bake anything too fancy, and I didn't want it sitting around for 2 days waiting to be eaten. So I chose their very simple, but seriously delicious, moist, chocolatey, scrumptious, mmmmmmmm, brownies! And baked them before Church on Sunday morning :)

I did take photos that included my face...but this is the only one I like where I'm lined up perfectly in the frame, my big cheesy grin was becoming a little too cheesy by this point.

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I planned on doing a quick wee self portrait in the evening sunshine at Castle Fraser on Thursday night, as it's been a while since I've done a cringey one, but by the time I stopped working and got myself over there the sky was covered with clouds and the air was cold...so I decided just to head home again, and as I headed down the hill to the main road I spotted this tree, with the sun poking through behind it, so I pulled JD in to the side and hopped out for a few quick snaps :) Much easier than me attempting to pose myself!

On my way home I stopped in at the Fish n' Chip shop, in my pretty dress, and got myself some scrumptious fatty food! Yum!

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Plain and simply, I couldn't resist buying this tshirt for Fin...I actually wish it was my size.

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I love my Tuesday afternoon lunch breaks! Today we spent it outside, enjoying even more beautiful sunshine, and I was even treated to a delicious ice cream cone, with butterscotch sauce and sprinkles, from The Village Store. Mmm! Thanks, girls!

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Today is There's A Cutie In My Bath Bench Monday :) I hope you all had a fantastic May weekend! I have to confess I took the day off, despite having lots of shoots on my edit list, and I'm very glad I did! It was such a relaxing day, and once again it was filled with sunshine and eating dinner outside :) I really could get used to that...but I better not.

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It was just Mumsy and I at Sunday lunch this weekend, and it was amazing being able to sit outside to eat! Especially considering that 2 nights previously I had been surrounded by snow. I'll be a very happy girl if this weather sticks around from now on. Well, I'm already a very happy girl right now, but this would be the butter icing on top of my cake! Mmm, cake...

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After a thoroughly enjoyable, but rather hectic two days; assisting at a wedding in Inverness on Friday night, driving home that night, in some completely ridiculous weather conditions for May, to assist at another wedding here in Aberdeen on the Saturday, it was really good to sit and enjoy a film with a group of wonderful young folk :)

I'll be very impressed if you were able to guess what film it is...Mission Impossible 4 :) I love it!

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I love a Pick n' Mix table at a wedding, I do! And I really loved that there was this one little girl who went back countless number of times, while everyone else was enjoying their meal, picking up a new bag, or just a giant lolly, each time she went. If I'd been a guest, I'd probably have done the same thing!

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I love a real wood fire, I do! And this one is particularly cool as it's built in to the wall between the dining room and the living room, and you can see it in both rooms. It's so cosy! I look forward to the day I have my own wood stove...in my house beside the sea, with my boat tied up at the docks nearby...and dolphins swimming in the bay...a girl can dream!

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It was very silly of me to leave my Little Red Wellies out on the back step after my Snowman Bench Monday in January...it made me very sad to see them today with all their colour faded. Maybe I should just turn them in to a plant pot or something now...

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I ate my dinner with a spoon last night! #weird. But, actually, it makes perfect sense when you're eating something like rice! So much easier. It was an incredibly delicious korma. Mmm!

Can you spot the reflection of a lanky chick towering over the table?

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This is definitely one of my not so pretty Bench Mondays...I had done several loads of washing on Monday and so had this idea came to my head, not quite as good as I envisioned, but it was set up and taken incredibly quickly half an hour before I headed out for the evening...And I had to cook my dinner, eat it, and get changed before I went out too! I love it when I put myself in a panicked rush every now and then. I managed to cook my dinner, get changed, and have a couple mouthfuls of said dinner before my lift arrived.  Total success!

P.S. Apologies for my lanky toes.

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Guess who's back, back again, Lexi's back, tell a friend! Sorry Alex, 'Lexi' fit better in the song. Welcome back! Nice shades :) All the students were invited to the Manse on Sunday for a scrumptious lunch, and a some of us went up to the park to play Frisbee (slight fail due to crazy wind flow) and catch, and then just sat in the sunshine :)

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I went SAILING on Saturday!!!

Rachael's Dad took us out on his yacht for a beautiful (but slightly choppy) sail in the sunshine after lunch. As many of you are aware, and I've probably mentioned this once or twice on here already, I love boats, and I want one! So I was super excited to get to go out on Cara, watching Jim putting up the sails and fiddling with all the ropes that I wish I knew the correct terminology for, sitting up front with ma boat shoes, and getting to steer the tiller (I know that one!) for a bit. Aahh, love! 

I want a boat.

Once again, thank you Sammon Family for a wonderful trip! :)

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I headed up to Finechty on Friday, for a loooooong overdue stay with Rachael and her family. It was the first time I'd been up to that part of the North East Coast and I was absolutely in love! Firstly, Rachael's house is absolutely adorable! Right by the water, wooden floors, real wood stoves in the living room and dining room, steps down to the kitchen where you can see out over the rocks and out to the North Sea. I was in love! Then Rachael took me out after dinner for a walk around the village, and as you can see from the photo there's so much colour in all the houses and the boats. I loved it! It was so so nice being so close to the sea.

Thanks for a lovely night, Sammon Family :)

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It was still light when I headed to my bed at 9:45 last Thursday night. I love Spring/Summer!