In which Ben and Ab have a night without the baby!

On Friday night Ben left work a bit early and we headed off into the sunset on our long-awaited one night away between feeding Oliver and the next baby!!

I booked us a "deluxe guestroom plus" at a 4* Hilton hotel in the lovely village of Ballater. Ballater is in Royal Deeside, close to Balmoral Estate (owned by the Queen) and most of the shops have royal crests on them because the butcher/baker/outfitters also provides services for the Royal family!! Ooh ahh. It is about 90 minutes from Aberdeen.

We had a lovely time snuggling and went out for a meal in the village on Friday evening (for once in our married life I didn't pick a more expensive meal than Ben, phew!) and after a leisurely lie-in on Saturday morning we got a big buffet breakfast in the restaurant followed by a swim in the hotel pool and a soak in the jacuzzi.

Unfortunately I was having braxton hicks (practise contractions) practically all day on Saturday and leg cramps so that put a bit of a dampener on it, but we turned our planned intrepid walk around nearby Loch Muick into a shorter, still beautiful one around a bit of the Loch. We nearly got blown away by all the wind though!!!! Around the Loch we spotted about 20 deer and later four stags standing quite close to us. They were huge and very majestic looking.

We came back around teatime on Saturday to find Nanny T and Grandpops (Ben's parents!) had spoiled Oliver rotten with his very first pair of shoes... Clarks of course! :) They are the teeniest size they do: 3G and VERY cute, and suedy. He has been impressing us toddling around the house all week and now he is quite the pro, making manouvres, turning corners and going over small bumps.

All in all a wonderful 24 hours away. Ahhhh married life is the best. And so is going home to Oliver. It was lovely for Ben's parents to have some Oliver-time, and we enjoyed seeing them for the rest of the weekend too

Some photos from the weekend:

The two of us ready to go on Friday night

My very intrepid husband (the hood was necessary, we were nearly blown away!)

Me

Intrepid like his Daddy, complete with new shoes!