Ireland-- Day 4

The fun of Day 4 actually started the night before. By the time we got home from the concert, Keyton, Liz, Emeline, and Jarom had arrived! We had a lot of fun catching up and hanging out at our B&B. The kids were in hyper overdrive after travelling all day, so it was fun to see them so excited and happy.

We started out Day 4 with another huge traditional Irish breakfast. Yum! Good thing, because we never really did stop for lunch, just had nutella sandwiches and apples at the beach.

We started off with a little self-guided (well, Rick-guided) walking tour of Dingle. It was such a cute town, I think it was my favorite one on the trip.
Look at these humongous calla lillies! And my cute niece Emeline in front of them. She was my little buddy this trip. It was fun to have her always want to sit by me and hold my hand!
There's a (real) dolphin who crazily enough, lives out in the harbor. Like for the last 25 years! Jarom and Eme had fun playing on his statue by the port.
We took a windy walk down along the harbor too.

After our walk we headed for the car for a scenic drive of the Dingle peninsula. First stop-- a ring fort that still has 'beehive huts' left intact inside, showing off some great skills of creating a hut out of rocks without mortar that didn't cave in. They are even built so that the rocks are slanted outwards so the rain can't get in.
Look at that coastline!
On the drive we also saw where they filmed parts of Ryan's Daughter and Far and Away, rushes growing alongside the road that are used for thatched-roof houses, several boarding houses where Irish kids are sent for Gaelic intensive language training programs, and areas of land so rocky that tons of rock fences were built not just to mark territory but to just have a place to put the rocks cleared out for farmland.

Our great find of the day though, was a beach! We hung out there for quite a while, the kiddies-- and adults-- had a lot of fun.

Looking at the clams, barnacles, and snails. We even saw a sea star!
Keyton and kiddos
What a beautiful little beach!
Next was the Blasket Islands-- here's a picture from the lookout. Unfortunately, the historical center was not nearly as interesting as the one we went to the day before. It was a pretty sleepy movie and a quick museum visit. About 160 people lived on the islands until 1953, and were isolated from a lot of other happening in Ireland throughout the times, so they are a symbol of the ancient Gaelic culture and traditional Irish communities. They even were relatively untouched by the potato famine because they had a more varied diet and livelihood. The Blasket Islands are the western-most part of Europe. During the most populated time of the peninsula, 40,000 people lived here. Some of the fields up on the tops of the hills are so steep. Rick says they have been untouched since 1845... After the famine there was never again a need to farm so high. Now only 10,000 people live on the peninsula.
The last stop for the day was the ruined church of Kilmalkedar, a Norman center of worship, built in the 12th century. Interestingly enough, it was built when England replaced the old monastic settlements (like all the island ones) in an attempt to centralize their rule. On the same site, there's also old medievel tombs and an ogham stone 900 years older than the church-- so many different parts of history all in the exact same place! Ogham stones were used in the 3rd-7th centuriesas a marker of a holy spot.

I'll just quote Rick for the rest of the explanation... "a hole was drilled through the top of the stone centuries ago as a place where people would come to seal a deal-- standing on the graves of their ancestors and in front of a house of God, they'd 'swear to God' by touching thumbs through this stone.... The church fell into ruin during the Reformation. As Catholic worship went underground until the early 19th century, it was never rebuilt". So here's Kevin and I 'renewing our vows' taking advantage of our opportunity to reseal our deal.

Ireland--Day 3

We left Killarney and headed for the Ring of Kerry. We did the scenic drive around the peninsula and stopped to see all of the sights. Rick (our fabulous tour guide, Rick Steves, who took us everywhere on our trip-- I'd highly recommend his books!) said we needed to leave early to beat the tour bus crowd. So, we had a quick start to the day, but we did miss all the buses, so it was relaxing not having to pass a lot of traffic on super narrow roads.

First up was Staigue Fort-- our first ring fort. Ring forts around Ireland were built between 500 BC and 300 AD. They are circular drystone walls built without mortar or cement. It's pretty amazing to think of people so long ago spending so much time and effort to gather and arrange the stones. No one knows exactly what they were used for, but probably they were used in times of war, or they lived there all the time and corralled their animals in there too. Some ring forts we went to had nothing in the center, some still had the remain of inner walls dividing up the space. Whatever they were used for, they were fun to climb on and think about people living there so long ago.
It was a pretty foggy morning so we had some spotty scenery outlooks.
We also visited a tiny chocolate factory out in the middle of the ring (off the tour bus path even, it really was in the middle of nowhere!), went to the Derrynane house and learned about Daniel O'Connell, whose as Rick says, 'tireless nonviolent agitation gained equality for Catholics 175 years ago'. I thought it was pretty interesting. I guess I hadn't really even thought about religious discrimination against Catholics, since the Catholic Church is so large now, and prominent in most of hte other countries I've visited. Silly, I know. It was a long haul for them with a lot of sacrifice involved.

One of the coolest parts of the day was our stop at the Skillig Experience Center. It was way to choppy (and expensive) to take a boat out to the islands (and too foggy to take a picture of them) but the museum nearby was one of my favorites on the trip.

The island was first inhabited by 6th century Christian monks. As you can see, the island doesn't really have any flat spots! The monks went out there and built steps all up and around the island, lived in caves, and built other dwellings. They wanted the purity of isolation to try to become closer to God. They ate fish and birds and traded feathers and eggs for wheat and candles, etc. Monks lived there for 500 years, even with harsh winter storms and Viking raids. There were other monastic settlements on other islands too. More recently, like the 1800's lighthouse keepers lived on the islands, the museum had accounts of the harsh conditions for them and their families, how they helped recover wreckage from crashes, and the isolated lives they lived. The island is supposed to be really cool to explore-- maybe on our next trip!

We stopped by two more ring forts on our way out of the ring. This sheep was having a good time climbing on the fort wall too.
The night we went to at folk concert of traditional Irish music and heard some great music. Maybe it wasn't as exciting as pub-hopping to hear the music as most do, but it got done much earlier and was still great. We heard local and not-so-local artists Pauline Scanlon singing and Donogh Hennessey on the guitar, and Eoin Duignan on the Uilleann Pipes and low whistle. The pipes were especially interesting to watch-- you can kind of see in the picture, he is playing a flute-like part while pumping the bag full of air with his elbow while holding to top of the pipes in the crook of his arm, while pressing keys on the pipes to make the dual sound. Pretty neat.

Sorry, you can hear lots of wind in the video. We were exceptionally lucky and didn't have hardly any rainy days in Ireland but we did have lots and lots of wind everywhere we went!

Ireland-- Day 2

On our B&B host's suggestion, we took a scenic route from Cashel to our next stop. This is an overlook from the Vee Road. The shadow in the picture makes it look not quite as impressive as it really was! There were a bunch of overlooks we stopped to look out at.
The castle at Cahir. This was supposed to be one of Ireland's largest and best preserved castles. It was on an island in a river. It was really interesting to wander around and think about how people lived there a long time ago.
We stopped by a working sheep farm that does tours. Unfortunately, we caught the end of the last tour of the day... in French... so we missed out on the sheep-herding demonstration and a lot of the explanation, but still saw the sheep-shearing. Interestingly enough, wool isn't worth much at all these days. They said about 60 cents per sheep per year. But they still have to shear the sheep because the wool gets so heavy it will kill them after a few years. Now they make their money mostly off producing lanolin, and selling other sheep products.

We also drove through Killarney National Park, and made a stop to take a tour of the Muckross House, a Victorian Mansion. It was pretty interesting to see the huge home, all the furnishings, and here about that part of Irish history.

I think it is so interesting that while we were in Ireland we saw remains from pretty much every time period-- ruins 5000 years old to the 8th century to the 13th century, to Victorian and Gregorian times, to brand new. So much to see on one island from such a variety of civilizations.

Ireland-- Day 1

We left Salt Lake on Sunday morning and basically spent the day flying and in the JFK airport. Our first plane trip without kids in a very long time! I read lots and I think Kevin watched 6 movies. We arrived in Ireland at 7:35am Monday morning, to begin our Ireland adventure!

We started off by getting lost (really, the only time the whole trip we got lost, to bad it was on our jet-lagged first day!)... although I think we can blame it on poor road signage, because the signs to Glendalough all took us to a freeway going the opposite direction! Kevin did an awesome job picking up fast to driving on the left side of the road. We went on some super narrow roads that had so much greenery on the sides, I felt like I was going to get whipped in the face by the bushes just about the whole time. We even saw a trimming truck going by cutting the growth back into a wall. Finally we made it.
It's an early Christian monastery, church, and graveyard from the 6th century-- our first of many ruins we saw during our 8 day trip. It was shocking to see all the green everywhere, coming from Utah.
It was a nice place to stop and stretch out legs. Unfortuantely, we didn't have any euros, so we skipped the museum and went to find a bank so we could eat lunch!

Our last stop of the day was Cashel. We bought a Heritage Pass that let us in to a bunch of sites throughout the country-- and ended up saving us a bunch of euros. We took a tour at the Rock of Cashel-- ruins of a tower, church, catherdral, and castlefrom the 12th, 13th, and 15th centuries. We had an excellent tour guide-- actually, all our tour guides in Ireland were excellent, great storytellers-- and enjoyed walking around the ruins.
We were amazed to see green fields as far as you could see! Everywhere!
We stayed the night at Cashel at a cute B&B, of course, with the 'full Irish breakfast' the next morning--eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and white pudding. Luckily, we slept well and got mostly acclimated to the time change.

Piggy Day!

It was Cora's first day sporting one big piggy in back, and Violet's first day with two piggies. Cora thought it was great to have one big piggy like mommy!
Cora insisted we put this super smiley pic on too!

Violet's Vocab and Update

Violet has added some more words to her vocabulary...

banana
up
down
help
cheese
teeth
out
shoes
oof oof oof --when she sees an animal, usually a dog
three (after we say one, two)
go (after we say ready, set)
love you

Violet will also touch her nose when asked. She always makes a beep beep noise when she does. She'll also clap when we sing "If you're happy and you know it" and roll her arms with "Wheels on the Bus" and "Do as I'm Doing". She'll answer questions with a 'uh-huh' or 'un-uh', and usually mean what she says.

Sometimes I swear she's talking in short sentences like "I want down!" "I want out!" "I need help!" "Shoes on!" "Shoes off!". You know, the really important things.

I thought Cora was interested in shoes, but Violet's interest could be classified as obsession. She wants them with her all the times, and want them on and off. Amazingly, we haven't lost a shoe for a while, because she likes to play with taking them off in stores and in the car. I would say Violet spends a good percentage of her waking moments talking and thinking about shoes! Bonus though, if she's upset about something else, I can mention shoes and it changes her focus.

Cora's room in our new house is quite large, so all the toys are in there. The girls love hanging out there and playing. They do a good job playing together. Violet's only beef is that she loves the bouncy horse so much and she can't get on it by herself. Hence the "I want up!" phrase I hear a lot!

Violet has been trying to jump the last few days. She doesn't get close to lifting her body off the ground, but she sure is trying! One of her favorite ways to occupy her time is to step on an off things, to try out different levels. Like steps, going from the sidewalk to the grass, and most of all off of our (very short) fireplace hearth. She doesn't get tired of it!

Wheeler Farm

We spent a lovely afternoon at Wheeler Farm a few weeks ago with our friends Kerri and Cole. The kids had a great time seeing all the animals. They are such good little friends and had a fun time running around and seeing the ducks too. Cole and Cora thought it was so fun to pick grass to feed the horses (well, Cora thought it was fun, but scary too). We also saw some of the animal babies. While we were watching the sheep mosey around, all of the sudden, they ALL took off running to the other side of the field. Turns out, they saw their feed truck going by, and that made them run faster than I've seen sheep run before! It was pretty funny to watch them eat. Some of the babies jumped right in the feed pen.
Violet had a pretty mellow afternoon hanging out in the stroller. She liked looking at the animals, but was pretty tired too.

Cora is going to miss Cole! I know she doesn't understand that we live too far for regular visits now, she's already talking about wanting to play with Cole. Last week we had dinner with Cole's family and at the end of the night, they gave hugs and she gave him a big kiss on the cheek too, which he promptly wiped off. It was pretty funny.

Goodbye, Old House

It was a little funny to leave our house... my visiting teachers came over and helped me do the last of the cleaning while Kevin went on with the movers to the new house. So, it was a rushed goodbye. I still stopped to take a couple of pictures. We lived here for almost 4 years and learned so much about being home owners with all kinds of do-it-ourselves projects. We made close friends with couples that turned into family friends as we all had babies about the same time, did playgroups, game nights, craft nights and more. Our family doubled in size while we lived in this house! When we moved in, I was working in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, and Kevin was working for a consulting company.... and has had 3 jobs since then. We loved living near cousins. We endured 2 ward splits and 1 stake split and learned a lot about serving in the church with a variety of callings.
We added this patio, with help from Uncle Bob, put in a sprinkler system and yard, learned how to build a fence, planted lots of trees and bushes that lasted, and lots that has to be replaced, and never quite got to making our garden.
We tiled our floors, with help from Uncle Jeff. We finished our basement with lots of help from dads. I'll miss our terrific storage room, our finished basement, the view from the kitchen window, and our table and my elliptical we sold to the new owners. But I won't miss people in the hallway being able to see our clear shower door in our master bedroom!
July 2005
May 2009

It was a great house. We expected to stay there much longer than we did, but it was perfect for us while we had it!

(Our new house is pretty much all unpacked, just not clean... so pictures of it to come soon!)

Tonight's Prayer, by Cora

"Thankyou for cousins. Thankyou for trampolines. And playhouses. Thankyou for Kissie and Grandma."

That pretty much sums up our Mother's Day! Kissie was sick and opted out of dinner at our house so as to not get us sick during our big moving week. So we crashed my cousins' Mother's Day celebration, and Cora and Violet had a super time at Shayne and Denise's house with lots of cousins. Violet squealed to be on the trampoline as much as possible, Cora and the kiddos alternated jumping and playing in the playhouse, and we all enjoyed the beautiful weather and delicious food (except Cora, who was too busy to eat!). We talked to Kissie and Grandma before church (our last Sunday in this ward, what an odd feeling), and had a great Mother's Day all around.

Wish us luck that all goes as planned this week! In the last few days the lawnmower has broken and a valve went out on our sprinklers, but if that's the extent of the bad things, we'll be happy with that. Luckily, we have so many kind friends, neighbors and family who have generously helped us out, and it's made all the difference. THANKYOU!

Aquariuam

Playgroup was at the aquarium last week! I love being able to take the girls to places I've been meaning to take them for the last year, especially going with friends! The girls had a great time. Only especially nice thing about the aquarium is that they have a bunch of benches/stands in front of the displays so even the little kids can see in well. The girls were fascinated... as you can tell, I couldn't get hardly any pictures of them both looking at me, there was too much else to look at!
Cora loves steering wheels. She begs to go to Home Depot all the time, I think because they have those humongous hard to steer carts with two steering wheels for two kids.
With the manta rays.
A bunch of our playgroup friends.
More about what's up now...

Violet's new words: down, cheese, shoes

She LOVES shoes and anytime the laundry door is open and nothing else is going on, she moseys on in and creates a shoe explosion.

The girls are enjoying being outside in the nice weather! They stand by the door and squawk/ask to go out. With our fence, I feel fine about them being out by themselves if I am near a window... it's great! I'll sure miss our fence in our new house.

Sweet Stuff

This morning I was getting ready, and watching Cora and Violet play in the mirror. They were having fun racing cars on the bathtub. Then I watch Cora lean down, give Violet a big hug, and say "You're my best friend, Violet". So sweet. I can't think of many things better than knowing my kids love each other!

Still Here

We're still in our house, just busy being busy with packing, picking carpet and blinds, figuring out our new mortgage stuff, dejunking, deciding whether to move ourselves or get movers, home inspections, home appraisals, figuring out landscaping, etc etc. Normal busy moving stuff! Plus pinning down our Ireland trip... we ae pretty excited about that too!

We stopped by our new house today... the carpet is in! And the house looks fantastic. Things are coming right along. We also attended sacrament meeting in our new ward, and it looks great. I'm pretty excited about it. We sat next to a really nice family who will live down the street from us who has a little girl Cora's age, who told us a little about the neighborhood and the ward. The ward is large, but the bishop came to introduce himself-- always a good sign, when we moved into our last ward it was so large hardly no one noticed we were there.

I did take a couple of days out this week to attend Women's Conference with my mom. We had a great time at the classes, hanging out, the fun concert, and just being on campus. It my first time at Women's Conference, and it was nice to take a break and refocus on what's most important for a while. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures. I hope to post pictures soon.