Ireland- Day 2

Dingle Penisula

Ireland- Day 1

Ireland was totally amazing. There were a lot of things that I expected like driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. This was an adventure all by itself. Other things were the almost constantly overcast skies and beautiful green country sides; fields with grazing sheep separated by low stone walls and the wonderful accents. But, there were also several things that I didn't quite expect, like the toilet handles on the wrong side of the toilet, most signs in Gaelic as well as English, all of the American music on the radio, very few red heads and such a diverse mix of people. We saw a lot of Asians, Blacks (wouldn't call them African Americans so I don't know what else to call them) and even some Pacific Islanders. I think one family we saw was Greek. One street in Dublin that was like China-town.
We left on Wednesday afternoon and got to Dublin the next evening. We drove straight to Adare which is near Limerick and Shannon. We stayed in a villa, which is like a little townhouse, on the grounds of Adare Manor. Sunset is at about 4:30PM this time of year in Ireland so it was dark for most of our drive. When we got to our villa we unpacked then found the closest grocery store to buy stuff for breakfasts, lunch for one day and snacks.
So Friday was really our first day. We let ourselves sleep in which was only until about 8. Our bodies were still on AZ and TX time (8 and 9 hours difference), so it felt like we had slept in late.
We headed south to Cork and Kinsale. Our first stop was Blarney Castle. It was a short walk from the entrance to the castle.

The castle is not at all restored, so it is just bare stone everywhere.

Our first expedition was into the dungeon. It was barely a dungeon and the sign said it was used for water storage. That was believable cause it was all drippy and wet. The boys weren't adventurous enough, so Mnisa and I just went in as far as we could with out crawling on our bellies. The boys wouldn't have made it far either, the ceilings were very low.
We didn't get any pictures here, can't remember if Eric snapped one of the girls in the entrance.

I love all the mist in the pictures. It makes the places look so magical. This here is the "Great Hall". Just above Mnisa's head on the right there are two stones that stick out farther than the wall. The signs say there was another floor and the dining room was up there. This is their guess because the kitchen was right next to it.
Ben checking out one of the bedrooms. They were all surprisingly small. The signs said it would have had a four-poster bed in it; which, as I imagined it, would have taken up the entire floor.






The staircases where all spiral, stone, very narrow and dimly lit. It definitely added to the atmosphere though.

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This is a view from one of the top windows. It was a beautiful sunny day, one of the few we actually had much sun.



I had seen pictures and videos of people kissing the Blarney Stone before we left and I had decided I was not going to do it. It is built into Blarney Castle at the very top which is almost 90 feet above the ground. Ben talked me into it though. He was probably right, I would have regretted it if I had gone all the way to Ireland and couldn't say that I kissed the Blarney Stone. You have to lay on your back and grab onto two metal bars that have been added and lean out over the open ground (there are a couple of metal bars across the hole) and stretch to kiss the stone. There is a guy there that will hold onto your waist and help guide you down, but none of that is comforting when you catch a glimpse of the ground below and you don't much like heights.

This is Ben. This picture shows very well what I was saying above.

And below is fuzzy me, terrified.


On the grounds of Blarney Castle is a little river and waterfall and several other fun places to explore.
This was called the Witch's Kitchen. It was a little stone cave with a small fireplace inside.
There was also a circle of large stones they called the Druid's Circle. One of the stone was supposedly used for sacrifices.
There was another little cave and "The Wishing Steps". The steps said if you could walk up the steps with your eyes closed thinking of your wish the whole way up, your wish would be granted. None of us could do it. Ben made it up with his eyes closed, but he didn't think of a wish.

Catching Up

So, I haven't been blogging much lately. It is hard to though, because all of my time has been spent on Christmas presents. I can't post anything on my latest projects until after Christmas. They have been some fun ones though.
We have gotten most of our Christmas decorations up and lights on the house. Hope to get more lights on clearance after Christmas. The kids are so excited. It is gonna be wierd this year. This will be our first year having Christmas with just us. We traded Christmas with my family this year for Thanksgiving, because all of my siblings were able to go to my parents in Washington. We made the 20 hour drive without stopping overnight! It was so nice to be all together. It is the first time that we have all been together, I guess since Ben and I got married seven years ago. Usually somebody is missing (generally my hubby). The kids and I met two new additions to our family (one on my side and one on Ben's). We were able to get family pictures and just have a lot of fun, maybe too much at times (Lysha are you still working on your musical about putting a puzzle together?)
Hope to get our Christmas card done soon. The weather hasn't cooperated much and then Ben has had to work late a lot; so it's dark by the time he gets home. It may end up being a New Year's Card.
It has finally cooled off here and it feels like autumn now. We have had rain a few days and I am so happy to be wearing long pants and warm clothes. I love to be bundled up. I love jackets and sweaters and hoodies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope you are all enjoying this holiday season.

July 4th (and 3rd)

On Friday we played a little dress up. My mom has accumulated a lot of costumes over the years with seven kids. I only captured a couple, but they were the best. This one was one of mine. I can't remember what I wore it for though. Alysha models it very well.

This was Sarah's Halloween costume a few years back. Amy fit this very well, she even did a ninja sneak attack on Dad and Andy.

Friday night we had our own little drive-in movie. My dad has a projector and so we watched Signs (the scariest movie my parents own) out on the side of their trailer. Hyrum and Josi both fell asleep pretty quick. All of the late nights finally caught up with them.

On the fourth we sat in the back yard and watched the neighbors set off fireworks and had a few of our own. I think the neighbors must have all been illegal, 'cause they were way better than ours. Of course we had sparklers and the little snaps for the kids and Grandma also got them some glow sticks to wear.

This is our little light show with sparklers and glow sticks.

Hyrum thought some of them were too loud.

Josi seemed a little bored by it all. I think she was just tired.

On Saturday Andy also did a photo shoot with the kids and he did Alysha's senior pictures for her. I will post them as soon as he gives me copies.

Summer Fun 2

On Wednesday we drove to Astoria and Seaside, OR. We stopped at The Flavel House. It's an old house built in the 1880's by a ship captain named George Flavel. It was kinda neat. It wasn't as cool for me because I had been to that huge mansion in Canada last fall, but still neat. Hyrum and I did get special treatment though. Hyrum needed to go potty and when I asked the guy that worked there where the bathroom was he told me it was clear out by the carriage house, then said we weren't supposed to, but I could use the staff bathroom so we didn't have to go so far for the little guy. I feel special :) I didn't get any pictures of it.

Then on to the beach. We stopped and had lunch at Fultano's Pizza. Josi had been talking about going to the beach for the past few months, since I had started thinking about coming up here. The day was finally here, she was so excited. She came down in the morning already in her swim suit.

Since she had her swimsuit on already she was the first one to get in the water. While the rest of us changed into our swimsuits, Josi headed down with Grandpa. We played in the water for a while, my sisters looked for shells, with not much luck. They saw a crab in the water that was about 6 inches across, then we saw a couple of jelly fish that were a reddish brown color and we quickly got out of their ways.

This is a video of the kids playing in the water. Sorry, it gets a little hard to watch at the end, because I was zoomed in and the tiniest movement was very drastic. Josi was my usual little water baby. Hyrum tried to be tough and would run toward the water, as soon as he saw a wave coming toward him, he would turn and run away.

After a while freezing our buns off in the frigid water, we decided to go up and play in the sand for a while. Andy, Amy, Janae, Alysha and Tonya buried Josi and turned her into a mermaid, which I got on film. Later they buried Hyrum and made him a lobster. Alysha was also a mermaid and Tonya became a big fat person. I didn't get those pictures, but I am sure Andy or Amy and my Dad will share them later. :)

It was a very fun trip. It was the first time seeing the ocean for Alysha, Janae and Hyrum. And Josi had only ever seen the New Hampshire beach in the middle of December. Tonya and I were the only ones that had been to Seaside once, but T had never played in the ocean before. We all decided to save our pennies for the next couple of years for a trip to Florida and a warm water beach as well as Disneyworld, which none of us have ever been to.

Summer Fun

So we have been in Vancouver, Washington for the last week visiting with my family. I drove from Phoenix to Salt Lake on Friday and met up with Andy and Amy, then drove on to Idaho Falls that night. We spent the night at Danny's. Saturday he changed my brakes for me and then I took Naners and her new baby, Collan with us and we caravaned up to Washington. It was a long trip made even longer by the fact that Andy was hauling Alysha's (my great- grandpa's) 1955 Dodge pickup behind his truck. The fastest we could go was about 63 mph. It went pretty well though. The kids were all mostly happy the whole trip which was mostly thanks to Curious George, Tinkerbell, Hercules and a good collection of songs from Disney movies. The first couple of days we just spent recuperating from the trip.
On Tuesday we made a trip up to Multnomah Falls. I was the only one that had been there before. The kids had a ball and walked most of the 3 miles up and back. The way down was a bit steep for Hyrum's little legs so he got passed around. Josi even got a piggy-back ride in a few places.
It was a fun trip. I love the Northwest wilderness!

We had 5 of 7 of us kids there and one spouse (I am behind the camera). Andy and my dad the hobby photographers got the good pictures, so I will have to post some more pictures when they share.

The Old Man

While I was getting the last picture of Josi off of my phone, I found this picture I had forgotten about. For those not at my Grandma's house that night, my dad is pretending to be an old man. I use the word "pretending" very loosely :) Apparently this is not a random occurance.

Chicago O'hare Airport

The trip home from Toronto we had a 4 hour layover in Chicago. To pass a little time Ben and I walked to another Terminal to see the light tunnel. It was pretty cool. These pictures don't do it justice.

On the way there, we passed a dinosaur and this neat Lego display. The Statue of Liberty is actually made of legos. She is holding a windmill instead of a torch though. The display was basically an add for the wind power energy company.

Canada Day 2- Casa Loma

Sunday was our last day and we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted. Our flight didn't leave until 2:30. Ben's boss, Kenneth, and his wife invited us to go with them to Casa Loma (house on the hill). It is a 98 room mansion that they call a castle. Sir Henry Pellat built it and eventually when bankrupt, before it was even finished. He began the project of building it in 1911. It took 3 years and $3.5 million. The Kiwanis Club owns it now.

This fountain is right out front.

This is the swimming pool in the basement. It didn't get finished. In the basement there was also a space that was supposed to be a bowling alley. It just has a cafe in it now for the tourists.

My favorite room was the conservatory. It was Canadian Thanksgiving and they were setting up for a brunch so we couldn't go inside.

This is Sir Pellat's room.

When the house was built he had top of the line everything, including this shower that sprayed from every direction when most homes barely had running water.

This room belonged to Lady Pellat. She was in a wheelchair so she spent most of her time in her room. Looking at these pictures, Josi said she wanted this room. I have to agree with her. I wouldn't mind have a bedroom like this.The closet was amazing too.

This room is called the Round Room. It is perfectly round and all of the doors and windows were specially made to fit with the curve of the walls. Look at the detail on the ceilings too! This was intended to be a sitting room for when royalty was visiting.

Ben's favorite part were the secret passages.

There was one on each side of this fireplace. One went up to his room on the second floor and the other went down to the wine cellar in the basement.

There was also a passage that went from the basement to under the stables/garage/potting shed. It felt like it was a mile long. You couldn't really see the other building from the main house, so it was far even if it wasn't a mile.

You could go up into the towers of the castle. To get there you climbed 4 sets of stairs, two of which were these spiral stairs. It was tough for me going up and even worse coming down.

And this is a view from the tower.There was only a tiny window to look through. The other tower was closed for repairs, but normally you could go out on top of it.

This is the back patio and a view of the grounds from it. I love the fountain.

The grounds were so beautiful, probably my favorite part of the whole thing. This is a little of the formal part of them.

You'll need to click on the photos to see them better. The one on the left has a a cool gazebo in it.

And this is a path to the informal part of the grounds.



This is a really neat sculpture that was on the grounds.

When we got closer I discovered just why is was so neat. And then I read the plaque.