Earth Day

Now that I am done with my Ireland posts, I will catch up on the other stuff that has been happening around here.  The boys have started t-ball and coach pitch and are enjoying it.  It is a long drive to get to practice and back, but it is worth it.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate.  Their first game was supposed to be last Saturday but it was rained out.

On Monday the 22nd it was Earth day and another mom from Michael's class wanted to do some fun stuff with the kids that revolves around Earth day.  So we basically took over the class, again.  :-)  We have so much fun volunteering in there together!!  I am really surprised more moms don't want to go and hang out with them.  The class is a really good class and fun to be around!!  Even when I don't stay to volunteer, the kids know I always read books before I leave Michael, so they all pick out a book and I end up reading quite a few books in the morning before I leave.  It is worth it though because Michael really loves me reading!

 

Here Michael is making a his flower for his edible dirt - the kids made all different types of flowers.  It was great to see all of their imaginations at work.

 

Here is Michael's finished edible dirt - it is crushed Oreos, pudding and few other things mixed in, including a worm.  You can't have dirt without worms!

 

I think Michael's favorite part was the worms.  :-)

 

 

This is my normal pose in the morning but usually with more kids around.  We read books while we were waiting for the other kids to finish up.

 

Then we went outside to plant seeds.  Jeri bought seeds that are fast sprouting so the kids could see the results a lot faster.  When I was in the classroom on Monday this week there was already tall sprouts coming out.  The kids thought it was really cool!!!

 

Here Michael is deciding on what seeds to pick.  He ended up with corn and thought it was so cool that the seeds looked like corn kernels!!  He cracks me up!

 

One of Michael's favorite things to do at his outdoor play is play soccer!!!  Luckily his teacher Mr. Angel loves to play with him too!!  So we kicked the ball around for awhile when we were done planting all the seeds.  It was a fun day and so glad I can be involved in their education!!!

Ireland Day 7 - Thursday

Alas we have come to our last day in Ireland.  The week just flew by because we were having so much fun!!  We couldn't believe that our vacation was almost over.  Fran had many surprises for us that day.  The first place that she took us to Dromoland Castle.  It is a sister castle to Ashford.

 

 

 

The first building was built in the 15th or early 16th century.  It later became the residence of eight generations of the O'Brien family.  That is the same O'Brein that built the tower at the Cliffs of Moher.

 

When the US presidents come to Ireland this is where they stay and play golf a lot of times.  In 2004 President Bush stayed there and was guarded by approximately 7,000 police, military and private security forces during his 16-hour visit.  Other famous guests have also stayed there including Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Ali, Jack Nicholson, Johnny Cash and many more.  It is waaaaayy too expensive to even think about us staying there.  I think Fran said it is about 450 Euros a night per person, which is about $586.

The boys liked the big knights - Michael with one of them

AJ's turn- doesn't he look excited?

The family - doesn't David look handsome in his new hat?  I think so!!

One of the tea rooms in the castle.  It was really impressive inside there, but still wouldn't pay that kind of money for a night.

We decided to get some energy out of the boys this morning and the three of us played tag.  I always seemed to be it, but that is okay I tagged the boys a few times.

We found this cool little pond and you know boys, when there is water around they are drawn to it.

My boys - I sure do love them all!!!  They are so precious

 

They had a walled garden there also, they are popular in Ireland for the rich.  Fran said they were good for employment.

 

Love this little bridge in the walled garden!!

 

After that we headed to Quin Abbey.  It was built in the 12th century and was built by Thomas who came with the Normans to Ireland. 

 

This is a statue of Zeus that was in the middle of a stream.

 

There were two dolphins that were caught in this river near the Bunratty Castle.  There were tons of people trying to see them.  The water was a little low and they weren't there when we got there but they were seen that morning.  Here Michael is looking for them, can you believe that it was raining only a few minutes before this picture?

 

This is a typical house back in the days.  The thatched roof is what the middle class and lower class people used for their houses.

 

The boys actually really loved this little village!  They had maps and were hunting to see where the next house was.

 

Here is AJ helping stoke the fire - they had fires in all of the houses that we went into.

 

You will never guess......yep another cannon and now all three boys!!!  Gotta love them!!

 

We went into the Bunratty castle - which was built by the brother of the man who built the Quin Abbey, Richard Sinclair, who was also known as strong bow.  Michael is in the Dungeon here, we thought about leaving him, but then decided he was too cute and let him out.

 

 

Fran and Michael being the King and Queen - don't they look stately!!

 

AJ is now being King - ruling his people

 

 

This was the inside of the house of a little richer middle class.  They had a loft up top and you can see the plates in the cabinet right there.

 

AJ sitting on an old tractor - not as comfy as Grandpa's tractor.

 

David and I out in front of the Golden Vale Farmhouse - a farmer from the rich lands.

 

What was really interesting in the house is that they have somebody in there cooking scones for people to sample.  Well of course Fran knew her and they are cousins.  What we didn't know until after we continued talking is that her last name is Kennedy - Joan Kennedy.  It was too cool!! I have no idea if I am related to her or not but I am going to do some checking.

 

Joan was nice enough to let us in where we weren't supposed to be and take a picture at the table.  It was pretty cool!!  Good to know people and have a good last name!

 

This pig absolutely cracked me up, you see how he is on the wall, well he jumped up right in front of Michael and scared the wits out of him.  It was soooo funny!!

 

The boys at school - AJ doing some good studying of the map

 

This I had to take for David - it was his motto being in Ireland.  We actually did find out that it is good for you for some medicinal purposes, especially if you have half milk and half Guinness.  Not sure what that tastes like, but whatever works!

 

These are what the travelers used back in the day.   They usually only stayed in one place 3 months, not much more.  They actually did really well for themselves and are now pretty wealthy.  They have a different type of transportation now and most are actually settled down.

 

David and I taking a stroll down the road.

 

The boys chilling on another trailer that was used for transportation

 

This was a kids play area in there - it had a great maze that the boys wanted to take us through

 

So we heard that everybody who came to Ireland has to go to Durty Nelly's.  So we went there and the boys had a little something to eat.

 

I thought this bike was very cool!

 

If you look closely you can see the Chelan County patch there - that is where David and I are originally from :-)

 

Then we went to St Mary's Cathedral, one of the few protestant churches that we were able to see.  It is one of the most famous churches in Ireland.  It was founded in 1168 AD by King Donal Mar O'Brein, King of Thomond.

 

St Mary's has a wealth of stained glass windows in it.  Before people were literate the Bible was often taught using images expressed in stained glass.

 

They had so many beautiful statues and stained glass all over the church.  After the church we went over to the Hunt's Museum.  It was actually the boys favorite stop for the day.  They had workbooks for the boys to do at their levels and it was like a scavenger hunt for them.  It was a neat museum that had a huge variety of items from paintings, to jewelery, to shields and all sorts of items.  We weren't allowed to take photos of it, but there were some beautiful pieces. 

 

This is St John's Cathedral it was built in 1856, one of the newer churches in Ireland.

 

These stalls were carved in Munich in 1894. 

 

Our last stop was this beautiful hotel.  The boys were a little done at this point, so Fran let us off to walk up to the house from here and enjoy the scenery of the river and the bridge. 

 

I thought this was a cool tree!!  I have never heard of a cork oak tree.  It originates from the Mediterranean.  This is a very rare specimen of the cork oak tree.  It has a lifespan of around 300-400 years.  They think this tree is about 100 years old.  After that we headed to our last B & B.  We walked into town to a quaint pub.  The food was fantastic, but the service was awful!!  I mean really awful.  I am so glad we brought the uno cards, because if not I don't think the boys would have sat down that long, but they actually wanted to stay longer so we could play more.  :-)  We had a surprise visit from Dara at the airport and the boys were excited to see him again and beat up on him a bit to give him some parting bruises.  :-)  Ireland was such a wonderful trip and all of us would LOVE to go back and we are going to before we leave here.  They are such wonderful, pleasant, nice people that they make you want to go back.   I can't wait till our next trip!!!

Ireland Day 6 - Wednesday

Right across the road from our B & B in Ennis was a beautiful church, Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul!!!  It was gorgeous and different from the other churches I had seen.  My favorite part about it was the giant hands out in front.  You can see above how big they are. 

 

Below are a few of the sayings that were underneath them, I really loved them, especially the last two!

 

I hope and pray that I am doing this for my children.

 

This church didn't have all the stained glass windows like the other ones did, instead it had paintings up front.

 

This was on the side, I think it was left up from Easter, but it is very well done and I loved all the fresh flowers in there also.  It was very quiet and peaceful in there in the morning.  I walked across by myself and left all the boys in the room.  It was very pleasant.

 

This is a 15th century castle, O'Dea Dysert Castle. It was built in 1480 by Diarmuid O'Dea and stayed in the family until 1691.  Unfortunately it wasn't open yet for the season.  So we weren't able to go inside it.

 

But there was a canon, I think the boys were trying to blow us off the road.  :-)

 

We found a cauldron off to the side and it looks like Michael was going to boil AJ who was pleading to get out.

 

David is looking a bit worried about being boiled alive. 

 

AJ finally gave in and Michael seems happy about it.  LOL  He is giving us the thumbs up sign.

 

AJ is showing us the way, not sure to where, but the way.  If you look closely you can see Michael on the left side.  He is going through what is called a Stile - it is put there so you can go over the wall without having to open the gate.  That way you don't have to worry about your animals escaping. 

 

This, The High Cross, was out in the middle of a cow pasture, we would have never found it had it not been for Fran.  It has been there for centuries and the farmers just built up around it.  It bears a large figure of Christ with arms outstretched in prayer.  Below this is a figure of a bishop whose right hand, probably raised in blessing, is missing.  The base contains fragments taken from the altar of nearby church.  This cross may have been built to commemorate the establishment of the bishoprics in the 12 century.

 

The circle tower on the right was built for many castles.  Normally the window is even higher up.  That is where they would keep their treasure and valuables.  It was only accessible by a ladder that was pulled up and it wasn't easy to reach.  Usually it is about 20 feet up where the window is.  They would have one or two guards up there that could easily defend the treasures from the high ground.

 

This doorway of the church, which would originally have been in the west wall, was carved in the 12th century Romanesque style using decorated rounded arches and is one of the finest in Ireland.  There are also other Romanesque style dating in the 13th century.

 

 

 

The monastery was originally known as Disert-Tola, the quiet place (literally, the "desert") of St Tola, its early 8th century founder.  I found it quite interesting that when the churches were no longer used, they started making the inside of the church a burial ground also.

 

Out enjoying the wonderful countryside!!!

 

This is the Caherconnell Fort.  It is thought to be built in the 10th or 11th century and used all the way until possibly the 17th century.  It is more than twice the size of the regular fort.  It was uncovered by a farmer who was digging in his land.  He had no idea that it was that large.  He decided to let others come excavate it and let tourists come and enjoy the history.

This was the grave where they found the bones of the inhabitants from the 15-16th century, but what is interesting is they found bones that were put there in the last few hundred years. 

 

This is called the Burren, which means a stony place.  It is very well named because the stones are all over the place.  There wouldn't be any good place to grow crops in this area.

 

The Poulnabrone Portal Tomb is situated in a karst limestone plateau.  The tomb was constructed from great slabs of limestone over 5000 years ago.  They have discovered the remains of over 30 people at this ancient site. 

 

There is Michael out on the rocks.  AJ and I followed.  We went quite a ways until we couldn't really see David and Fran and decided it would be best if we headed back.  We probably could have climbed over rocks for hours there and never run out.  They were as far as the eye could see.

 

Fran had promised the boys a cave to go into.  So we headed to the Aillwee Caves.  These were actually pretty neat.  A farmer had lost his dog and went to search for him and found him in the caves in 1940.  He went back to get some candles and searched around the caves.  He then kept it a secret for about 30 years.  He only mentioned something about them after he had been drinking in the pub with some friends.

 

Here are AJ and Michael starting the walk through the cave.  There are many parts where David and I had to duck because the ceiling was too low.

These are bones from a brown bear that are dated to be about 2000 years old.

 

You can see the indention here in the stone floor where the bear slept for the winter.  I would not have wanted to come in while the bear was sleeping.

 

These are dated about 10,000 years old.  The ones on the ceiling that are small never get that old because they get too heavy and fall to the ground. 

 

This is a picture to show you the top.  It used to be a river running through the mountain.  It was in a tube and it took thousands and thousands of years before the river broke through the bottom and made this cave.

 

 

This is the waterfall that was deep in the cave.  It was a good long walk around.  He also shut the lights off at one point to show how dark it was and it was pitch black. 

 

 

This was a place along the road that you could actually get drinking water from.  The sign says to keep it clean because of the drinking water.

 

 

 

This is a picture of the coast line in the burren.  As you can see that it is much different than down in Dingle where we were the first few days.  You realize why this is called a stony place.

 

This is a little hard to tell in the picture, but those white animals in the back are llamas.  They aren't a widespread animal here in Ireland, so it was neat to see them.

 

This is Doolin village, it is a quaint village on the coastline.  You can see the bright colors, the horse on the left and the lady on the bike.  I love small towns!!!

The wind was really blowing as you can see here, as the waves broke it blow almost twice the size. 

 

AJ was very enthralled with watching the waves, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because I could spend hours watching the waves.

 

Just another cool shot of the waves crashing in.

 

This was the crossroads of many different places.

 

This was the Cliffs of Moher - it was such a picturesque place!!   They are the most famous cliffs of Ireland!!

 

This is O'Brien's Tower that is located half way and was built in 1835 by Sir Cornellius O'Brien who built a watchtower.  It is said that it was built for recreation or for the ladies.

 

The cliffs are nearly vertically in many places from the Atlantic Ocean and extending over a length of about 49 miles long.  They are as high as 702 Feet.

 

Michael loves riding on Daddy's shoulders and is pointing out to some more beautiful scenery!

 

We are passed the O'Brein tower here.

 

Looking back towards the O'Brein tower, you can see the other tower in the distance. 

 

I just thought this was a very cute picture of my boys!!

 

I walked down the other way and this is looking back on O'Brein's tower.  We were so lucky here, the morning was full of fog and we didn't think that we were going to be able to see anything at the cliffs.  But the fog cleared and we had such wonderful views!!!  Also the rain was threatening to come and it stayed away until we were leaving and then the rain came. 

 

This is St Bridget's well.  It was a pagan goddess turned Christian. 

 

It is said that drinking from this well is healing.  It started in the old days people went to visit the well and left religious objects like images of the Virgin Mary and Rosary beads.

 

Now there are pictures of people, prayer requests, toys, photographs and so much more.  It has items from the wall to the floor.

After the well, Fran told the boys that she was taking them to a beach to run on.  Well when we got there, it was more like the Burren, all rocks and no beach.  But luckily there was a park right across the road.

 

There was this great zip line at the park that the kids loved!!!

 

Albert's turn

 

Then David and Michael thought it would be fun to ride together.  Thankfully they made it okay!

 

AJ thought it would be fun to push Mommy off the ramp so I could get moving faster.

 

So up I swung.  Michael did this the first time and was a little freaked out but then got over it.

 

They also had this for climbing - of course they wanted to go all the way to the top multiple times.  It was a great park to run off some energy.  They did such a good job hanging with us for most of the day!  After this we headed back to the hotel for another evening of Uno this time!  The boys really liked playing games and I think Uno was their favorite!!!