April 2 - Full House!

Friday, we took the day off from sightseeing...we were getting exhausted! We stayed home, played with the kids, did homework, went out for Grandpa's birthday supper, then went to church for the Good Friday service.

Moriah learned to crawl just the week before.

Grandpa was upstairs with the kids taking pictures of the view out the window...

...he turned around after a while and caught her playing with his video camera.

The girls did homework. Aaron, of his own free will, sat with them for about 45 minutes working on letters and pictures.

Grandpa took Aaron on a bike ride in our neighborhood.

Whatever they are working on beyond this wall is not part of our development...

-Aaron wanted to take a picture of him-

...then they climbed over the wall and played on the rocks anyway.

We went out for supper and drove through a hailstorm - only pea sized.

I don't know if Dad took this picture for the hail or the price of fuel. Those prices are Euros per liter. In terms of dollars and gallons:

Diesel costs $6.36 per gallon.

Gasoline costs $6.87 per gallon.
Ouch.

They came all the way to Ireland and we went to an Indian & Chinese restaurant :)

Dad took these pictures as we passed the Docks on the way to the Good Friday service.

Saturday, we left Mom and Moriah at home to enjoy a more relaxing day (I hope) and went out sightseeing again. We took Dad and the girls into Connemara.

We stopped in Roundstone to stretch our legs, let the boys play, and...


...so Rebekah could check her hair. Thanks for this candid, Jen!


Turning green!


Mannin Bay


Passing through Cliffden.

Two steeples in Cliffden, looking back as we drove onto Sky Road.
This is one of Dad's pictures - several in this blog are his.

View from Sky Road. I was thinking this was a good stop for lunch. Unfortuntely, it was so windy that we all stayed in the car to eat. We took in the view out our windows.

We see so many little lambs right now!

Piles of peat.

Here's Aaron as we entered Connemara National Park; our goal was to climb the mountain.

We don't get to see too many goats here.

Dad took this as we started up the path. The peak is called Diamond Hill and we set out to climb as high as we could, weather and children-permitting.

Jen, Rebekah, Daniel, and Silas took the lead. The same Silas who usually whines to us, "I don't like exercise. I don't need exercise. Pleeease, will you carry me, please!?"

You can see from this picture that we started out with beautiful weather, just windy as usual.

Weather changes fast here, and did it ever change. It turned to strong, cold wind and rain.

The rain had turned to sleet. The boys started crying of cold. We decided to admit defeat and turn around. We had climbed quite a ways - it didn't seem like we should be as far from the top as we were.

Another hiker offered to take our picture.
I looked at this picture and wondered for a second why my jacket is unzipped - it was bitter cold being pelted by sleet. I remembered why..I was carrying my camera inside my jacket to protect it and had taken it out for these pictures.

The walk down was into the sleet and wind.
Aaron was crying and scared of the wind. Silas was saying, "You are a naughty wind!"

We girls ran down, leaving the men to carry the boys.

We found shelter and warmth in the Tea Room.

The boys weren't too far behind. Aaron had borrowed Bekah's jacket for the way down.

Turns out my jacket seams aren't as waterproof as they claim to be...wonder if Columbia Sportswear has a full satisfaction guarantee...

We wanted to make this memory not all-bad for the boys...hence the donuts.

I'd never seen Dad drink tea before this trip...just an observation.

Leaving the park. One last look at the mountain we couldn't conquer today... maybe another day, though Silas and Aaron probably won't get the chance.

We drove past Kylemore Abbey. We had considered going in as part of the day's itinerary. Being sopping wet after the hike put that thought out of our minds.

We drove along Killary Harbour, Ireland's only fjord.

Somewhere Daniel took a wrong turn without me, the navigator, noticing and we ended up driving all the way around Lough Corrib - a huge lake. We'd never done this drive, so at least we saw some new scenery.

Cong Abbey

Since we were so close, we drove in to see Ashford Castle.

Fly fishing on the castle grounds.

Sound asleep.

Still sound asleep, they managed to move their heads into a more comfy position.

Jen was the last to fall.

Back home, dry and cozy. The boys showed Grandpa their Irish Whistles. They are very good....and what I mean by that is they are good at blowing very, very loud!

Happy to see Mommy.

Grandma had hardboiled a lot of eggs while we were gone. Silas had dyed a lot of them green before anyone noticed what he was doing.

Auntie Rebekah made an "I love you" egg for each of them.

Days later when I asked Aaron if he had had a good time climbing the mountain, he replied, "Yeah, but not all good. The balls were hitting me in my head and my face and I was scared." Apparently donuts aren't all that effective in erasing the memory of a 4-yr-old.