Random Friday

I have no creative bone in my body this morning... I had to get up with the new pup very early this morning as my daughter "slept over" in her sister's room. They had a hair and makeup party.. just out of hearing distance of the puppy...

Here is one of the vacation days from our 2005 Ireland trip. Yes! I'm subjecting you to our vacation slide show!


Day 2: Monday June 6th.
We landed around 8:20am Ireland time. We got our rental car at the airport. It took 5 minutes just to figure out how to open the trunk! The kids were crabby.
It took just a little to get used to the left side of the roads and swing around the roundabouts in 2nd gear.
After we stopped at Bunratty castle to confirm our reservation for dinner that night, we went straight to the Old Mill cottage in Bruree, about 30 minutes south of Limerick on N20. The owners are Jessie and Dick Griffin with a son, David, who was Ryan's age. They live downstairs. Wonderful people! Jessie came up and gave us a quick tour of the house. Three bedrooms and two baths. The electricity was coin operated with Irish pounds. Obsolete now, but the system still worked well and the British penny was the same size, so she had a supply for us to use. We then reimbursed her at the end of the week.
Robb and the kids napped while I drove up town to find a grocery store and some food for lunch. I took a short nap when I got back.
After lunch, we headed to Bunratty castle near Shannon for the afternoon and evening. We explored all over the Bunratty grounds seeing many areas we hadn't discovered last time, like the Bunratty manor.
We got done exploring everything there was to see about 2 hours before the Irish night was supposed to begin, so we sat in the courtyard of the restaurant. Meri had talked us into buying a $100 teddy bear with an Irish dancing girl dress. (Ok, it was 17 Euro) So she played with the doll that we named Aoife (pronounced Ee-fa -- Meri's middle name) and she danced around on the grass with her. Ryan bought a Guinness cap that he wore constantly after that unless we requested that he take it off for a picture. We had a great time playing cards and talking while the park closed and we waited for the Irish night to begin. I walked with Meri and found that the dinner was getting ready to start.
Dinner was great! Between each course the waitresses and waiter performed dances and songs on the stage. After dinner, they all went up on the stage and had a wonderful show. Full of dancing, singing, jokes and stories. By this time, we had been awake for many many hours, but managed to stay awake until we got back to Bruree.