We're all a little Nutty

Just keep moving. That's what the continuous storms did.  The visibility was great so we could see miles into the distance.  About every 30 minutes, the sun would give way to a 15 minute squall that would freeze any exposed skin.  And then beauty would return again. Just keep moving. That's what the wind did.  Except for the first 3 days we spent near Dublin, we were blasted by constant wind everywhere we went.  It howled around our cottage on the shore.  It tossed the seas, causing ferry trips to be cancelled.  It blew in the storm systems, and it tried to penetrate our layers of warmth. the wind at the top of the Cliffs of Moher was so strong that we could lean into it and not fall over descending down from the Cliffs of Moher Just keep moving. That's what we did.  We moved because there was so much to see.  We moved because it was the only way to keep warm! And every once in awhile we stopped moving and enjo...

DAY 1: After flying all day, we arrived in Ireland at midnight our time and 7am there.  We rented a car and drove off (on the left side of the road) to find adventure. We hadn’t yet figured out that you had to load google maps ahead of time in order to use the map offline, so we clumsily navigated by little map snips that I had printed with written directions about how to find the places we wanted to see. Our first stop was Newgrange - a 5000 year old passage tomb.  We got to explore the grounds AND go inside. Well worth the visit. Our second stop was a walk around the battlefields of “Battle of the Boyne” -- one of the best known battles in the history of the British Isles.  Lizzie wasn’t super excited about this. I think it was jetlag talking. Lizzie expressing her disdain for walking any further We somehow made our way to a little town west of Dublin called Leixlip and even managed to find our manor house hotel, nestled in the hills above ...

Since it cost $50-70 each time we ate out, we stocked up at grocery stores any time we could.  We usually had breakfast in our room/house; picnic lunch wherever we traveled that day; and dinner we ate out most of the time.  Here are some of the adventures that we had eating 31 meals on the road. Picnics in beautiful places: eating lunch before our tour of the Portumna workhouse happy to find a picnic table for our lunch at Clonmacnoise picnic lunch at Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains (I was freezing cold because I forgot to bring my pants and extra jacket that I'd packed before we left for church that morning) curbside picnic (next to the takeout place where we bought dinner) at 8pm in between Saturday sessions of General Conference Breakfasts or dinners in hotel rooms: breakfast before church dinner in our awesome cottage near Doolin chicken tikka masala takeout in our hotel room in Clondalkin  Restaurants and pubs: del...

I intend to post about our Ireland adventure in installments because we had many grand adventures.  This first one will give you insight into what it looks like when 5 of us share the same space for 11 days.  Stay tuned for more beautiful and exciting details yet to come!... After a cold trip from the Aran Islands on the plane to Dublin "I'm not going to walk on this stupid historic trail one more minute." "I'm not sure I want to eat this entire burger..." Waiting for the museum to open Dublin waiting for pizza There's always room for a digestive biscuit "This museum is boring." "I'm mad at Mom because she won't give me another bandaid." "Mom apologized so we are friends again." Our roomy car for 5 sharing each others' space in the parking lot of our manor house racing to climb on the castle ruins chess before dinner waiting for ...