Ireland

We are officially trying to get caught up in the blogging world, but as you can see from this post we had just a couple of pictures from our summer trip. While Justin was busy in DC, Nana and Grandad took pity on us and took us to Ireland to help us break up our Justinless summer. Bridget was VERY nervous about traveling with three small children, but they all really outdid themselves and things went about as smoothly as possible.After our first leg to NYC (which was the only one Bridget had to do all by herself), we met up with Nana, Grandad and Brian at the JFK airport. Even though we were tired, it was fun to see him for a little while.

We then headed to Ireland and were very excited when we arrived in Shannon. Someone mistakenly took Grandad's carry on instead of their own so he had to run down to page the passenger without us. This meant that Nana and Bridget had to get this mountain of luggage from the baggage claim and then we had to get everything through customs by ourselves. Luckily we had a little man with us who stepped up to the plate. Ian wheeled one of these carts through customs by himself! He was the hero of the day and we were totally amazed we made it.

We were promptly greeted by amazing family and were treated like royalty at Catherine and Richard's home. Here are Catherine, Richard, Brian, and Mum with Nana and Grandad.

We took a trip out to Brian's property to visit and ride the horses.

Rachel was delighted to say the least.

Sinead was so sweet with the kids and Ian was thrilled to be like a real cowboy.

Yee-haw!

Yippee!

Stephen and Samantha were so sweet with the kids.

They were excited to have another guy to torment.

Yeah, Ian is running around shirtless. It was a serious vacation.

Ian quickly figured out that Richard was very cool and worked on a lot of great projects. So, for the remainder of the trip Richard had a three-year-old shadow.

For most of the trip we were in Glenbeigh, County Kerry right by the beach. Here are some pictures of Ian and Rachel's first time playing in the water.

Helen was amazing and did so much to prepare for our trip.

Mum and Grandad at the beach.

Josie really started enjoying food on this trip. Where she had only been eating one or two bites of finger food per meal before, she began eating much more in Ireland.

The kids got some adorable wetsuits so that they could more fully enjoy the very brisk (aka freezing) Irish waters.

With Uncle Gerry before they're off to Clonmel.

Samantha continued the spoiling efforts by getting the kids some fun dinosaur fossils that they got to scrape out themselves.

Rachel and Grandad were quite the musical duo on the trip. Here they are perfecting their party piece, "Georgie Girl".

We visited Cahersiveen with Catherine as our guide.

Despite Bridget's heart threatening to stop, we let the kids climb to the top of the old stone barracks.

A friendly tourguide even gave Ian a spin on the bus wheel. After this we headed to Kells Bay for a true Irish picnic in "soft" rain.

Landscaping around the new caravan was a major endeavor and here Grandad was planting his Golden Curl tree.

We headed to Muckross Abbey in Killarney and had a fun tour in a jaunting cart.

Here we are with Kieran next to the Falls. We actually saw a huge group of students from BYU here.

We had a talent show one night where Ian danced (and did a hilarious bum waggle), Rachel sang and there was a multitude of other talents displayed as well.

We had exceptional weather, but even so this was beach attire most days.

Rachel loved to pretend to be a mermaid on the rocks.

We had a box full of cookies that the kids LOVED. Since we were on vacation we let them choose one after lunch and dinner and it was always a delicious treat. Irish cookies are fabulous.

We had some fun movie nights.

One of the landscaping projects was this rock path.

Nana and Grandad took the "big" kids on a trip to Ballymalis Castle near Kilorglin.

They stopped at a fun park on the way home.

Grandad's sandwiches were a serious topic of conversation on the trip. Between pickled onions, sardines, and mustard the kids were a little grossed out at lunch time. Here they are making a judgment of the meal.

Mum couldn't get enough of Josie and deemed her the sweetest baby she had ever seen. She kept marvelling at how she never heard her cry. We promise, she does cry, but she is also mighty sweet.

Here are Nana and Rachel on a drive to Kells Bay. Josie learned to pull herself up on this trip and was always proud of her accomplishments.

We headed to a farmer's market in Milltown and it was in this hollow old church. They had delicious pasteries, so we just had to sample the goods.

Here is the inside of the church at Milltown that doesn't have the market.

Oh, so reverent. Well, kind of.

The landscaping projects continued with the cutting down of this massive tree by Grandad and Richard. It was quite the spectacle for the day and the kids were fascinated.

Mum is a great storyteller and reader and Rachel took full advantage of another person to read her stories.

We were so lucky to have visitors in Glenbeigh and it was so fun to see Gillian, Niamh, Brian, and Niamh's boyfriend for the 4th of July. We had a little campfire and some delicious food to celebrate.

The cutting continued...

We headed to the Cromaine beach and the wind was incredible.

On a Killarney trip we saw the Cathedral. Because it was raining Bridget had to leave Nana iwth the three kids there while she ran back for the car. She was terrified they would be running all over, but they reportedly did pretty well except for Ian's attempt at blowing out a candle. Not too shabby.

We went to the Muckross Traditional Farms and had a fantastic time.

Richard told the kids that thatched cottages were "hairy houses" so they were excited to see lots of them at the farms.

Inside one of the cottages.

We checked out the sand dunes one day and while it was a little too windy for Rachel's taste, Ian had fun digging in the sand.

There were some gorgeous walks around Glenbeigh and in one of the forests Ian and Grandad pretended to be lephrechauns working on shoes.

We went to Ross Castle in Killarney adn the kids loved the old trees and the cannon.

More musical marvellings ensued when Rachel and Ian got some tin whistles.

The kids loved to play "shop".

And fishing.

Mum's sister Aunt Una was fun to see and Josie loved her.

The things you resort to on a rainy day.

Grandad with his Uncle Frank and Aunt Una.

Catherine made a feast for us the last weekend there and some of the extra guests were Stephen's girlfriend Melissa and his cousin Aaron.

Paul and Lydia also came from Galway.

Catherine and her sister Margaret making our Indian food feast.

Before we left we had to check out Stephen's rowing team, so Catherine took us down to the river to see the sights.

Ian needed to check out the rigs.

We fed the swans while we waited for the rowers.

Checking out the swans.

Here is Stephen with his teammates posing for a newspaper photographer. Since our trip Stephen's team has won the Irish national title and has also won the championship in the whole British Isles. They're continuing to prepare for the London Olympics. Congratulations Stephen!

Here we are in downtown Limerick on our last night there.

We couldn't leave Ireland without some fish and chips, so we headed to downtown Limerick on our last night and had a feast with Mum.

Our girls saying goodbye to the best hosts and family. These two have definitely been missed!

The day of our departure we arrived at the airport in plenty of time and were greeted with the bad news that everything was delayed because of bad weather in New York. We had to wait in Shannon for two hours longer than we had planned to board our plane. Luckily, we were distracted by fun toys and family.

They had a fun little playplace that was a lifesaver for the kids.

Ian waited out the delay by "playing" a race car game.

After a weather delay made it so that we missed our connecting flight in New York (along with approximately one million other angry passengers), we had to stay the night in a hotel in the Big Apple. The kids were delighted to have room service, an ice dispenser, a mirror (highlighted by our cute Josie) and be able to take a train to our hotel. Because we hadn't planned on the extra delay Bridget had to be brave and walk to a kind of scary store for diapers. But, it was luckey that we did because our last leg was rocky to say the least with exhausted kids, many explosive Ian diapers (the first class stewardess was absolutely disgusted to say the least), and a sad little Josie, we have never been so thrilled to be home. From when we left Catherine's home to when we arrived in Utah it was 45 hours of travel. We felt like troopers and were very proud of all of the kids for being so good despite the crazy trip back.

It was a really wonderful trip and one I know will be remembered in our family. Thank you Nana and Grandad for everything and for thinking of us in the first place and thank you to everyone in Ireland for going out of your way to make everything so fun for us.