Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Extra Pictures

I took over 900 pictures on our Scotland/Ireland vacation.   
These are a few the ones that didn't make the other blog posts.  
 This was a giant ice glacier at Dynamic Earth.  
These were the sinks in Ireland and Scotland.  It was impossible to get warm water.  
You either had cold or scalding hot water.  I guess they want you to stop up the sink and mix the two?

Ethan enjoyed cotton candy at the Highland Games.  
Nate had fudge on the brain the whole vacation.
 The pubs in Dublin were really pretty.
 There was also some really cool graffiti in Dublin. 
 These ladies had some killer heels!
 The fellas were obsessed with climbing everything they could.
 The boys had to be so tired of Nate and I saying, "THAT IS GORGEOUS."  
In this picture, Link just said, "I don't mean to be rude, but they are just some cliffs!"  
 Ethan absolutely loved running and jumping on the rocks at Giant's Causeway.  
I just tried to not twist an ankle.  
 This is Europa Hotel in Belfast.  According to our bus guide, it's the most bombed hotel in Europe.  
 These are some interestingly dressed people in Belfast.  
 In this picture, Ethan is making Nate and Link sign the letters L-E.  He is signing A and P.  
I love that they just went along with it.  
 I had such a hard time taking pictures of this guy.  Both he and Ethan have such light skin.  
They either glow or are too dark in my pictures.  
 These boys are definitely the children of a blogger.  They started asking me to take pictures of them.
 This was just a super pretty picture!
 We did lots of selfies!!!  The sun was so bright here! 
 I love this picture of the little micra.  We brought two duffel bags, two backpacks, and one suitcase.  At the rental car place, we were VERY nervous that our luggage wouldn't fit!  
We kept one of the backpacks up front with us and everything fit.....snuggly.  
Oddly enough, the boys didn't really ask for any souvenirs.  Ethan found a tiny snow globe that said Ethan.  Link didn't ask for a thing.  On our very last day, I showed the boys the flutes and told them they could have them.  Ethan is really good on his recorder, so I thought these would be cool.   
Nate and I came home with t-shirts, scarves, two hats each, and a sweater.  

Last Day

 We had an afternoon flight, so we had a few hours before we needed to be a the airport.  
The Torc waterfall was a few hours from our B&B.
 The waterfall is in the Killarney National Park.  We decided to drive a bit and enjoy the views.  
 We stopped at the Ladies View.  
 We enjoyed a cup of coffee and and the views.  
 These leprechauns bought Irish flutes.  
We kept driving and saw a sign to the Black Valley.  
Our B&B host suggested we go to the Black Valley a few days ago.  
We cut down this path (it was as tiny as a path)
 We even had an Irish traffic jam.  
 Our GPS said 12 miles (30 minutes).  
 Around 30 minutes into our trip, we had gone about 4 miles.   
Thankfully, we had not come across another car.  
And then......the people started popping up at this spot.  We ran into a lot of hikers.  The road was so small, we couldn't even share it with the people. They had to get on to the grass.  
 We were having a hard time enjoying these views because 
we were running into more and more hikers. 
We started seeing horse drawn carriages too!  It was scary.  An hour and 15 minutes later, we were through the Black Valley and the Gap of Dunloe.  
Both were recommended by our host and they were gorgeous!  

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Dingle Peninsula

 YES!  We woke up to beautiful weather on Saturday!  
We got an early start and hit the Dingle Peninsula.  
 We stopped along the way at different sites.  Our first was an ancient fort.  We payed 8 euro to stand and look over a gate at the fort.  We should have driven past this stop!  
 The next stop was one of the potato famine houses.  The inside depicted the poor way the people lived. It was really sad.  
 This is a view on the way down the hill from the potato famine house. 
 We also stopped to look at the beehive houses.  They are ancient stone houses. 
 Nate did some crazy climbing.   The boys saw him and begged to climb down too!  No way fellas!!
 We were super excited for the views and they did not disappoint. 
 At this stop, I found a nice rock and took a break.  
 The guys took a hike up to these rocks while I enjoyed the views!
 After a quick lunch at a pub, we stopped at an old church.  
This stone had a thumb hole used to "seal deals."  

 We finished Dingle and drove over to Conor's Pass.  
We were apprehensive because we heard that the rode is TINY!
 We came up to this view and were amazed!  
 THEN, we started down!  Thankfully, the truck in front of us stopped and waited for the oncoming cars to come before starting down.  
 The views going down were also fabulous!
 This guy told us hello!
 We decided to have dinner in Tralee.  
We had some time to kill before dinner, so we stopped at a rose garden.  
I spotted a playground and told the boys to head over.  They ran over and then came right back.  Ethan said the gate was locked.  I thought he was mistaken because it was packed with kids and parents.   Sure enough, signs were posted DO NOT ENTER!  DANGER!!!  THINK SAFTEY!  We stopped for a second and then saw that there was one spot under construction.  We told them to stay away from that spot and go climb over the fence.  Link REFUSED!!!!  Nate picked him up and he grabbed onto Nate's leg.  It was hilarious.  A little Irish Granny and I laughed and laughed and him!  He finally went over and had fun! 

Leap Day

 We left Mary's house near the Cliffs of Moher on Friday morning.  As we left, we were surrounded by FOG!  We had big plans to drive the Dingle Peninsula, but we wanted to actually enjoy the views.  So, we ditched that plan and drove south to Leap, Ireland!
 It was a long drive, but we were excited to see what the little village looked like.  
After doing some research, we learned that the village's full Irish name means "O'Donovan's Leap" and is derived from the story of a chieftain called O'Donovan, who was pursued by English soldiers, but escaped them by jumping across a ravine at the bottom of the village.
There were three places to eat in Leap, so we picked the Leap Inn.  

 We were the only people there, so we were a little leary.  We ordered some tuna sandwiches.  
 Link was not a fan!
 After lunch, we drove to the Leap church and parked.  
 Across the street was the Leap Amenity Playground.  
 The Leap boys had to play on the Leap playground.  
We had a fun little stop in Leap, Ireland!