Irish Rovers: Part I

Okay, really that song's about a ship, but I thought it made a catchy title...We're back from our week in Ireland, it was so much fun!!! And a bit tiring, but we all made it through. Okay, deep breath, here we go...

Wednesday, May 23: Day before we leave. Z gets back from Uruguay. Late that night we look at our tickets and realize our flight leaves at 1:40 pm, not 4:00 pm. Oops. Rethink packing schedule.

Thursday, May 24: Make our 1:40 flight. I forget my trusty pink sweater and my sunglasses, but, hey, it's Ireland, how often will I need my sunglasses? Babies are amazing and sleep almost the entire flight from NY to Shannon. Very yummy airplane food, I had ravioli. Z bags on the ravioli he had while flying to Uruguay, but this was obviously different ravioli, mine was delicious!

Friday, May 25: Arrive in Shannon at 7ish am. Our stroller wheel is very bent. Z whacks it back into place and we're off! Our rental Peugeot, despite being "mid-size" is very tiny. Z jokes with car rental guy about the French, then puzzle-pieces our 2 suitcases, double stroller, diaper bag, baby backpack, and carry-on nicely into it. Oh, and the pipe/tube thingy he whipped together to carry our umbrellas. Oh yeah, and the babies.

We got to our B&B in Blarney later that morning. Oh, how we wanted to sleep! But it's off to Blarney castle with us. We strapped the babies on (my front, Z's back) and climbed up to the top. There was the potential for Bran to bonk his head a couple of times in the skinny spiral staircases, but we took our job as parents seriously and kept him from any noggin damage. I've been before, so I watched the kiddos while Z kissed the stone and it was back onto the grounds with us. We had a lot of fun walking around the Rock Close (basically the grounds, with loads of interesting rocks/rock formations) and seeing all the cool stones and caves and what-not. Z was looking for a geocache, and finally found it. Then we hopped back in the Peugeot, hit a grocery store (not literally, Z was an amazing driver the entire time!) and took our food back to the B&B. The babies were kind of stinky and we wanted them to be not-stinky to meet all the relatives the next day, so we bathed them in the sink and put them to bed. They slept pretty well in their little tents, as did we, even though it didn't get dark until about 10!