Northern Ireland

In July, I went to visit Annaliese, who moved to Belfast last year.  I flew into Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, and took a 2 hour bus ride to Belfast in Northern Ireland.  I explained to my students, "One island, two countries, both Ireland.  Clear as mud, right?"  Annaliese and her husband met me at the bus station, and our adventures began.  

Aarron is a fabulous guide to the local sights.  After a quick rest, they took me out for a nice long walk, then we had dinner looking over the water.  When I got full, I tossed some of my fries to the seagulls.  

The next day, they took me sightseeing.  See the castle ruins?  That's Dunluce.  

Here I am at Dunluce Castle, which we explored.

We visited Giant's Causeway, the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland.  

It's like a giant playground.

Notice the rusty look to the columns?  Aarron noticed that people have wedged coins into the rocks.  

Since Northern Ireland is a part of the UK, they have the same post boxes as England.  Each monarch has their own cypher.  This post box is from the time of Queen Victoria.  

This beauty is Marvin, the female neighbor cat.  

She is very friendly and affectionate.  It was nice to enjoy her company, as it meant I didn't miss Grumman as much as I usually do when I'm away.  

Another day, another castle!  This is Carrickfergus Castle.  

This is Giant's Ring (well, it's actually the tomb at the center of the ring, but you can see the henge behind it).  

We went out to dinner with Aarron's mum and gran.  It's nice to know Annaliese has sweet in-laws nearby.  The food was wonderful.  This is steak & Guinness pie and champ (mashed potatoes with scallions & such).  

One day I went to the Titanic museum while Annaliese worked.  

The ship was built in Belfast.  The museum is quite an experience!  

One of the lifejackets

Wallace Hartley's violin, from the band that played on while the ship went down.  

I had a nice fish & chips lunch at the cafeteria after Titanic.  



One morning, we wandered St. George's Market, which is dozens of little stalls with vendors selling food and goods.  I had a pastry and brought home a couple books to share with my students.  (I ended up flying home with 9 books altogether, and photos of several more to try and find at the library.)  

Annaliese took me to CS Lewis square.

Mr. Tumnus the faun

The White Witch

Aslan

The weather was lovely that morning.  

After the square, we went for brunch.  

I ate so well while I was with them!  This avocado toast was amazing.  

We also visited the botanic gardens, did a hop on hop off bus tour, and a couple more museums, but you get the idea.  I had a really nice visit with Annaliese.  When my time there was up, I bussed back to Dublin.  More to come!  

Goodbyes and More Goodbyes

I'm finding it difficult to make time to blog these days, but I do have things to share, so here goes.  

Remember last time I showed a splotchy watercolor page?  That turned into this:  

Super easy, yet beautiful, bookmarks.  

Liquid watercolor, pipettes, Crikey, and laminator.   I thought to myself, "Self, you could do this project with the second graders, it's so easy!"  Self should have laughed at me, knowing that I have them for only 30 minutes, and also planned to go over rules, book care, introductions, etc, *and* do checkout.  In 30 minutes.  So that was kind of a disaster.  But now I know.  Honestly, one of my favorite parts of teaching is how much I learn.  

I split the kids into two groups, thinking one group painting, one group selecting books and checking out, and then they'd switch.  Erm.  I underestimated how long things would take.  

(side note:  the paper towels under the pages were pretty when they dried and I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I'm using them when I clean Tuzi's cage, and they make me smile.)

But most of the students got to paint, and everyone eventually got a book, and all's well that ends well, right?  Their bookmarks turned out beautiful, and I was able to Crikey cut 2 bookmarks from most pages, so everyone will be getting a finished bookmark.  I'm going to try this project again this week with another class, and more realistic expectations for what else we can accomplish.  

Mid road trip potty stop.  

We went to Nevada for a funeral.  

It was nice having most of the family together, even though it was for a sucky reason.  Bri tried to make it, but their flight was cancelled.  Zach's got a new baby, so they elected not to travel.  But 7 out of 9 is really impressive for my crew, so I enjoyed that.  

Even just seeing them interact with each other warms my heart.  

Later, at the hotel, swimming happened.

And lounging.

And socializing.  

My Dad and step mom, beautiful examples of what I'd like to be more of.  

Katie got pretty brave in the pool with Jack and Eli.  Hannah wasn't having it, so she got out.  

Relatively new on the scene is Josiah's lady friend, Miss M.  I'm glad she was there to comfort him, as he was the closest to the deceased from our nuclear family.  

We drove through horrible smoke both ways.  This is daytime.  

As we started getting further from the fires and closer to home, you can see it got much brighter out.  

Sam was home with us for a few days before heading off on his next adventure, so he and the girls started watching Lord of the Rings together.  

Eli's visit came to an end.  Miss Adorable's family loves him, and they all went to Tahoe together and had other fun adventures.  I'm glad they had a nice time.  It's good to see him happy.  

Eli left on a Tuesday, 

and Sam left on Sunday, so my heart is a bit achy, and the house seems quiet and empty without my boys.  (Yes, even with 4 kids still at home.)

Warning light, eh, tire looks fine.  Next day, still on.  Paul put some air in it for me.  Next day, light was back on.  Meh, looks okay.  Next day...

Reading a book at Honda for over an hour, waiting for Matilda to get a new tire.  

Box of new books for the library.

Speaking of which, here it is again.  This arrangement seems to be working for the moment.  It's still very much a work in progress, of course, but we made it through week one okay.  I'm going to need more bookcases eventually.  

My classes have different numbers of students, but between table chairs, ottomans (ottomen? lol), the rug, and chairs requisitioned from the class next door, we make it work.  I do some rearranging between classes to accommodate various group sizes.  

I'm rocking my new Hello Kitty lunch bag.  Because I can.  The older kids would have rolled their eyes at me.  These last few stragglers seem to accept Mom's just a lil weird.  

I was having a rest when I heard a noise and opened my eyes to this.  Yikes!  Oh Grumman.  

Heading back to Shriners this week.  I wish the girls didn't have to miss school already, but Hannah needs to get that new leg going, and it's quite a process.  Katie's looking forward to a less conspicuous ankle.  

Sorry the formatting is a bit off this week.  Blogger put my photos in reverse order, which was a pain to semi-straighten out.  I figured posted but imperfect was better than not posting at all.