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!  

May/June/July

I feel like the blog is fizzling out.  Different season of life, I guess.  Here's some of what we've been up to.  

We have a gray cat in the neighborhood that has been coming around to visit.  I've been putting food out for him, because I find it so amusing to watch Grumman's little walnut brain be blown by the idea of another cat out there.  I leave the door open a couple inches when he is here, and they "high five" each other through it.  

We made it through the end of the school year, and all the end of school year events.  Certificates were passed out.  Songs were sung.  Parents applauded.  

This was taken in the Kaiser waiting room.  I had some weird eye issue when we finally limped across the End of School finish line.  Thankfully, after 3 weeks of prescription drops, it cleared up with no lasting repercussions.  

Here's Jack with a 3D printed airplane.  He's a full fledged grown up with his own car, his own church, and his own opinions, lol.  He even took his first solo vacation recently, road tripping to Idaho to visit family.  

And here's Jack flying a plane.  Again.  Different plane.  

He loves flying, and will hopefully be taking lessons at some point.  

Speaking of flying, in June, I flew to Colorado to see Sam and meet Nan, his fiancé.  They took me to the Denver Zoo.  If you look closely, you can see the elephant is about to chomp down on an entire bunch of celery that the staff member tossed at him.  

We saw lots of neat animals.  Their cream colored raccoons are adorable, but they were hard to photograph.  I think one was named Cashew.  

It was wonderful to see my boy.  And Nan makes him happy, which makes me happy.  

They're getting married next summer.  

This is a terrible picture of their dog, Pip.  He kept crawling in my lap and making himself right at home.  

This is one of their kitties.  They also have a gray kitty, but I can't get the photo to upload.  

It was a quick trip, but I'm so glad I went.  I love that my kids are interesting grown ups with active lives of their own; it's just hard to have them in 4 time zones sometimes.  

I discovered my own mini travel hack on this trip.  I used binder clips to keep my charger cords untangled in transit.  When I turned off the light in my hotel room, I realized there was a gap in the curtains, letting in a flood of light.  I used one of the binder clips to fasten them shut.  

At some point, I will write a post (or a few) about the next trip I took this summer.  

Spring Break Road Trip - part 1

I know, it's been months since I've blogged.  But we finally did something blog worthy.  We took a road trip up to Oregon for spring break.  My motivation was to see a Shakespeare play in Ashland.  But, of course, it turned into so much more.  

Fiona gets a little concerned when the suitcase comes out.  Jack was responsible for the animals while I was gone, so it's a valid worry.  

The drive up north was a bit rainy, and it was whooshing windy when we stopped in Weed.  

We went to the Wildlife Safari in Winston.  I got our tickets via Groupon.  This cheetah has an emotional support dog in the cage with it.  

We saw lots and lots of very cool animals, and the girls even got to ride a camel! 

After Winston, we stopped on the way back to Medford (where we stayed all week) to stretch our legs.  

We took a nice walk along the Rogue River, and I introduced the girls to miner's lettuce.  

You can take a girl out of the library, but you can't take a love of books out of the girl.  We stopped at 2 used bookstores, we pottied at 2 public libraries, and we visited at least 19 Little Free Libraries.  

We wandered around historic Jacksonville, but most things were closed, as hours are limited during the off season.  

But it was still very pretty.  Lots of daffodils and tulips.  

Deer roaming the streets in Ashland.  (We saw more of them by the science museum, but I didn't take a picture then.)

We walked around Lithia Park a bit.  It was chilly, but picturesque.  

We toured Harry & David.  

Many of the machines were not in use since most workers had the week off for spring break, but we did see some activity.

The tour guide made it sound like a great company to work for, and of course, after the tour comes the...

...gift shop!  I didn't buy a mug, but I did miss Grumman while I was gone.  We bought some dark chocolate truffles and a soup mix I'm looking forward to trying.  

So, it goes without saying that we visited a lot of public restrooms.  In fact, this morning when Eddie Murphy's Party All the Time was playing on the radio, I mentally changed the chorus to, "My kids want to potty all the time, potty all the time, potty all the tiiiiiiime..."  Anyway, I spotted a duck in one of the restaurant bathrooms we visited and it reminded me of cruising ducks, which made me smile.  

We had lunch with an old friend in Eagle Point, and afterwards we explored a bit of the historic sector.  

Another walk along a different stretch of river.  

Hannah and Katie loved the food.  Eating out all the time, picking what they wanted, was one of their favorite parts of vacation.  We had Panera, Cracker Barrel, Black Bear, pizza, a leftover night, and more.

My grandmother loved rocks.  My dad loves rocks.  I have a fondness for rocks.  Two of my children have expressed a love of rocks.  So we went to Crater Rock Museum.  Which was more impressive than I expected it to be.  

Some very big specimens.

Some scary specimens.

Hannah's favorites were the native bows & arrows, and the stone knives.

The train, fire engine, and planes are MADE OF ROCKS.

This fort, and the "painting" below, yup, MADE OF ROCKS.

And off in a back room, oh yeah, a couple dinosaurs.

I'll stop here because this is really photo heavy, but I have more to share!