ireland 2010

our trip to ireland was amazing. all of my siblings and their significant others went to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. the babies did great. (except for baby r's aversion to all the fresh cream i was stuffing in my face.) it was so beautiful and we had many fun adventures.....

this took some getting used to... especially on their teeny tiny streets. what you see here is a small freeway.
we stayed in a small town called dingle.

this is the view from our front door....
we took a tour of the dingle harbor. baby C was stylin'. baby R was sleeping.

the highlight was when fungi swam along side our boat for about 10 min. so exciting!! i was too busy screaming to take any pics. good thing my sissy was making all those dolphin calls.
this was one of my favorite days. my step mom and aunt watched the babies and the "big kids" got to have some fun adult time. we all piled into our small euro car and went for a little drive. we saw a big mountain with a ruin on top. we decided to climb it. the ruin was very small and anticlimactic, but the journey was the memorable part.

a lonely boat in the dingle harbor...

my boys......

this guy celebrated his 60th birthday....
happy birthday dad!!!!!

we had a lovely picnic on blasket island. it was pretty much the most amazing thing.... until baby R started to scream. it was a stressful 20 min.
these guys kept popping their heads out of the water to check out what everyone was doing.
hiking around the storybook island....
the journey to the island was an adventure in itself. we took a boat close to the island (nattie didn't do too well on that one)....
then we put on lifejackets and got onto a raft-like boat that took us to the island. the seals were right next to us. scary.

the boat ride back was so rocky and almost made me sick. good thing baby r slept right thru it.
inch beach. one of the most beautiful places i have ever been. we drove right up to the water.


more inch beach...
driving along the coast...
baby R loves being daddy's mini-me.


this was an adventure as well.....

we found out about an old ship graveyard, so the girls decided to have their own field trip. we got into our car (scary) they trusted me to drive (double scary) and we drove right down along a dark, muddy, it was pouring rain by the way, one-way road that led right to the beach. we took pictures because we made it... didn't know how we were going to get back out tho....
when we turned the corner.. there they were. it was so creepy. the wind was so strong, it was foggy and pouring rain. it felt like we were in a scary movie.


we were sinking into the ground...


chester copperpot.........

we loved all the phrases people would say:

* no bother

* cutlery (silverware)

* stirrers (spoons)

* petrol and filling station

* guarda (police)

we were sad for our vacation to come to an end, but we were ready to get back. we missed the girls so much. baby R was amazing for most of the ride home. we had a layover in philly for a few hours. we took a taxi into the city and saw the liberty bell, independence hall and even hiked over to the italian market for some cheesesteaks. not as good as you might think wit out wiz... but still delightful.