Highlights from Ireland

 

Our time in Ireland went by way too fast!  I guess that tends to happen when you are enjoying life with your family, not working and any sort of routine is non existent. I want to be on vacation forever!:)

 It was impossible to see everything there is to see in only 3 and a half short weeks especially with little ones.  Generally we would sightsee one day and relax the next to give the kids (and us) a break.  While on the east side of the country we stayed in a beautiful place called the Blossom Cottage.  So many flowers were starting to bloom and of course with all of the rain they get, everything is so, so green!  The Irish hospitality is real here.  The friends we met were so welcoming and made us feel right at home.  The hardest part about leaving wasn’t that we didn’t get a chance to sightsee more, drink more Guinness or practice our Irish accents enough.  It was leaving the new friends we made.

On a side note, wherever we went, people seemed to be fascinated with Isla.  They would go crazy over her!  I mean sometimes people would just take her from us and snuggle her.   Must be all her hair:)

 

The first week or so we were in Ireland, the weather was pretty dreary.  Also, a storm passed over us so there were high winds and lots of rain.  Honestly, the gloominess didn’t seem to bother us.  I can’t help but wonder if maybe this is because its not something we are used to and so the change was kind of fun.  Or maybe its because we know that eventually we will be back home in Kauai so the gloominess is only temporary.  All I know is, nobody was complaining about it.  Starting up a fire every night and drinking warm drinks was definitely special.  When the sun did come out, the air was clean and it was absolutely gorgeous.  I know Everly and Isla are too small to remember any of this, but hopefully Jude will be able to look back and appreciate all these cool places he was able to visit.

 

 

I’ve learned something about kids.  It doesn’t take much to make them happy.  You can buy them new clothes, new toys, heck you can even take them half way across the world and the kind of things that make them the happiest are playgrounds, running around in the rain and jumping in big puddles.  Sure, I’ve heard this before…people say kids will have more fun playing with a cardboard box than any toy you can buy them.  But to see it first hand happen with your own kids makes it sink in a little more.  We are all learning a lot on this trip, to say the least:)

 

 

Also, Isla turned 3 months while in Ireland.  She is the happiest little girl.  She laughed for the first time here thanks to her big brother Jude.  Such a treat that we were all together to experience it.  Yes, she still has blue eyes!  Not sure if they will stay but we are enjoying getting lost in them for the time being.

 

So what do I think about Ireland?  I think I left a little piece of my heart there.  I know, I know, SO CHEESY!  But its true.  I’d dreamed about going there for so long.  Life goes by a little slower there.  People love to chat with you about who you are and why we would leave somewhere like Kauai to come visit Ireland.  It might not be tropical and sunny all the time, but there is an old kind of beauty to that place.  Hard to describe.  Guess you will have to visit to know what I’m talking about.

 

-Vanessa