Tag Archives: Ireland

Redone Bathroom

Family Leave a comment

While Jamie and I were in Ireland, my dad redid the downstairs bathroom. I love how it turned out. The previous owners had put in bamboo flooring which is pretty dumb in a bathroom, and especially in a bathroom with young boys. So he took out the wood and put in tile I picked and bought before we left. He replaced the faucet in the sink and added a medicine cabinet, too. He finished it off by painting (I picked and bought the paint before we left as well). I absolutely love how clean and beautiful it turned out!

bathroom1

bathroom2

bathroom3

Ireland, Part Six

Family Leave a comment

Jamie and I went for a walk around the park at the town where his mum lives. It has the most adorable fairy village.
ireland61

The walking path through the park is just beautiful.
ireland62

After we finished at the park, we walked a ways into the town.
ireland63

Everywhere you go, there are ice cream cone signs meaning there’s a soft serve machine inside. The Irish definitely love ice cream!
ireland64

It was so nice to spend the two weeks with Jamie’s mum!
ireland65

We checked in at the airport (one bag was 1/2 kg under the limit and the other was 2/10 over, but they didn’t charge us for being overweight). The Irish really do care about fresh breath. This vending machine was in the restroom.
ireland66

We got on the plane and about 7 hours later…
ireland67

…we were in New York. Our layover was about 7 hours long, but then our flight was delayed almost an hour and a half, but eventually we left the east coast.
ireland68

We finally made it to Austin at 2am and got to our house in San Antonio at 3:30. Total travel time was just over 24 hours.
ireland69

So that was Wednesday through Friday.

It was such a lovely, fun, wonderful trip!

Ireland, Part Five

Family Leave a comment

We returned the CPAP machine Jamie had been loaned. They didn’t charge us anything!
ireland51

Jamie and I walked down to the river next to where Jamie’s mum lives.
ireland52

We picked (and ate) lots of delicious wild blackberries.
ireland53

We did Kinder Surprises.
ireland54

We went a long way and ended up in Tipperary.
ireland55

We went to Cashel Farmhouse Cheesemakers and learned about the history of their farm and how they make their blue cheeses. We also ate a ton of blue cheese.
ireland56

We went to the Rock of Cashel. It’s an amazing, huge medieval religious fortress.
ireland57

The pictures don’t do the place justice. It is truly awe-inspiring.
ireland58

When we came down from the Rock of Cashel, there was a group of young buskers playing traditional music (on the way up a young man was playing a fiddle).
ireland59

We went to Kilmallock, a medieval town that still has several stone structures and part of the wall. Their Catholic church is gorgeous.
ireland510

We went all over the Abbey. We were even able to climb some very old stairs up to the second floor.
ireland511

The old Church of Ireland building is now a burial ground.
ireland512

So that was Monday and Tuesday.

Ireland, Part Four

Family Leave a comment

We took a walk along the road where Jamie’s mum lives.
ireland41

Jamie picked lots of blackberries.
ireland42

Jamie put in a mailbox for his mum.
ireland43

Jamie’s CPAP machine has been having issue for quite some time and, when we got back from Dublin, it decided it was all done working. Jamie’s mum made a few phone calls and we were lent a CPAP machine for the weekend with a promise that the doctor would see him on Monday to see what he could do for the rest of our stay. Having the machine gave Jamie the courage to open up his broken one and he found the problem was where the power adapter plugged in. He spliced and soldered and now it works great again!
ireland44

We went to Killarney.
ireland45

We got bubblegum flavored mega sours. The sour part tasted like super concentrated lemon, but once past that, it had a lovely bubblegum flavor. Until the middle. The middle was super concentrated lemon again.
ireland46

I am a wimp when it comes to really sour stuff.
ireland47

Jamie, however, is not.
ireland48

We saw the Muckross House.
ireland49

We went to the Traditional Farm.
ireland410

I petted an adorable little calf.
ireland411

We went in a one-room schoolhouse as it would’ve looked in the early 1900s.
ireland412

One night we got lots of wind and rain due to a post-tropical depression.
ireland413

We walked up to the corner store to hit the PokeStop and buy some candy.
ireland414

This road used to be the main one for the area. Because there’s a nationwide scheme for speed, when it was the main road, it was 100kph. Now it’s 80. Even 80 is a bit fast for this road!
ireland415

Jamie’s mum throws her table scraps out for the birds every day. They are huge and terrifying. I call them Chicken Crows.
ireland416

So that was Friday through Sunday.

Ireland, Part Three – Dublin

Family Leave a comment

We took the train to Dublin.
ireland31

I love Dublin.
ireland32

Our hotel, the Shelbourne, was where they signed the Irish Constitution. They had their own little mini museum off the lobby.
ireland33

Jamie’s platinum with Marriott thanks to all the points he earns on business trips. For our thank you gift, they gave us a list of things to choose from. We picked a rather nice fruit plate.
ireland34

Jamie and I went out walking our first evening there and when we got back, they had done their turn-down service. Fancy, but a little strange.
ireland35

The breakfast buffet at the hotel was incredible. They even had a gluten free station with a dedicated toaster. That was so nice!
ireland36

We took a tour at the Little Museum of Dublin.
ireland37

We went to the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College.
ireland38

The Book of Kells was cool, but the old library upstairs was amazing.
ireland39

ireland310

We took a ride on a hop on/hop off bus. The driver narrating the tour was so funny.
ireland311

We walked around St. Stephens Green for a bit. It’s amazing how you don’t feel like you’re in a city at all while you’re in there.
ireland312

Jamie and I went to the Natural History Museum (aka the Dead Zoo).
ireland313

We took a stroll down Grafton Street.
ireland314

At one end was a busker who was actually quite good (some of them are not).
ireland315

We rode back on the train to Jamie’s mum’s through patches of rain. Even rain is beautiful in Ireland.
ireland316

So that was Tuesday through Thursday.

Ireland, Part Two

Family Leave a comment

We took a day trip to the Dingle area. It is so incredibly beautiful in Ireland.
ireland21

We went to a bay both while the tide was out and then again while it was in. Pretty much the whole beach disappeared!
ireland22

Jamie really, really wanted to go in the water. It was very cold, but he can always say he did it.
ireland23

We went to a Celtic History Museum. They had some interesting pieces.
ireland24

Like I said, Ireland is beautiful.
ireland25

We went to see some very old beehive huts.
ireland26

We went to a really amazing restaurant. Almost all of their food had gluten free options. I got fried chicken strips and chips and they were amazing. Also, we ate outside and the view was similarly amazing.
ireland27

We ran across a mare and her foal. So cute!
ireland28

We visited Castleisland.
ireland29

They had a River Walk so we just had to go down it just because of the name.
ireland210

It was a bit more rustic than the one we’re used to in San Antonio. It was quite a lovely walk.
ireland211

So that was Sunday and Monday.

Ireland, Part One

Family Leave a comment

We got to New York just fine and went out on the subway during our very long layover. We visited the 9/11 Memorial.
ireland11

While we were out in the city, we got notification that our flight to Shannon was delayed 3 1/2 hours. The plane coming to the US never got off the ground due to technical issues. When we got back to the airport, it said the flight was on time. That seemed weird so Jamie went to the counter where a flight to Dublin was boarding to ask what was going on.

That’s when things went kind of crazy. Chances were, our flight would ultimately be cancelled (it was) so the guy at the counter (shout out to Emmanuel!) got us on the flight to Dublin that was boarding. He even got our luggage pulled and loaded on the flight to go with us. They rearranged some seating and got us in seats together. We buckled up and three minutes later pulled away from the gate.

I had ordered gluten free meals, but, of course, with how crazy and last minute that all was, that wasn’t transferred. The stewardess (shout out to Caroline!) bent over backwards trying to get me safe foods for my dinner. Crazily, it turned out that one of the people who didn’t show up for the flight had ordered gluten free, so when that was discovered, I got that person’s meals. So that was pretty cool.

We made it to Dublin, exhausted, before 5 in the morning and got nice little stamps in our passports allowing us to enter the country.
ireland12

The restroom at the airport had a Tic Tac machine. Like, welcome to Ireland. You’ve been on a flight all night. Freshen up that breath before you go among our people.
ireland13

Aer Lingus put us in a taxi to head toward Shannon where our flight was supposed to have ended up (shout out to the customer service guy we were too exhausted to get the name of). The driver was happy to drop us off in Adare, kind of meeting in the middle, where Jamie’s mum picked us up.

So that was all nuts, but we made it to Ireland on the day we had planned and the scenery (the second day, when we went to Tralee and did some shopping and caught Mr. Mime on Pokemon Go) made all the difficulties worth it.
ireland14

The third day we went to the River Shannon.
ireland15

We stopped at a random stone tower. There wasn’t much in the way of marking what it was. Pokemon Go to the rescue. Loghill Tower, a Protestant church that was partially torn down leaving the tower to provide a guide point for boats on the river (it’s a PokeStop).
ireland16

We went to Askeaton where we looked at the castle ruins. It’s just amazing the way they’ve crumbled.
ireland17

This gentleman, Anthony Sheehy, volunteers giving tours at the castle and friary. He’s pretty passionate about them both and super funny so he really made our time at the friary quite interesting. We learned a lot that without him we never would have known.
ireland19

ireland110

ireland111

ireland112

Every time we go in or out of Jamie’s mum’s garden, we have to walk through a lavender patch that always had adorable little bees hanging out on the flowers.
ireland113

So that was Wednesday through Saturday.

A Bit of My Bullet Journal

Books, Church, Family, Homeschool, Thoughts Leave a comment

After doing my planning digitally for a while, a few months ago I went back to my paper bullet journal. I love it. It allows me to be creative and also helps me make sure I get everything I need to get done done.

Every month I start out with a spread that gives an overview of appointments and things and also a tracker for doing my daily/weekly/monthly chores. Since Jamie and I are going to Ireland this month, I decided to do a bit of a passport stamp/Irish theme.
bujo1

Each month is split into weekly spreads where I put what we are eating, places we need to go, and random stuff I need to do. I also add in quite bits of things we did that I want to remember. I kind of went Washi tape crazy with August’s weekly spreads.
bujo2

I have some fun spreads to keep track of ongoing things I do. For example, I colored in pictures as I planned our next school year, giving me a visual tracker of how much more I needed to do.
bujo3

I’ve got a spread to keep track of my scripture reading (currently going through the New Testament). I came up with a picture to go with each book. Some make more sense than others. When I finish a book, I color the picture in. I discovered I am not too bad at drawing if I am looking an an outline example to copy. I’ve always thought I was really bad at art, so that was a fun discovery to make.
bujo4

I made a nice little bookcase to write in the book I’ve read along with the date and my rating. I filled it up just with the books I read March to July. On the next page I am keeping track of the subjects I’ve completed planning for (just have literature left for all of them – it takes a while to pre-read all the books!).
bujo5

Starting with this month, I decided to do a monthly bookshelf instead of an ongoing one. I also made the books a little bit fatter to make it easier to write in the titles. I attempted to draw raindrops on the blessings/gratitude page. Maybe I’ll get better at them over time… or come up with something I can draw better next month!
bujo6

This is just the stuff from one shopping trip. When I checked out the conversation went like this:

Her: Did you find everything you were looking for?
Me: Well, I only came in for the pens, so…
Her: Yeah. That happens.

I might have a bit of a Washi tape problem. I have so much of it. But it’s so pretty! And useful! I have all my bullet journaling stuff – tons of pens, stickers, a pair of scissors, tons and tons of Washi tape, stamps, and ink pads – in a nice craft basket with lots of pockets of open areas to hold everything.
bujo7

Sometimes, even on a boring page like this one where I was planning meals, I decide I need to be a bit creative and add a little picture to make it more fun.
bujo8

I had quite a bit of extra space on the page where I listed the last bits of school stuff I was still waiting on from what I had ordered so I drew a cute little picture to go with it. Stuff like that just makes me happy and also makes my bullet journal extra pretty.
bujo9

Sometimes a little one line note about something isn’t enough. For those times, I go to my next blank page and write whatever I want about it. My parents, the little guys, and I saw Christopher Robin on Saturday and it was just so cute. We all loved it. So for this page I decided to use some stamps (I just happened to have a couple Pooh ones) and used my pretty pens to write some quotes I like from the movie.
bujo10

August is Next WEEK?

Homeschool, Thoughts Leave a comment

Seriously, how did that happen? How is it possible August starts next week? We go back to school the end of August. I’m not ready!

When Jamie and I booked our tickets to Ireland, it seemed like August was forever away. Now we leave in just under two weeks.

It’s been a nice summer and I know once I go school supply shopping I’ll be pretty excited about getting back into the swing of things with school.

But before then… Ireland!

So much planning

Homeschool Leave a comment

I’ve been working like crazy on lesson plans for next school year. I’ve got almost everything printed. My parents brought an awesome GBC binder with them so the workbooks are nicely bound and waiting in the utility carts I got for the boys (red for Cameron, blue for Fritz, and sand for Adrian).

I’ve got ten of the twenty year three Layers of Learning units all planned and I’m working on the last book that I need to pre-read for unit 10. The printables for the first ten units all ready in the filing cabinet. I’ve got lists of supplies I need to get/assemble still.

I’m on a bit of a time crunch, though. In a month Jamie and I will arrive in Ireland to visit his mum. We’ll get back the weekend before school starts so I want to have everything for school as ready as possible before we leave.