Is 11 months old- Crazy! She is so cute and funny and makes everyone laugh and smile. Sheis the most fantastic person I know actually (sorry Adam). She is so friendly and ready to play with, hug, smile at, and kiss everyone we see that she makes everyone fall in love with her.
Currently she is learning to walk. She stands at every possible moment and can now walk/ shuffle a total of 4 steps unassisted. This happens all day long, standing up a foot away from the couch and then shuffling over to it to hold on. She also loves to climb. We go to the playground and she loves to clime on the jungle gyms and go all the way across to slide down the slide, if only there were not a rope walkway that I didn't have to help her on, she would be in heaven. She also recently learned how to climb onto the couch, little monkey.
On to Ireland. We flew to Dublin in the evening on Wednesday May 28. After finding our friend Paddy and getting our rental car we made our way down to his parents house Kill, about 10 miles south west of Dublin. We had a lovely evening with Paddy's parents Mary and Con in their home. They run a very small B&B out of their home so they had space for us. Thursday morning Mary made a fabulous breakfast for us and we were off on the bus to check out Dublin. Paddy acted as our tour guide extraordinaire taking us on a giant walking tour of the city. We saw all that we could including this fabulous door, we rode the bus back to Kill for roast dinner and sleep.
Friday morning after another yummy breakfast we started our drive to the west coast. Our first stop was Galway, a little city on the coast. We wondered around and looked at churches and waterways, and enjoyed a pretty good Mexican meal.
In the evening we left Galway and drove further west to find a place to stay. Pretty much everywhere you go here in the UK as well as in Ireland there are B&B's everywhere. You can drive down the most remote road possible and there will be signs for B&B's, so we knew there would be no problem finding a place to stay. About 5 minutes from Clifden we ran into a beautiful large historical building with a huge room and even wifi.
Saturday we started on a driving tour around the Connemara coast and mountains. We ran into some beautiful coast line and landscape
Along with a really cute baby who slept well in during the twisty turny drive.
This is Kylemore Abbey- beautiful eh? Super expensive to go to-
After the Abby we made our way down to The Burren, along the way we stopped at various ruins.
We stopped at a birds of prey center, which was Adam's dream come true. It was pretty cool, with all these different birds sitting in their little enclosures with only one foot tethered.
After checking out the birds, we drove around the Burren for a while looking at the cool rocks and such. Ireland is absolutly beautiful. The landscape changes so dramaticly so quickly.
We then drove over to the Cliffs of Moher. This was soooo cool.
Sunday we began our drive back over to Kill, stopping along the way to see random sites.
And Monday morning we caught a flight from Dublin back to Birmingham and then a train to Aber. We had a great time and we really loved Ireland. It is beautiful and lots of fun, but really expensive. We are really grateful that we are able to visit lots of places in Europe while we are living here. Thankfully Anya is a super fantastic traveler, so we are always able to have a great time.
8 comments:
I recognize some of your pictures from our trip to Ireland a couple of years ago. We had a great time on a tour but look forward to doing it sometime on our own. I LOVE Ireland, and your pictures are wonderful, but the pics of Anya are the best. You are a great photographer. Mom
Gorgeous pics. We might go to England next spring to visit my parents (who will be living there for 5 months). If I can see just a few of the places you've been to I will be happy.
Hey no problem. We're actually moving down the street here and so we had been looking at places for quite some time. Mary said she'd be happy to look up some places for you and your family. We're paying $800.00 for a 2 bedroom condo that's a little over 1000 square feet. Let us know how close you want to be to ASU. From where we are it's maybe 20 minutes or less. The area around ASU is not that great but let us know what the parameters are for the type of place your looking for.
Wow ireland is soooo beautiful.. I just finished reading "Ma, he sold me for a few cigarettes" and it a memoir of woman who grew up in the slums of Dublin.. so it was nice to put a beautiful picture to something that wasn't so beautiful in my mind! I am sooo glad for you that Anya is a good traveller because Bennett is the worst! On the way here to AU he screamed most of the trip and it was really akward and hard! but it has been fun to be here and i am thinking at least i don't think it can get any worse going home!! Anya is such a cutie.. hope our paths cross one of these days! xoxo, liz
ps.. i googled myself the other day and when i clicked on images there was a pic of your baby! weird eh?
SHE IS SOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!! I can't get over it! I love seeing all those pics, looks like soo much fun! You're making everyone very envious by the way. I'm happy for you guys, awesome memories!
Those really are such incredible pics. Anya is gorgeous and looks so pretty in all of these places I've read about, see in movies or maybe dreamed about. We're glad she's a good traveler too, but even if she wasn't she'd still be cute!:) Thanks for sharing your adventures.
ok since James hasn't commented yet on it...LOVE the pics of Ireland!!! what a travelling fam you are. post all the pics you want - I'll look at 'em! :)
-Mary
This is so beautiful! I am amazed at what you are seeing! I am glad Anya is having a good time and travels well - Thats funny what liz C. said, I was just reading Angela's Ashes and finding it to be quite a dreary look at Ireland, but I hear the country is becoming quite important industrially...
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