Glendalough

We spent a beautiful afternoon in Glendalough, hiking, having a picnic, splitting off into couples and going for a wander.  We hiked up to see a beautiful waterfall.  Even Gigi made the hike.  Then walked down the access road for an easier, though longer, descent.  It was a lovely day.

George discovered the joy of 99s, a soft ice cream unique to the UK and Ireland, usually with a flake 99 chocolate bar in it.  He loved it so much he started asking for "ice ceeem" for breakfast, and anytime we asked him what he wanted to eat.

We found a little faerie glen that I had to have a picture of, and George and I climbed in.

The views and scenery everywhere were spectacular.

Hiking in the Wicklow Mountains

We took lovely walks each day while with the Harrys.  On this day we drove up to Sally Gap and took a nice walk up into the hills.

Johnny and Steph following Ray running to catch George and me up.  George got fussy if I stopped walking.










From the two pictures above, you can tell how much the sky changed each day.  You were never really sure if it was going to sun or storm, and in the first week, it usually did both.

George with Uncle Johnny and his Daddy.

The lovely Steph.

Gigi

George jumping with Mommy.

A sleepy boy.

Everyone went on a winberry picking expedition.  Winberries are tiny blue berries that look like mountain huckleberries but grow just inches from the ground, hidden in the heather.  But, we had a big bag of winberries for our morning yogurt for days!  And George had purple fingers.

What a beautiful start to the day (around noon).  After, we went for a lovely lunch at an upscale pub, though George was a bit of a handful there so Chris and I ordered and ate in shifts.

Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland

We're back from Ireland, and suffering from terrible jetlag.  George is waking up at 3 am (up to 3:45 this morning) for the day, and trying to go to bed for the night at 2 pm...  Hopefully this will pass in a few days.  If he can add another 45 minutes per night, we'll be back to a reasonable schedule by Sunday...

This post will mainly be photos from our trip.  We have over a thousand, though many are near duplicates as Chris likes to shoot multi-shots.

When we first arrived in Dublin, we picked up Chris's sister-in-laws car

at the airport and drove to the house in Blessington we were sharing with Chris's family.  Upon arrival, Uncle Johnny Rockstar gave George two little lacrosse sticks.  George was thrilled.  He took off his pants and headed outside with Grandpa Ray to play.

All the Harry's brought George birthday presents and he had a lot of fun opening them.  Aunt Katy is on the left standing, Grandma Karen seated in front of her, then Steph (Johnny's girlfriend), Grandpa Ray, me and George, Great Grandma Joyce (George calls her Gigi), and Uncle Dan (Katy's partner).

The house was situated on a lovely lake (actually a reservoir, so sadly, no swimming).  But we still enjoyed walking down there and exploring a bit.  George especially had fun walking down with his Grandpa.

And getting shoulder rides from Daddy is always fun!  George says, "I wanna ride on Daddy's head."

We spent a lot of time throwing balls for Katy and Dan's dog, Jess.  But often Jess would not bring it back.  Here is Steph wading out to get the ball.

Matching bellies!

3 generations of Harrys!

I love how they all stand the same way.

We cooked and ate dinner together most nights, and went for a pub lunch a few afternoons.  There were 10 of us staying in the house most of the week and up to 14 one night.