Our Crazy weekends!

OK, so I'm really behind on what we've been up to. Here's a run down of the interesting things....

Last Saturday (the 13th) we dragged poor Granny up to the Northern Coast to see the Giants Causeway and Dunluce Castle. It was just the most gorgeous day, so we wanted to take advantage of it!

Granny at the highest point of the Causeway stones....

Granny walking down to the sea among the stones... Daddy and Hazel waiting patiently for Granny and Mommy to explore....

We decided to take the Coast Road home, and on our way back, we drove by some cool ruins. In a moment of spontaneity, we stopped to see what they were all about!

It turned out to be an old friary. So neat. Kind of creepy, not really sure why I felt they were creepy, but there was just something "not right" about it. It was still really beautiful there, though.

There were a ton of really old tombstones...some of them so worn away with age that you couldn't tell what they said...Most of the graveyard was old and unkept, much of the ground had caved in over old gravesites, pulling the stones to the side with them.After exploring some, we decided to head back to the car and get home so we could have dinner... we took Granny to Mama's Indian Kitchen (formerly Tamarind) to introduce her to Indian Food. Plus, it seems to be Hazel's favorite food, so we thought it only appropriate that we have her favorite on her Birthday! We called it a night after dinner, with all the exploring, we were full and exhausted!

Fast Forward to this weekend

With Granny safe and sound back in the States, we didn't really think ahead to what we were going to do this weekend, so Brett asked around at work, and, after some good suggestions from his co-workers, we decided to drive to County Fermanagh to see the Marble Arch Caves. Oh, my, goodness. They were GORGEOUS. You get to take a tour through the caves (it's the only way to go through them). Lead by our wonderful and patient tour guide, Warren, Brett, Hazel, and I, along with 2 other couples walked through the woods, down the side of a ravine, and to the mouth of the caves. Once inside, you get into a little boat, and take a short 5 minute ride through the beginning of the cave. Let me preface by saying that it isn't advisable to take a 1 year old on a tour of Caves. Now, we weren't doing anything dangerous. No climbing or spelunking (sp?) or anything, but she was less than thrilled to have to sit still in the boat, and walking in the dark was NOT her thing. There really wasn't anything for her to see and be excited about. God bless Warren, though, for being so patient with us. In an effort to keep her from talking or yelling (who knew your voice echos in caves :-P) we let her walk with our assistance, which meant we lagged behind much of the time. And if we weren't lagging behind, we were trying to keep Hazel from out talking Warren. It was really neat, though, and we plan on taking anyone who comes to visit. I wish we'd taken Adam and Lindsay as this defenitely would have been their kind of siteseeing!

Us, getting ready to embark on Cave Exploring...ignore the hair, it's getting cut this week...The mouth of the caves...
Inside the caves...


I highly recommend the caves if you are ever in Ireland!


Then we headed back toward Enniskillen and decided to stop at Florence Court House and Gardens. I could live there. It was just incredible. We drove in the main gate and through a couple of acres of land before turning the corner and seeing....the house....

(that's Hazel and I sitting on the front porch)

In my dreams of what a grande home in Europe should be...this is it. And the land surrounding was just acres upon acres of trees and open fields and sheep. Yes, Sheep. We had to drive very slowly to the carpark to avoid hitting any Rams or Ewes just lazily grazing about. I apologize for the lack of supporting pictures, but my head was not quite wrapped around picture taking yesterday....We bought house tour tickets and then decided to walk the grounds....

There was the Cattle Yard and the little alleyways leading back to it...The really cool old carriage in the carriage house...But the house itself just blew me away. This is a picture of the South 2/3 of the house... And this is the North 1/3 which contained the room we started our tour in called the "Colonel's Room"...

We only got as far as the library (which was the 3rd room after the Colonel's room and the foyer) when Stinky Bojangles decided to blow out her diaper in the stinkiest way possible, so we cut our involvement in the tour short in order not to gross our fellow tourists out....I was so bummed, I really wanted to see inside the rest of the house, but such is the life of a mom, right? Besides, we live here, so there will be ample opportunities to come back...
Anyway, the best part of the whole day was just walking and spending time with the 2 most important people in my life....I'll get many more chances to take pictures of houses and caves and castles, but how many more times will I get to take a shot like this....