Ireland

Okay, okay, here goes. Our trip summary. Complete with pictures. Is this like coming to my house and being forced to watch a slideshow of our family vacation? Kinda. Oh well.

We left August 13th for Dublin, Ireland. Abby did really surprisingly well on the 6 1/2 hour flight from Toronto to Dublin. After her dinner, she watched her new Shrek movie for a little while then turned to Adam and said, "I'm tired. I want to go to sleep." So he helped her get comfy in her little seat and she slept the rest of the time! We were impressed. Anyway, when we got to the airport, we waited around for Wayne and Dee (Adam's parents) then headed to our hotel for a much needed nap. When mostly awake, we headed to the center of Dublin and walked around, ate ice cream then went home. I wasn't too adventurous on account of the incredible tiredness. Abby was pretty tired too.  

Interesting fact: while we were on the bus on the way back to the hotel, we drove right by the hostel where my friends and I stayed when we were there back in 2001. Good memories were remembered. We actually left the next morning for the rest of our trip, but we came back to Ireland for two nights at the end of our trip. So that's included here too.

When we returned, we stayed a night in Mullingar, a little town about an hour or so west of Dublin. It was so beautiful! And really fun to be more in the countryside of Ireland. Adam and I actually took advantage of our apartment-style hotel suite we were staying in with his parents and left a sleeping Abby with them to go to a quaint pub for dessert. It was nice to have a night alone after three weeks of 24/7 time with Abby and in-laws, as much as I love them all. 

Anyway, Dee's brother actually died in Mullingar several years ago so she and Wayne took the next morning to locate his grave and spend some time there while Adam, Abby and I got ready to go. We spent the rest of the afternoon making our way to Dublin, stopping at Belvedere Mansion and Trim Castle along the way. Abby learned to really love castles. She'd go around all the little "rooms" and look for princesses and dragons. So when we stopped at Trim Castle, she had a blast. After an hour or so of wandering around the ruins in the rain, Abby saw a wedding party and just about wet her pants with excitement over seeing a real "princess". 

We eventually made our way to Dublin and found our hotel. By this time, Wayne was coming down with the same horrible sore throat Dee and Adam had so we all turned in early. Unfortunately, we didn't get the best sleep that night. The fire alarms in the hotel went off two or three times throughout the night for no apparent reason. If we didn't have to leave for the airport before breakfast was served, I would have requested a free breakfast. Oh well. We made it to the airport, got on our flights and made it back home. Three weeks is a long time for a vacation, but we were so glad we did it!

That last picture on the right was taken in our hotel that last night. Abby climbed up in there and said, "This is my little treehouse!" I didn't know she knew what a treehouse was.