WW - Us, Giant's Causeway, 2002

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Everybody loves a parade!

We went to Cork this afternoon to see their big parade. You might remember that we went last year and enjoyed it, despite the terrible weather. Today was not rainy at least, but still rather chilly.


We met friends there. Good friends to know, 'cuz they staked out a great spot early and we were able to join them on their large granite block/seat/traffic stopper. That meant I could sit while waiting for the parade to start and Pumpkin could get a wonderful view perched on top of Daddy's shoulders while he stood on it.


Here are some shots from the parade. Mr. Kluges and I both thought it wasn't quite as good as last year, especially because there weren't as many big impressive floats with groups of coordinating people, but this monster group was WAY cool and definitely our favorite from either year!






Not a great shot 'cuz she was across the street, but a WAY cool costume!!!









These lads are getting told to get down from the top of the phone booths by a Garda. This is after they'd gotten their photo taken by about 4 or 5 news photographers in the time before the parade started and during the first 1/2 or 1/3 of the parade itself.








And Pumpkin got to ride in the spinning teacups! She LOVED it and we had to do it again after the parade!


So that was our St. Paddy's Day. Here's hoping yours is as fun! Slainte!

When Pusher and Puck came to visit...

****************

copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

When Pusher and Puck were here, we took them to see castles...



and ruined abbeys...







and dovecotes in horse pastures...


and a distillery...

and the Burren...

and the Cliffs of Moher.

(Pumpkin's little legs had
to work hard sometimes
to keep up, like on the
Ballycotton Cliff Walk.)

And of course, wherever we went...
...we ate CHEESE!

P.S. Note her "sticker." *grin*

P.P.S. Be sure to check back in tomorrow for a special post...


*** Edited to add: P.P.P.S. And I made them taste the nasty potato chips, and my opinion on their AWFULNESS was confirmed! Pusher had to get herself some whiskey just to get rid of the taste. (Not that she didn't LIKE the Jameson, just that it took something a little strong to evict the icky fake duck-ness of the chips.)

Not so much with the "Let it Snow"

****************
copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

Due to the big ol' snowstorm in the Midwest, poor Pusher and Puck were delayed. Their first flight was canceled, which meant they couldn't get to their second flight to actually get to Ireland... which pushed their visit back a day.

No fun! As Pusher said on her blog, she's sorry she kept wishing for more snow this winter... 'cuz it came back to bite her in the butt.

Well, at least they're losing one day out of a two week vacation, not a shorter one. And they didn't have to worry about missing their tour bus or anything like that... and they've got very flexible hosts here. *grin*

Also, Pumpkin is either growing like a weed or fighting off some sickness. She's been a tad bit grumpy and easily frustrated lately... and took a THREE hour nap this afternoon. Yeah, and she only got up then 'cuz I woke her up. No problems (other than the usual amount of try-to-avoid-bedtime-itis) with going to sleep tonight, either. Here's hoping the extra rest today will help her stay in good form during Puck and Pusher's week with us! Cross your fingers, would you? 'Cuz a grumpy 2 1/2 year old is not much fun to be around... even for her loving parents, let alone guests who aren't used to toddlers!

Also, blogging will most likely be scarce to nonexistent this week due to touristing. We're even planning on all going up to Galway and staying overnight (!) at a B&B on the weekend, which Mr. Kluges, Pumpkin and I haven't done for a very, very long time, so I'm looking forward to that, too. Yay!

(Oh, and of course bringing Pusher to the English Market and to visit our favorite cheese guy. Oh, the varieties we'll try! Pumpkin's been asking for a kind of sheep's cheese that's apparently a new favorite (we've gotten it twice, I think), so she'll be happy, too. (Obasa? *shrug* That's close enough to the name that I can find it there anyway.)

(Hmmm... that reminds me... we've got some Wensleydale with cranberries in the frig.... sounds like time for a snack...)

Ok, my pregnant appetite and I are going to go. Have a great week and stay warm!

Uncle TP and Auntie Kay come to visit

****************

copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

Hi! I'm here; I'm back; I missed you, too. *grin*

Had a good time with my brother and sister-in-law. Since he reads this blog occasionally, he came up with his own nickname. So, hello, Uncle TP! And we'll be calling his wife Auntie Kay, I think, unless she wants to leave a comment with a different idea.

(Auntie Kay, Uncle TP, Mr. Kluges, and Pumpkin walking up to Ross Castle.)

Pumpkin and I enjoyed touristing with them on Wednesday and Thursday. We visited Kinsale on Wednesday, complete with walk from the town center out to Charles Fort, followed by the obligatory Blarney Castle visit. Thursday was Cobh for the Queenstown Story museum and St. Colman's Cathedral in the morning and Cork (particularly the English Market) in the afternoon.

Mr. Kluges took Friday off, and we drove out Killarney way and went to the National Park, where we hiked and visited the Muckross Friary (aka Muckross Abbey, depending on the source), which was new to us. It had wonderfully complete cloisters with a HUGE yew tree in the middle!

(I love cameras with timers! Also, convenient rocks that are fairly level and at the right height.)

Oh yeah, and by the way, spring has definitely arrived here in Ireland! The crocuses and daffodils are popping up all over and there were some gorgeous pink flowers on some of the bushes at Killarney National Park!

St. Colman's Cathedral post up at Honest Erin's

****************
copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

Not a lot to say today, but I did put up a new post over at Honest Erin's about a beautiful cathedral in Cobh called St. Colman's. It's the one we visited for Christmas mass and it's gorgeous!

Blame it on the rain... or pregnancy hormones

****************

copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

Edited to add photo of round tower.

So, I have to apologize for not being great about posting lately. I'll sit down at the computer, open up a new post, and just stare at the blinking cursor. 'Cuz whatever I had in mind to chat about... well... it's just gone.

Blame it on pregnancy hormones, I guess. Oh yeah, that's something else I love about being pregnant - you can be forgetful and clumsy and, hey, it's not you! It's the pregnancy hormones!

(Which is especially nice 'cuz I set one of our lovely useful-souvenir-matches-our-plates-we-love-them coffee cups on the table last night, then grabbed it to move it to the counter, and somehow smacked it into the back of a kitchen chair, causing me to lose my grip on it, which mean it completely sah-MASHED! into the corner formed by the floor, the refrigerator, and the cupboards. We're talking multiple, multiple pieces here, folks. And of course, since I had been going to make myself seconds on hot chocolate, there was still about a half-inch of cocoa goo in the bottom. Which ended up splashing everywhere from half-way up the frig, to 2 to 4 feet on either side of the incident. *sigh* Cleanup took a bit. )

So anyway, we're still here and fine and all. Pumpkin is over her sickness and is sleeping wonderfully both at naptime and nighttime again. (Knock on wood) We even went touristing last weekend, visiting Dungarvan and Ardmore to see a castle and a church with a round tower, respectively. I'd include a photo here, but Mr. Kluges currently has some of our computer stuff detached, so I can't. Instead I'll leave you with cute Pumpkin anecdote from the weekend.

Upon waking up in Ardmore, (we love car naps!) and seeing the round tower, Pumpkin said, "Oh! It's a tower! Maybe Rapunzel lives there!"

Ballybeg Priory Post up at Honest Erin's

****************
copyright 2007 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

Hey, guess what? For the first time in like forever (ok, 3 months or so), I've put up a new entry over at Honest Erin's Unofficial Irish Tourism Blog. It's about the ruined Ballybeg Priory not far up the road and even has pictures. Check it out.

Pretty Ireland

****************

copyright 2006 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at www.musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

After a length bout of "I'm not sleepy; I don't want to nap!" grumpiness from Pumpkin, she's finally down. So I figured I'd try to get some pix ready to maybe add an entry or two to my poor neglected Honest Erin's Unofficial Tourism Site blog. Not a lot to say today, so I think all I'll get done is choosing and resizing photos and uploading them into drafts, but hey, it's more than I've done since September.

Anyway, I figured I'd share one of my favorites with you. This is a shot of Mizen Head, Ireland's most southwestern point. Pretty, huh?

And here's the front of St. Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, where we went to church on Christmas.

Summary of the Turtles' Visit - Now with Pix!

****************

copyright 2006 by Ms. Huis Herself
Please read this at www.musenmutter.blogspot.com
because that is the REAL site. Thank you!
****************

So, let's see, what to write about the fun we've had with our latest visitors. Well, first of all, Mr. Kluges has decided their code name should be the Turtles. Alrighty then.

We had a fun and relaxing (if very rainy and windy) time with Mr. and Mrs. Turtle. Seriously, they got the worst weather of any visitors we've had so far but were good sports about it. They arrived early Tuesday morning & left this (Sunday) morning, so it was a shorter visit, but I think they were starting to miss their own kids by the end. Both were great about helping with Pumpkin when she needed stories or distraction & Mrs. Turtle gave her her bath most nights and taught us some new songs.

What did we do? Well, Tuesday we went from the airport to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park. It was rainy and crappy weather, but they really enjoyed seeing the castle and having lunch at a pub there. We visited a church in Limerick that we found by the "Um, it looks like that big steeple is that way, so take the next turn" method. We hadn't seen it before, so that was cool. Picked up Mr. Kluges from the Limerick office & headed for home.

We took it easy the next day with a visit to Cork City, picnic lunch selected from the Old English Market, and the obligatory Blarney Castle visit. Thursday we went to Midleton, ate lunch at the wonderful Fire & Ice Cafe, and visited the Old Midleton Distillery. Of course we coached them about volunteering at the end, so Mr. Turtle got his hand up in time to be an Official Irish Whiskey Taster. Had planned on visited The Queenstown Story in Cobh, but it got too late, so we just went to St. Coleman's Cathedral there. Very impressive & beautiful church!

Friday dawned clear, so we took advantage of the weather and headed out to Mizen Head, the furthest southwest point of mainland Ireland. Beautiful day, spectacular scenery, and we even got Mr. Turtle to a beach where he rolled up his jeans and splashed in the water, while the rest of us watched with our coats and hats on. :) Ah, now he's waded in the Atlantic. Stopped by the Drombeg Stone Circle on the way home, and in the little back roads happened upon a stray bull who was trying to climb a hedge/wall/barrier to get into another field with some (he hoped) friendly cows. We had to stop the car so that the Turtles could get pictures. (But the photos were taken from INSIDE the car, as none of us was foolish enough to get out to "get a little closer." Bulls are big... and unpredictable.)
Saturday we'd planned on visiting Kinsale for shopping and Charles Fort, but the weather was so crappy we just popped into a bunch of shops and ate in town. Too wet to tour an outdoor site, so we toodled home, made orange butter scones (yummy!), got the girl to bed at a decent hour, and enjoyed a couple of rousing games of Settlers of Catan. (And Mr. Kluges actually won once, which he believes was the first time he's EVER won at Settlers!)

Today it was up early and off to the airport for them. We had a GREAT time with them here - fun and relaxing - and are so glad they were able to ditch the kids for a week and come to see us. We hope (and think) that they enjoyed their first overseas trip, too!

P.S. It's a little late to fuss around with adding photos tonight, so I'll try to put some in over the next couple of days. I did put in a bunch of links in case you want to see other people's pix of some of these.

When Gramma, Grampa, TNGreataunt and Brother Drew Came to Visit

Rather than give you a big, long, wordy post about my family's visit, I'm going to give you a big, long, photo-y post instead. Hope you enjoy it!

<-Of course, we had to bring everybody to Blarney Castle!


Going late in the day means short or no lines... and we also caught this great shadow photo! ->

We went to Kinsale and visited Charles Fort. Above is Dad taking a picture of my brother Drew on the Devil's Bastion, and below is a great shot my bro took of the Drombeg Stone Circle that same day.

The menfolk drove many hours up to Cong one day
and flew hawks and an owl at Ashford Castle.

Grampa and Gramma enjoyed showing Pumpkin around the Bunratty Folk Park with its farm equipment and animals.







Here's Mr. Kluges looking imposing (hee) in one of the big halls at Bunratty Castle.



(This photo is taken from a small hole (seems too small for an arrowslit, but what do I know) in one of the staircases.)

That night we went to a banquet at the castle, but since Pumpkin had skipped her nap, Mr. Kluges and I took turns playing with her outside so that her yelling wasn't ruining everybody else's night inside. She did enjoy dancing to the music when we first got there though.




Doing touristy stuff was fun, but mostly it was about hanging out with family.

Some of my family and me

(P.S. Sorry if you use bloglines or similar and it looks like a published a ton of updates and there's just this. I can't for the life of me get the photos quite where I want them in the "compose" view, so I put them in, publish, edit and move them, publish, edit and move them AGAIN, and repeat until they're where I want them or I give up.)

The 7 of us at the Drombeg Stone Circle

See what a fun time we're having!

(Also, yay for cameras with timers!)

Fly-by Posting

A quick post to let y'all know I'm still alive and kicking. We've been pretty busy with our house guests, but are taking an easy day today. Tomorrow the menfolk are heading up to Cong to do the falconry thing that Mr. Kluges and I did back in '02, which I think they'll enjoy. The rest of us will be enjoying a slower day of shopping and some napping for Pumpkin. She's been a trooper, but the weird schedules and busier days are started to tell in her attitude a bit.

So far, we've visited St. Finbarre's Cathedral and the Old English Market in Cork, climbed Blarney Castle and kissed the Stone, wandered around in Kinsale, poked around Charles Fort, drove out to the Drombeg Stone Circle, and enjoyed a lovely leg of lamb that Mr. Kluges cooked for us. And all that was only on Friday and Saturday!

Ok, going to run and try to catch up reading a few of YOUR blogs before somebody needs something. Hosting is fun, but can be a bit demanding at times. Good thing Gramma Pat has been doing almost ALL of the diaper changes for us! Yay!

Donkey Sanctuary Pictures

Ok, let's see if I can get these Donkey Sanctuary pictures up, ok, folks?

Here are Mr. Kluges and Pumpkin with a new friend.

Along the walkway between two pastures. Yes, we do occasionally keep our daughter on a leash.

Don't these donkeys get a great view?

Hey, what are you eating?

Nice donkey!

Ok, let's see if that works!

Donkeys, water, and bees

Just a quick note to say that yes, we did go to the Donkey Sanctuary today. It was another gorgeous day (equal to Saturday, I'd say) and we saw a lot of donkeys, in more colors than I expected. One even had stripes on the bottom half of his legs rather like a zebra's! On the way home we stopped at a playground for Pumpkin, too.

I will try to figure out how to post some pictures, but right now I'm posting from Mr. Kluges's computer outside on the patio while Pumpkin (wearing a onesie and her pink Tinkerbell Wellington boots - I can't believe she's not cold yet) repeatedly scoops water out of her swimming pool and pours it on the patio, the sidewalk, and anything that catches her interest. Oh, and throws her beach ball in it so that it splashes and she shrieks with laughter. *shrug* I dunno - I guess it's fun when you're little.

Gotta go - she's getting REALLY close to a bee on our herbs.

Cccc-old!

Good morning, world. Pumpkin decided to get up a little early this morning, so we're hanging around, watching a video. Since Mr. Kluges's laptop is home, and since I've seen this one maybe 6 times already ("Tiny Toy Stories" - got it on Thursday at a charity shop... but it's quite short... under 1/2 hr.), I figured I'd pop online and add a post.

So, just want y'all to know that the public accountability piece of my goal is all that got me to do it last night. Yup, I did my 30 minutes of exercise only because of you. Guess that's why I started posting my goals, and it wasn't so bad, but it would have been MUCH easier just being lazy.

We took advantage of a BEAUTIFUL day yesterday to go to the beach. Pumpkin was much more interested in the sand than the water, but we all had fun. Ocean water near Ireland, even in August, is dang ccccc--old! Not quite as much as Superior was a couple of times when we were camping, but frigid nonetheless. Pumpkin dipped her toes in the waves a bit, Mr. Kluges went in up to his knees or so, but me? I braved it out a little deeper and dunked under twice. Whoo! Invigorating! Mr. Kluges took Pumpkin up and down the beach for a while, too, so I got to relax and read on a blanket in the sun (and wind, but that's ok), and listen to the sound of the waves.

It's a three day weekend. The holiday? "Bank Holiday Monday." Periodically, there are "Bank Holidays" where most people have the day off. They're ... let's see... the first Mondays in May, June, and August, and the last Monday in October. Remind me a bit of Memorial Day in that they're usually fairly nice weather and BIG shopping days, often with advertised deals and sales. Mr. Kluges has been making noises about going to the Donkey Sanctuary, so we'll probably do that today or tomorrow.

Ok, tummy's getting growly, and Pumpkin is less zoning out, so I think we'll go do breakfast. Yum!

Day trip to Kilkenny

So today we drove 2 1/2 hours up to Kilkenny to visit our mosaicist friend from 2002. She and her fiance were having a joint exhibition of their work. It was so nice to see her again and 2 of her 3 boys. The 14 year old is now 18, but looks basically the sameas he did in '02. The 7 or 8 year old is now 11 or 12 and has totally changed - taller, longer hair, braces, young-man-face instead of kid-face. After seeing the exhibition, them, a bit of Kilkenny, and such, we got to drive 2 1/2 hours back here. We were glad to get out of the car at the end!

On our way up, we met a group of 20 or so bicyclists in matching yellow jerseys stopped near an intersection. Must have been a fund raiser or something. They were accompanied by an ambulance in case of emergency. Not that unexpected... but only in Ireland would the ambulance drivers be standing around smoking. Hmm... I don' t know about you, but I've heard they're a bit of a health risk. Ah, at least they didn't have pints in their hands!

I gotta tell y'all another Girl-brag, too. We've driving home and there's a rainbow off to the side. I point it out to Pumpkin. She observes it for a while, then tell us, "Stripes in there." Yup - pretty complex for not yet 2!

She doesn't have it all figured out yet though... she kept telling Daddy to "catch it!" and was rather put out when he wouldn't catch that rainbow for her. Reminded me of the time in MN when she wanted me to "make sun ... come up" 'cuz she didn't like that it was getting dark out. Guess she's got rather high expectations of her parents!

Tomorrow we're invited over to the wood-burning-pizza-oven coworkers for (you guessed it) pizza! Yay! Should be tasty, and Pumpkin is probably going to go nuts over their two new dogs. Better hurry up and go to bed so I've got the stamina to keep up with her around puppies!