Friday Recap 11/16/18 - Girls trip to Vermont, Pork Shoulder with Plums, Lulu's new hat, Zoo visit, "Why You Should Stop Yelling at Your Kids"

Yay! I'm back to being "on time" with my Friday posts! Only one week got lost in the Ireland travel shuffle - not too bad! What a wonderfully fun week its been!

1. Girls Trip to Vermont (& New Hampshire)

My sister & I gave our Mom a trip to visit the King Arthur Flour baking school for Mother's Day this year! My Dad covered her airfare & we did our best to cover everything else! I hadn't been in Vermont (or New Hampshire) since my big brother was college searching.......so its safe to say this felt like a new place for me.

The trip was great - so nice for Marg, Mom & I just to worry about ourselves & grown up things & not have any dishes, laundry or dirty diapers to contend with! The travel all went smoothly which is something that I can forget to be grateful for; because we all bitch if we have flight delays or cancellations or lost bags. I am trying to remember to be pleased when all goes as it should! This was my first flight without the Bug since she was born almost 19 months ago & I remember now why flights used to feel relaxing! I put on the noise cancelling headphones, worked on this blog, flipped through a magazine, it was delightful!

Our home away from home

We stayed in a cabin on Fat Sheep Farm, it was so funky & cute. We were greeted with eggs from their chickens & pumpkin chocolate chip scones which one of the hosts had baked. Yum.

The natural beauty was striking - the hills/mountains, a bit of fall color hanging around on the trees, old barns everywhere, stone walls, Vermont delivered on it all.

We had so much fun at the King Arthur Flour Headquarters - there is a delicious cafe, a gigantic store plus the baking school. We ate breakfast there both mornings & I think we all wished we could eat there much more frequently!!

This was our "first course" at breakfast......we also each ordered amazing breakfast sandwiches!

Our Airbnb hosts suggested we try Mangalitsa for dinner - we were only able to get a reservation at 5:30pm......which is 4:30pm for my Mom  & my body clocks! It was worth eating dinner in the afternoon - such a great menu- full of unexpected twists. Bonus - a lot of the produce we ate in our meals was grown on the farm where we stayed!

The Brussel Sprouts were to die for. We all could've eat a boatload of them! Lobster Ravioli was also top notch!!

We shopped to our hearts' content & surprisingly none of our credit cards caught fire ;) We poked around the towns of Windsor, Quechee, & Woodstock, VT plus Hanover, NH. I got a jump start on Christmas shopping  - it snowed lightly on & off Saturday - it was windy & cold - it felt Christmas-y!

We enrolled in Savory French Tarts for our baking class on Sunday. We had a great instructor, the facility was AMAZING and we all learned something new. We also left with 6 full size tarts.....I flew out pretty much straight after the class was over........so Marg & Mom drove back to Connecticut with a car full of delicious!!

Marg & I ran both mornings - Saturday was cold & rainy, but Sunday was clear & we were treated to a beautiful sunrise! So many hills though. So.Many.Hills. My Midwestern legs & lungs were majorly burning!!

We hope to make this a new tradition - it was a wonderful trip to be sure.

2. New Recipe - Pork Shoulder with Plums
Chris & I have been working on eating less meat at home for environmental & economic reasons. Though when the weather turns cold - there is something about having a stash of pork shoulder in the freezer that is quite comforting!!
I found this recipe online - randomly from the BBC!! I also happened to have just purchased a huge box of plums at Costco, so it made good sense to try it.
We ate this over Trader Joe's frozen brown rice (obviously I cooked it!) with a salad & it was a great winter meal!


3. This hat on the Bug

4. Zoo Visit

So many animals were out & about. Verrrrrrrrrrrry few humans. A nice, quiet morning spent with the Bug.

5. Why You Should Stop Yelling at Your Kids
I try not to raise my voice with Lulu - it seems counter productive. I don't like parenting from an angry place - mostly because I try not to live in an angry place!! I found this article to be thoughtful & give concrete ideas for what I might do in place of yelling. I need the alternatives too!

Friday Round Up 10/26/18 - Ireland

Touring Trinity College's campus

Oh my what a fun 8 days we had in Ireland! We spent time with my 4th cousins & Lulu's 5th cousins, drove to the Atlantic coast & on some of the Ring of Kerry, visited my ancestral hometown in County Carlow, and also got a stomach bug - which was the only unfun part of our vacation! Despite the fact that Ireland is approximately the same size as the state of Indiana.......we feel like we barely scratched the surface in our week there. We saw a lot of the country - but we both feel like there is so much more to see. Obviously, it is always such a treat to spend time with our extended family - the people we visit are descendants of my great great grandfather's brother. 

Got to pick up sweet Luci from school! We brought the whole crew ;)

Why wouldn't all 3 girls be in Lulu's pack n play?!?

My great great grandfather emigrated from Ireland & settled in, wait for it, Evanston. No joke. Fresh off the boat - Evanston was his choice of a home. So I have that in common with him! He shares his first name with my Dad & my great grandfather! George A. Kearney, born 1829, died 1896. His son, also George A. Kearney (my great grandfather born 1868, died 1938) happened to install the original plumbing in the home Chris & I live in. His signature was on the original building permit as the plumbing and sewer contractor when our house was new construction in the early 1900s! Makes the world feel delightfully small.

                                                                    

Loved taking the fast train into Dublin's city center with our fam

Solid self timer effort here!!

We had a great time kicking off our trip in Dublin – my 4^th cousin (who I simply call my cousin) Orla & her husband Richard hosted us in their beautiful, recently renovated home. It was such a luxury to arrive to a comfortable home full of our family rather than a hotel or an Airbnb. Orla & Richard’s daughters (Luci, 5 & Grace, 3) were thrilled to have their American cousin visiting and staying with them. We relished the chance to see their neighborhood & participate in their daily lives. We only got touristy for half a day & enjoyed time in downtown Dublin. Orla’s little sister Geraldine was kind enough to fly to Dublin with her younger son Theo in order to spend the weekend with us! We are so lucky to have such thoughtful family. Ger was our tour guide around Trinity’s campus since she’s an alum 😊

Family walk down Grafton St.

View from the front of our Kenmare Airbnb!

From Dublin we traveled southwest to Kenmare, which is on the Ring of Kerry. We arrived at night, it was already dark, so we didn’t do anything except order a pizza, eat dinner & go to bed.  Lulu had fallen asleep in the car.......so we tried to put her straight down at the house. Fail. So we fed her some Apache (such a ridiculous pizza box/chain name) pizza and she went down the 2nd try!

Tired & mostly naked.....eating subpar pizza #vacation

 Unfortunately, Chris woke up the next day, which just happened to be our 8^th wedding anniversary feeling just awful. He had some sort of stomach bug and couldn’t really get out of bed. Lulu & I walked the 15 minutes into town from our Airbnb and had breakfast at the delightful bakery/restaurant called Jam. So many delicious things and felt almost unreasonably affordable! On to the pharmacy to get some stomach meds for Chris & then the grocery store to get crackers & ginger ale ☹ Chris felt a bit better after Lulu’s nap so joined us on another walk into town & sat with us for lunch. 

Cromwell's bridge - pre puke

Lulu wanted to dip her toes in the water!

Unfortunately, he didn’t feel well on the walk back to our Airbnb & puked his guts out by historic Cromwell’s Bridge. It was a very scenic area – Chris said it was the prettiest place he’d ever puked! Needless to say, Chris went back to bed as soon as we got back to our Airbnb, which I should probably mention was ridiculously large. 4 bedrooms & a whopping 5 bathrooms! Silly big, honestly. But -it had a washer & a dryer – which was a godsend given what the next 12 hours held. Lulu & I went for a walk to try to get to the coast- we could see the water from the house – but it was down a hill & wasn’t clear if we could walk to it. Comically when I called our host to ask, he said that the 6 cows they keep as pets would bother us so much that he didn’t recommend us walking through his farmland! But his brother’s estate was right up the road & we could let ourselves through his gate in order to walk to the water. 

Sometimes our trip felt straight out of an Irish cliché – this was one of those times! We had a beautiful walk & met a nice woman on our walk back who was an American expat living full time in Kenmare – right near our Airbnb. Unfortunately (for the 3^rd time), I woke up in the middle of the night to puke. And then again, an hour later. I took these opportunities to do laundry – because all of the sudden………everything felt contaminated ☹

Did my absolute best to rally for some photos after my car nap

We checked out the next morning & I felt like garbage. Orla & Ger both recommended a restaurant called Avoca Café on the drive from Kenmare to Dingle through Moll’s Gap. I slept in the rental car in the (very scenic) parking lot. Just needed more & more sleep! Oh well. Stomach bugs happen & at least Lulu did not get it. AND at least our cousins didn’t get it either! Those were my 2 biggest worries when Chris started to feel sick. Alls well that ends well, right?!?

My loves

Lulu found the gravel far more engaging than the beautiful view of the valley.

Once I felt better we all really enjoyed Dingle. It was the start of their slow/off season so the one bummer was a bunch of stuff was closed. Other than that though – there were delicious cafes & bakeries, fun pubs, and solid takeaway cheeseburger places – which is what Chris & I both wanted once our stomachs were back to some semblance of normal. 

Murphy’s Ice Cream came highly recommended – it was out of this world delectable. I could’ve eaten far more of it than I did!! I (stupidly) opted to share mine with Lulu rather than pay for her to have her own that would’ve cost 4.50 euro. Bad choice! It was creamy in a way I typically associate only with high end butter – interesting flavors, cute shop to eat it in. All in all a wonderful ice cream experience!! 

Lulu made herself right at home at the pub ;) 

The hardware store aspect was just hilarious. 

There was some kind of rat bait or poison or trap on the bar for sale right in front of my stool. Thankfully I didn't have any need for the product- but what a comfort to know I could get that & a pint!

We also shared a Guinness  in Foxy John’s pub. We felt like we couldn’t just hang out in this place that we’d read about & heard about – seemed like we needed to buy a beer. But neither of us really had the taste for beer of any kind post stomach bug & so we just went with something we would never otherwise choose 😊Foxy John’s is well known because its not just a pub – it is also a hardware store & a bicycle repair shop! There was live traditional music being played, Lulu did some dancing, it was an experience quite difficult to replicate anywhere else I’d imagine!

The highlight of our time spent traveling just the 3 of us were the hikes we did on the Atlantic coast. Holy cow – it was breathtakingly beautiful I could not get over how wild & raw & stunning the coastline was. 

Lulu's first dip in the Atlantic Ocean was a bit of a mistake...big wave flooded her shoes!

Every place we stopped seemed more beautiful than the last.

Chris blending in with his surroundings

It reminded me both of Bermuda & the California coast, water so blue that it looked fake – cliffs & steep drop offs- rocky, craggy outcroppings getting pummeled by waves. But also beautiful white sand beaches! Sheep farms everywhere. Sheep everywhere. Felt like it was straight out of a storybook.

These two :)

Step ladders are provided on the hiking paths so you can avoid the electric fences for the sheep!

The Bug was not ready to leave. Can you blame her?

A post about this trip simply would not be complete without mentioning the fact that we managed to let Lulu get her index finger bitten by a donkey at an animal farm/petting zoo type place. They provide food that you can feed the sheep, goats, donkeys, & alpaca - great idea in theory - makes the animals want to come see you. 

In practice though, when you let your 18 month old hold the food, she clenches it in her tiny little baby fist & won't open her fingers to allow the animal to have access! The donkey took matters into its own teeth. Her poor finger looked like a sausage afterward - but thankfully her skin wasn't broken (& neither was her bone!) Parenting at its finest!

 Lulu has been showing us her "nice flat hand" (we've been coaching her ever since on how to safely feed an animal) every time she wants to talk about the incident with the donkey. This happens at least once per day......we've been home from our trip for a couple weeks now! The animal farm was built into a hillside & had stunning views of the ocean.

 It also was home to some famine cottages - what a dark time in Ireland's history the famine was. Sometimes learning of other country's hard times makes me feel less bad about the ways that the US has screwed up historically. Its a good reminder that we are not the only country with gigantic mistakes and awful treatment of people in our past. There were horrifyingly scary mannequins all throughout the cottages - so I didn't take too many photos - they were majorly freaking me out.

We headed to my ancestral hometown of Bagenalstown, in County Carlow from Dingle. We stopped in Adare for an hour or two to stretch our legs, get a bite to eat & break up the 4 hour drive for the Lulu bean. We had brunch at the ridiculously delectable restaurant oddly (in my opinion) named The Good Room. I only wished I had an excuse to buy one of everything from the bakery they had there!

We didn't spend much time here- but the town of Adare was beautiful

Heading to the Tourist Office. Kidding. 

Visiting Aunt Teresa & Uncle Louie was another real treat. It didn’t feel like 20+ years had gone by since I’d last seen them! They opened their home to us & welcomed us warmly. I think we spent approximately 30 waking minutes away from the kitchen table! 

High fives

Louie's sister Patricia (our family historian/genealogist) - came to visit both days

Thank you for stopping by Brian!

We spent our time there simply relaxing, drinking tea (& eating sweets) & catching up. Teresa had a tin of all of the Christmas cards our family has sent to her over the past 25 or so years. It was delightful & hilarious to go through them & relive our awkward phases! Our cousin Brian stopped by his parents' house Friday night on his way home from work - so kind of him - given he'd been away from home 2 nights & had his wife & 3 kiddos waiting for him to return. Orla, Richard & the girls drove down to Louie & Teresa's house Friday evening too!! Lulu was so happy to see her cousins again before we needed to head for home.

So many helpers to feed Maude, the cat!

Homemade cupcakes shared amongst cousins!

As much of the crew as we could shove into our self timer photo

Saturday brought us back to Dublin - the trip was winding down - but not our family tour! We had one more cousin to see :) Enda & his wife Jo invited us to their beautiful home for an afternoon visit. Unfortunately Jo wasn't feeling well, so we missed out on giving her hugs & catching up. Enda was a great host & Jo had baked an amazing cake that we enjoyed with coffee while we caught up. Lulu loved running around in the back garden....until it started to hail! It went from sunny blue skies to hailing sort of hard in only a few minutes time. Super strange.

Despite a lot of puking – Chris & I are ready to go back to Ireland already! What a beautiful & friendly country. So many places we didn’t have a chance to explore - & so much more hiking to do!!