Ireland...a little late

This is a bit out of order but the only photos we had were on Carlos phone...which was in Portugal for awhile.  Carlos and I went from Woodstock, NY to Dublin, Ireland with a 2 hour stop in DC all within 24 hours. We had a wedding in Woodstock and then a work trip to Ireland. It didn't go as smoothly as possible thanks to a classic move on my part. I thought I booked a really nice stay at the Woodstock Inn for a weekend getaway, but when we arrived it appeared to be a motel. Turns out that I had booked the Woodstock Inn in VERMONT. The Woodstock Inn in New York is not as nice.... Despite that we had a fun time seeing old friends in a beautiful setting.


After a brief stop in DC to re-pack, we left for Dublin.  Oddly it took a trip to Dublin for Carlos to meet my boss.  My work meetings were at the Guinness Storehouse so we enjoyed some Guinness at the roof bar.  They say the Guinness served there is brewed less than 2 days beforehand so it is the freshest and best.  I'm not much of a connoiseur to know.  We did seem to enjoy many pints of Guinness given that you can't go a block without finding an inviting pub with live music.  This is how most of eating/drinking looked like:

fish and chips...not as gross as I expected!

We got to see Ireland play Italian in the Euro cup while dining on fish and chips in an irish pub.  Sadly Ireland lost :(

After Dublin we drove towards Galway and stayed overnight in a castle.  The grounds were beautiful and we seemed to go on an endless walk.  We didn't get to take a falconry class, but we did get to rent a boat and explore the lake.  We landed on one island and searched around for life form.  It was a little eery, but a fun adventure.  Carlos made the mistake of letting me drive the boat and when we came into dock the boat I managed to almost kill him.  At a poor angle I was attempting to reverse the boat but instead I put on the accelerator and he almost went flying into the freezing cold water.  Here are some pictures of the castle and our walk.

 Although I did like laying claim to a small irish island, my favorite part of the castle was TEA TIME! The tea and food were insanely good.

Early Birthday Party!

We threw an early birthday party for Charlie and Diego given that we'll be gone for their actual birthdays.  We made pinatas for the kids to decorate, rented a moonbounce and made lots of food.  It was a lot of fun despite all the weather and park obstacles.  Charlie really likes moonbounces but I never have patience to wait in line so we rented a big cake one just for him.  Charlie and I spent various afternoons making pinatas which he was great at....except that he got the flour/water mixture all over the house.  But he was very proud of his work. 
Unfortunately we've been having a record heat wave here so it was forecast to be 95 by 10am!! ahh!  On top of that when we arrived the sprinklers were going off so we couldn't set up the food.  I asked the park authoritarian if he could help, but he just shrugged and told me to wait another 30 min.  Carlos then went to talk to him....he turned off the sprinklers.  what's wrong with me that i have no authority?! 

pinatas in the making...

almost done...

ready for decorating!

 

Superman Diego!  we did capes as favors

Nevertheless it turned out to be a lot of fun.  Charlie really misses his classmates and is constantly telling me who he misses so he was super happy to see everyone.  Speaking of summer - I decided that I would prefer school to run year-round or maybe have an optional summer school verison.  I have a random assortment of camps and nothing perfect.  Charlie LOVED soccer camp but it only ran for two weeks.  This week we tried CHDS and I was annoyed from the beginning.  It seemed like glorified babysitting with field trips to places I didn't want them to go.  We dropped out after the first day....