Shamrocks, Seasides and Starfish

When Abe scheduled a meeting with a client in Dublin a couple of weeks ago we looked into taking everyone and making it a weekend trip. Thanks to Ryanair we were able to fly very cheaply the day AFTER dad. Mom was a little nervous but other than a half-hour delay the short flight went very well and we arrived at the Dublin airport to meet dad with no problems.
Dublin has a nice feel to it. We liked it except for the crazy streets. Thank goodness for GPS to get us around.

We spent all day Friday and Saturday covering as much
of the eastern part of Ireland as we could.
We visited Malahide Castle where we had a delicious breakfast in the cafe
inside the castle and took a guided tour.
This castle was owned and lived in by The Talbot family up until the 1970's.

After visiting the castle we drove on along the coast to the port-town of Howth where we took about a 2 mile hike along the cliffs and around the end of the peninsula.

These thorny bushes with the yellow flowers grow wild all over here are called gorse. They smell just like coconut and remind me of Summer.

Saturday we drove further up the coast and found a great park for the kids to play at.

When we had driven for a couple of hours we came across a golf course Abe about wept over, it was so breathtaking. We got out to take pictures and found a walkway that led down to a little private beach that we played at for a while and where Sadie found a starfish that we enjoyed handing around and then eventually sent back into the ocean. I've decided Sadie may be a marine biologist when she grows up, she loves the oceans and the animals in it.

The kids begged and begged to bring some of the rocks from the beach back with them to England. After enough begging we eventually caved in and let them take some only to have all the kids bags searched through security at the airport and the rocks confiscated. McKay was so crushed he cried all the way down to the gate. Later today we discovered a few they had overlooked so all is well.

When we arrived back in Dublin we decided to visit the National Botanical Gardens.
They were beautiful.

I'm dreaming of a white...April 6th?

Didn't we move to England?  

This is what we woke up to this morning along with loud thunder and lightening.  

Abe is driving to Reading with the bishop this morning for Priesthood meeting. We are all supposed to return this afternoon to watch Saturday afternoon session tape delayed and then Sunday morning session live at 5pm our time.  Frankly, I'm a little scared to get on the roads with the Brits who rarely see snow and NEVER get snow like this, especially in April.  

Oxford Adventures

Being seven hours ahead of Salt Lake, our first session of General Conference was not until 5 pm. Our stake center is in Reading, 20 miles north of us- so, as we would be driving a bit anyway, we decided to take in Oxford before conference.

It has started to be a running joke that the sun comes out whenever we're indoors but as soon as we get outside it clouds over. Truly it was sunny and beautiful on our drive, and literally, the moment we stepped out of the car, the wind picked up and the clouds came rolling in. Then, the second we got back to the car the sun started shining away again.

We enjoyed a short visit to Oxford. We popped into a couple of museums. One had a special exhibition on Gulliver's Travels- with a trail for the kids to follow along with Gulliver to explore inventions and to explore the small microscopic world. At the Bodleian Library there was an exhibit on John Milton with original pages of Paradise Lost and his Areopagitica. The blossoms have been coming out and they were so lovely against the backdrop of the stone architecture.

We left Oxford with what should have been enough time to get to Reading, but half-way there the road was closed by the police. We were sent off to discover a new way to Reading. We traveled through some quaint little villages with thatched-roofed cottages and beautiful bridges and streams, BUT we we had no clue where we were and luckily meandered back to the road headed to Reading. Sadly, we were 20 minutes late to conference and missed the sustaining of the First Presidency and calling of Elder Christofferson. But we did catch some of the end- including the calling of Sister Dalton. Oh well, we did get to see some of England we may never have visited right?

Fun with face paints

One of the things we have absolutely loved about being here is how our kids have learned to entertain themselves.  We have no cable hook-up so no T.V. shows only playstation or videos and up until yesterday had no internet at home so the kids have had to be creative in what they do together for fun.  

The four of them have spent days pretending they were auditioning for American Idol and filming their performances, for a couple of days they set up an entire fashion design studio in the office with Lucy as their model, we've had competitions of who can make the best animal sounds (these are a riot by the way) and this particular afternoon Sadie was having a face-painting booth. 

Happy Birthday Zach

Our Zachie turned 11 yesterday.  I can hardly believe he's this big.  He wished to be back home with all his friends for his birthday but had to settle for a digital camera and a night on the town with dad.

Sadie wanted so badly to do something for him for his birthday.  First she wanted to make brownies but we were out of eggs so she decided to make a smiley breakfast for him.  He loved it!  

Happy Birthday Zachers we love you buddy.

A Sunday Drive

Sunday after church the weather was beautiful for the first time in weeks and we just couldn't stand staying indoors so we decided to take a drive to the London temple.  The temple is in Surrey about 40 minutes from our house so we soaked in the sunlight and the kids tried to find animal shapes in the clouds as we drove.  

The temple was small and beautiful, much like the Swiss temple I enjoyed while living in Meiringen.  The grounds were covered with daffodils popping up at random all throughout the lawn. It was lovely.

After we finished at the temple we decided to go home the long way and drive along the coast from Brighton to Southampton.  It took a couple of hours but we loved the little beach town of Brighton and running around on the beach a little and having a contest of who could find the most interesting shell on the beach. McKay won unanimously with a beautiful little shell that amazingly had not been smashed by the many rocks along the beach. 

Later we passed Arundel Castle.

I personally loved this castle and not surprisingly as this is where the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table originated from.