The Gray Family: We're Back from Ireland!!

Yeah, we've actually been back for about 4 months now, I just suck at posting pictures and blogging about things in a decent amount of time. So anyway, here's what you all missed about the trip, starting with Rajah.

She had absolutely no idea she was on her way to get dropped off at the kennel, which is why she was so anxious to get into the car. Don't mind the ceiling, I had Christopher staple gun it back up, so it's good now.

Notice the side of the rental car Glenn is on? No, I didn't reverse this picture, he actually had to figure out how to drive a manual car on the wrong side and to top it off, we were on the wrong side of the road too. He did great. Thank goodness we were able to get a hotel about 2.5 miles away from the airport, because it was around midnight when we arrived in Shannon.

First stop, the hotel I forgot the name of. I do however remember that the shower was very confusing, mainly because the pressure was the same no matter how far you turned the knob and the temperature was warm no matter which way you turned the other knob.

You could also not be over 5'7" or 200 pounds in order to take a shower in here apparently. I think this had to be the smallest shower I have ever been in.

We were on our way to the Blarney Castle in Cork and stopped to get some morning Joe. This had to be one of the worst cups of coffee I have had. Usually I can drink bad coffee if I need the caffeine but not this one.

There it is, from the front entrance of the 'park' I guess you would call it. The Blarney Castle, ready to be kissed and bless us with the gift of gab.

I guess these trees get cold or something so each one had a nice little scarf on.

Alexander decided it wouldn't hurt to hug one now, since the scratchy bark was all covered up by some soft yarn.

A closer view of the castle.

You see Alexander in the back there trying to get in that selfie? I'm not sure I saw the final product, I'll have to see how it turned out. He looks like he was able to get his eyes in there at least.

An even closer view of the castle. The more square holes were actually not for water to drain out, they were for human waste to be drained out into the moat, I wouldn't want to swim across that.

There was some tiny little room out front, maybe it was their modern day pantry....or a storage shed.

All three kids, smiling at the same time and nobody complained when I asked them to get up there for me to get a quick picture. This could be a once in a lifetime shot people, savor it.

Hmmmm, which way to go. Do we want to plant our lips on a cold stone over a million other people have kissed or do we want to take a leisurely stroll through the poison garden? We chose the stone.

I think this was just a lookout tower, probably. I'm really bad at reading all the signs. I just like to see the stuff.

This was about as big as the windows got inside. At least you don't have to worry about anyone falling out, unless you're like 4 inches wide, even then, every single window was barred up.

Madison was nice enough to run upstairs and pose for me in front of the other people in the castle.

Yep, we were about to kiss whatever these people ahead of us in line left behind. I hope nobody was sick.

There goes Glenn, getting lucky with the Blarney Stone.

Next up, Madison!! She was pretty brave, I'm glad they were holding her because she scooted down really far.

Christopher was up next!! He wasn't about to fall through those bars down there.

My turn! I knew I was safe because the bars weren't spaced far enough apart for me to fall through, but when you're hanging upside down, it doesn't seem that way.

The view from the top. We were pretty high up there.

We still aren't sure what the barrels were for...were they for garbage? Possibly for water or maybe something disgusting and I shouldn't have had Christopher open it? We shall never know.

I'm not sure what was so exciting out there but they had to see it. Well, two of them did, I asked Christopher to join them just for this picture.

I really don't get this one. It's like a crocheted stained glass window.....on a really old castle.....makes sense I guess.

After we all got our kiss fix (not Alexander, he was not having that crap) we decided to take a look at the available poisons they used to have back in the day.

I'm still not sure if they were planning my demise or just scoping out something really interesting. I'm still alive, so they must have found it fascinating.

Doobie anyone? It's kind of funny to me that they have a playground item placed over the pot to 'protect' it. Here kids, have some fun on the jungle gym.

Some sort of lookout tower in the backyard.

These giant roots were all over the place. I thought they looked really cool.

Madison wanted to get up there too, here's her running start, because she's too old to be helped up there.

Here's her attempt at jumping up. Notice the slight bend in her legs and the angle of her arms, she'll get quite a boost when she goes for it.

Here she goes!!!!

Aaaaaand she's not in the picture. Nope, she didn't make it and didn't want to try again.

Here's the small Blarney house out back.

They had a really pretty garden.

I was just kidding about the small part. It was gigantic! Those are the friends we were traveling with too. They look so tiny!

The sign says private, I wonder what's back there that could be so secretive.

Alexander wanted to find out too. ;)

Madison's obligatory photo bomb of the European tourist attractions we go see. Big Ben, check, Blarney Castle, check. Up next, (hopefully) The Eiffel Tower.

Family picture by the scarfed up tree!

After walking through the gardens and the castle we went to get a bite to eat at a local pub. Madison was showing me her latest polaroids.

This is where the kids discovered that they actually liked fish and chips! I'm getting better at trying to replicate it but I'm still miles away from getting it perfect.

Up next, our trip to Limerick....and this sweet motel. Do you happen to see what's missing from this picture? Anything?? Like the actual lock part that's supposed to come out from the door when you deadbolt it?

The floor must have been "freshly cleaned" as in, scrubbed up with water and still smelled like booze and mildew.

That's probably why the windows were open, it's not like someone couldn't have gotten in the door anyway.

I'm not even sure why the Hell the girl gave us an actual key.....

So here we were, backpacking through Ireland...yeah, not what I envisioned when I had heard of people doing it either. What's that? Where's the nice car we rented? Oh, that's stuck in the parking garage until 10:00 am the next morning, we were 15 minutes too late after trying to get our refund for the frat hotel. We ended up walking about 3.5 kilometers, which is about 2.2 miles to get to the Travelodge in Castletroy that thankfully had rooms available.

After a good night's sleep we headed up to County Clare to see the Cliffs of Moher, otherwise known as the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride. It was a little chilly so Alexander needed a cool hat.

It was so pretty there! We didn't see any of the puffins that I thought we might see but we had a nice hike as far away from the edge as we could and it was beautiful.

Some people were a little more daring I guess you could say, and got closer to the edge than I would have, even for an awesome picture.

Selfie time!

This guy was hungry, after a few mouthfuls he realized that the grass on the other side tasted exactly the same as the grass on his side of the fence and left.

I was not there to see this but Glenn apparently held onto Madison's feet as she scooted towards the edge and took a picture. It's probably best that I wasn't there for that one.

We tried to make Nana think the kids were sitting right on the edge of the cliff.

O'Briens Tower is the highest point at the Cliffs of Moher. Christopher went to the top, the rest of us hung around downstairs.

Glenn facetimed Nana and Papa so they could see the cliffs (kind of in person).

Family picture time by the sign!

This guy was right by our car so I decided to give him some of the donut we had left from the morning. He liked it, but when his friends saw what he was getting and started coming our way I decided the buffet was closed and we left.

Guess who else got something to keep her warm...yep, me. I had to because the white sweater Alexander has is mine, he forgot to bring any type of jacket to Ireland with us.

Madison didn't want to try one of these nasty pringles...I can't even remember what flavor they were supposed to be. I think I tried one though and they weren't bad.