North Coast

 It took a few days to recover from Dublin.  Well, more like 24 hours as we spent Saturday over at Hillsborough, walking around the lake.   We managed to escape with only 1 child as the girls had gone for a riding lesson.  Saturday night, we went for an Indian for dinner and then hit the town.  As in, Ballynahinch.  Haha.  We partied it up in Cloisters. 

 Lots of people called for the craic over the weekend. 

 We posed in my mum's new kitchen. 

 Look, Michele!  A MN blanket!

After the weekend, we were in serious need of some fresh air, so along with Joy, Ken and Granny G, we set off to drive up the north coast.

 The Vistitors' Centre at the Causeway is undergoing a revamp so we set off on a path that was new to us. 

 Same good views though. 
I don't know what this child is doing without her coat, it was a pretty windy day. 

Funky Stones

  

 We have these photos from years past, but somehow every time you see it, it's as impressive as it was the time before. 

Group shot at the Giant's Boot.

We had a picnic lunch (thanks, Ken!) right at the water and then set off for the drive home. 

Dublin

 I abandoned  left my children with my mum and Annette and I ran away to took a little trip to Dublin. 

 I took exactly 3 photos of cultural things and then put my camera way.  The photo below is actually of the building in the background of the photo.  Can you see it?  It's really funky. 

Lack of photos though doesn't mean that we did  not have a good time.  We did.  We had a great time.  I have not been out so late in quite some time.  We'd purchased very expensive Euros and we were determined to spend them all.  We were successful. 

We had planned to do a bus tour the next day and I was full of good intentions of taking more photographs, but somehow that didn't happen.  :) 

We made it back to NI, despite a "security alert" (formerly known as a bomb scare) on the train line. 

Back in the Saddle

I was starting to wonder if I'd be able to remember how to get into my blog, but by some stroke of luck, when I typed blogger into the url bar the dashboard came up straight away!  So, I have no idea what my blogger username or password are, but I'll make the most of it while it lasts. 

We had a fun trip over this year; my friend Annette flew over with us and it was fun to have someone to travel with.  We let the kids have all the cokes they wanted on the plane in return for peace and quiet while we sipped our (complimentary) drinks.  We navigated our way through LHR with a bottle of Captain Morgan that we bought in duty free on the plane, but despite our panic that the Captain wouldn't make it through Flight Connections at Heathrow, he did. 

We started out with a day for R&R, which for Annette equals Shopping.   We had time to browse and wander round as my mum kept the kids with her. 

Tuesday, there was no rain in sight so we set off for Tullymore with Joy and Ken for a bbq. 

 Everyone was pretty happy to be back in one of our favourite places. 

Cole had to go and take a picture in front of the monument.

After Tullymore, we took a quick drive over to Newcastle to buy ice-cream and to check out Uncle Ken's boat in the harbour.