The (Glorious) 12th

On Wednesday, we were in Auntie Julie's painting the front bedroom and I looked out the window and saw a lorry with a huge pyramid thingy.  We wondered what it was, and eventually Granny went to look.  Turns out it was a bonfire, ready made, delivered, set up, lit and taken away by the council.  There are varying opinions as to the whole matter, but time is short and I am way behind on this blog already. 

On Saturday morning (during the downpour of rain) the man from the council arrived out again, this time with boxes of crisps, cokes, fantas (lots of mixers, lol), sweets galore for the kids.  Next year he promised a bouncy castle.  Roy Lyons stored the loot in his garage and at 5pm went out and invited all the kids to come and share the spoils. 

Then we watched as the Fire Brigade arrived.  They sprayed the end houses with some sort of foam to protect them from the heat.  This was turning out to be quare craic. 

I walked down to see what was going on. 

All the kids were gathering to watch.

And of course, of course, this one was in the middle of it all.

Here's our bonfire (which was really good!).  It's filled with willow bark and only burned for about 2 hours, but that was long enough for the kids to run around, everyone to have a drink and listen to the Lambegs.  (I started to stash my tin of cider up the sleeve of my coat when the police Inspector from Ballynahinch arrived out, but seems like he was more interested in watching the bonfire with the rest of us than worrying about drinking in public). 

Back to playing in the foam.  Really, sometimes I wonder about bringing children all the way from America to play at the Spa for 10 weeks, but stuff like this makes their summer.  Cole had the time of his life. 

We spent Monday in Ballygowan, watching the 12th.   Normally, we get there as late as we can and leave as soon as the parade goes past, but this year we stayed and had lunch and then watched the parade leave the field again.   All over for another year.  We're looking forward to the bouncy castle.   

Buried Treasure

We spent most of Wednesday in Auntie Julie's new house and on Thursday we headed down to Lindy's for the day.  Despite (because of?) the rain, everyone managed to have a great time.   Carys and Catrina spent a few hours in the river with strict instructions not to let the water come over the top of their wellie boots.  Cole played and played and had a great time over the field.  Chloe and David climbed over hay bales. 

We left and came flying up the road like 2 men and a wee lad to get to Magherhamlet bowling club for 7.  The annual Treasure Hunt. A team is as many people as you have in a car.  You get a sheet of cryptic clues and you have to find the answer as you drive around.  I love Treasure Hunts and the guy who does the bowling club ones writes really good clues.   We talked Claire into coming with us.  Claire kept watch out the driver's side and I eyeballed the passenger side.  The children bickered in the back seat.  Joan drove. 

Despite (because of?) all this, we managed to come in 3rd place.  Not too bad!  And a brilliant drive through the gorgeous Dromara Hills. 

World Cup

On Monday we set off to Murlough to go to the beach.  Sadly, it was not "beach" weather, despite the fact that Cole and Carys are wearing t-shirts and shorts.  Oh well; once they went swimming in their clothes, they weren't going to be warm no matter what.  It was lots of fun to watch them on in the water while granny and I sat wrapped in towels.  Brr!

When we got home, everyone had to change their clothes.  Carys was pretty happy with her present from Alex's mum, Louise.  Thanks, Louise!  The girls didn't care that England are a crap football team, they were just happy to match each other!

On Tuesday, we went and got Granny G and made her lunch.  The girls gave her a make over.  She was a good sport about the whole thing :)

Weekend

Auntie Julie came home from London to spend the weekend with us.  We went over to visit Simon and Lisa, our fellow PTowners.  Simon fed the children crisps and coke; they are very fond of him.  Saturday night, Julie and I went out for dinner with Simon and Lisa and a few others and had a good time.  The children were put to bed early by Granny.  She enjoys being in charge of bedtime.

On Sunday, granda took Auntie Julie to the airport, while the rest of us went to the golf club for tea with Joy, Ken, Granny and Bobby.  Since it's now the NI school holidays, it has started to rain every. single. day. 

Bloody Bridge

All 3 of my kiddos love to go to the Bloody Bridge.  They love to say Bloody Bridge, over and over again.  Kind of like the time we went to the Hoover Dam and they wanted to stand on the Dam wall and visit the Dam shop.  Never gets old. 

I wrote a whole history lesson of a blog post about the Bloody bridge a few years ago.  I will have to see if I can find it because I can't be bothered rehashing it.  I just found it and there is one sentence worth copying:

The bridge gets its name from some sort of bloodshed that occurred here, way back when in 1641.

Very in depth history lesson there.

Today the weather was too nice and everyone (under 12) just wanted to get into the water and climb on the boulders. 

Some of us brought our book in case of an emergency 10 mins when we had nothing to read. Speaking of which, Cole has read 4 books since Sunday.  One of them was about a farting gladiator, Farticus Maximus, but the rest have all been Roald Dahl's.  Luckily for him, Gwyneth got him some new books today (she works at the library). 

There were little glimpses of the sea on the path down. This is part of the Brandy Path, a route that was used for smuggling. 

I thought it was pretty cute how Carys was using Chloe to balance.

Here's the lifeguard.  She sat on the edge and yelled every so often.

They wanted to go bouldering up the river, but ... uh, no.

We always thought that the bridge got its name from the reddish colour of the water.  We were wrong.

We left the river and went down toward the sea.

Maybe that's the secret to a good (ie. non goofy) photo of that child?  Zoom lens. 

Belfast Castle, Cavehill Park

We spent most of Monday and Tuesday entertaining Granny G.  Mum was working so we/I try to spend those days with Granny G.  I brought her up to our house on Monday and made her lunch.  We ended up having to take her back to Kilmore early since we were going to Lyle's . The kids had great fun playing at Lindy and Peter's and I got to spend some time with Cathryn.  On Tuesday, we took Granny G to Newcastle since the weather was so nice.  The kids ended up in the sea ~ Cole to the point that his shoulders were wet and he had to strip naked and sit with a towel wrapped around him on the way home. 

We went to visit Granny G's sister, Aunt Edie on Wednesday.  She lives on the other side of Belfast and my friend Nancy (in AZ) has a friend from NI who lives near Aunt Edie.  Nancy's friend went over to ND to stay with Nancy's family when she was a child.  I'd looked up Lisa's address and we just called round to her house on the off chance that she'd be home.  She was, and it was her birthday, and her dog had 4 week old puppies so we picked the perfect day to visit.  However, like a dork, I forgot to take any photos! 

After we left Lisa's, we drove to Cavehill park for a picnic.  We ended up going up to Belfast Castle.  The kids were excited to visit since this is where Joe and I got married. 

I swear Cole was excited.  Why does he always do this in photos???

There was actually a wedding on, so the castle was pretty busy, but we went down to the cellars and poked around a bit. 

We also climbed up to the visitors' centre and learned about the history of the castle, the history of Cavehill and local wildlife. 

I feel like I should photoshop Joe into this picture (if only I really knew how to do that). 

Next time we go here, we are going to make them climb to the top of the hill.  It's only supposed to take about an hour so very doable for the wee ones.

Cole thought this looked like the lamp post in Narnia. 

Carys turned cartwheels in the castle grounds.

We moved on to Aunt Sandra's. If you live in NI and have never been to Aunt Sandra's, you don't know what you are missing. You should go for the craic, because it's 90.  You should also go for the sweeties because they are delicious.  Pick me up a packet of chocolate honeycomb, please. 

It's at the bottom of the Castlereagh Rd, you can't miss it. 

Everyone got a little something, and funnily enough, there wasn't much fighting going home in the car!  In fact, it was pretty quiet the whole way up the road. 

Birthday Weekend

On Friday Cole woke up to celebrate his 8th birthday.  He was not too excited at the birthday celebration I offered up ~ brunch with Granny G, but in the end he was lured by the thought of a good feed.  We came back to the Spa and he spent the rest of the day playing with his friend Dawson and Ewen came out later and we had birthday cupcakes.  3 days later, I realized that there was not one photograph of the birthday boy from any point over the weekend; stellar mothering, I tell you. 

On Saturday, the girls went riding and then Chloe managed to spend all day the stables.  The other 2 played outside while Granny and I got some things done around the house (mostly I think I internet shopped for toilet seats, since Chloe stood on ours and broke it and a replacement is impossible to find and the one I can find is £200 + VAT which is more than $350 for a toilet seat.) 

Sunday was our annual birthday outing to Tullymore with the Lyles.  Every year, the heavens open and we get soaked at this bbq.  It would almost be disappointing if there was no rain.  This year, we were not disappointed.  We arrived in Tullymore in beautiful sunshine.  I lit the bbq.  10 mins later, everyone else was sitting in the car while I wore a peterstorm and stood holding a golf umbrella over the bbq.  And then as suddenly as it started, the rain stopped and it was a gorgeous day.

Carys with Granda George. 

Getting the lunch started.  All photos by Chloe. 

A volcano cake.  We added sparklers left over from Hallowe'en (thank you Barbara Tate) for a more dramatic effect.  The strawberry sauce/chocolate cake combination went over very well. 

Look! How exciting is that? You'll be wanting a volcano cake for your next birthday, won't you?

We gave all the children a sparkler after they'd had their cake and ice-cream; oh my godfathers, 7 children with sparklers is a little bit intense. 

At this point, Cole went back to sit in a tree and read a book that Gwyneth got him. 

Chloe and David took off to the river with Peter.  They literally ran as fast as they could from the picnic table in a (successful) effort to make sure no small people joined them.

Granda George poured more wine. 

We all had a brilliant day. 

Even those of us who started out feeling a bit under the weather ;)

After Tullymore, I got to go and meet some friends from long ago to have a drink and a catch up.  It was really good to see both of them again and I hope we can manage to get together with our kiddos next time. 
The icing on the cake was that everyone was in bed by the time last orders had been called in the Primrose.  Don't think it gets much better than that.