YOB: #8. Go To Ireland (Part 2)

By Lara

[Here is the continuing story of Lara's account of YOB: #8. Go to Ireland. Be sure to go check out Part 1, and Beth's version, as well.]

IRELAND DAY 3 - We went on our day trip on the third day. The brochure was vague regarding where we were to be picked up, but we eventually got on the correct bus.

Apparently, Dubliners do not like to leave their homes before daylight. We were walking towards the Dublin Tourism office around 7:30 and the streets were practically empty... on a week day.

So. The day trip. The first stop was Glendalough. I LOVED Glendalough. It was beautiful and haunting. We saw some wild goats. The upper lake, the waterfall, my prayer rock, and the green road were all things that imagination are made of. I enjoyed the lower lake and the ruined monastery as well. Most of our tour group hurried off past the truly beautiful things in order to get a cup of tea before re-boarding the bus. Beth and I lingered. It was wonderful.

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Life Is Funny: It's A Secret

By MAD21

Last Wednesday evening as we were saying our last "good-nights" to our girls, my youngest says to me, "Mommy, I can't wait for tomorrow morning." The next day was my birthday and I wondered if she knew and was up to something. The following is how the rest of the conversation went:

Me: "Why are you excited for tomorrow morning?"

Youngest: "Because I have a surprise."

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YOB: #8. Go To Ireland (Part 1)

By Lara

After consulting my list, I see that I only have two more completed items from the Year of the Birthday list to write about. This is a big one, though. Ireland. Prepare yourself for a "too be continued" situation. Seriously. This is a long story.

Beth and I were supposed to go on a tour of the whole country of Ireland last summer. Due to lack of participation, the tour was cancelled. We decided to make our own plans to stay in Dublin over the Thanksgiving long weekend. We spent a lot of time researching the least expensive means of getting to and staying in Dublin. We made reservations.

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YOB: Letterbox Retrieval

By Beth

You will recall that the very first thing we did in the Year of the Birthday was to plant a letterbox in Susquehana State Park on January 1st. The plan was to pick this letterbox up on December 31st but knee surgery, kidney stones and mountains of snow prevented us from doing so. Since I was visiting Lara this past weekend for a tatoo party and the weather was decent we made our way to the park to, finally, pick up the letterbox. Our happy jaunt into the world soon took a sinister turn though.

The park was much more crowded this time around, the small lot where we parked was nearly full. The path was also much narrower due to an increase in vegetation since January. We started down the path, eager to see who had found our letterbox over the past year. On the path was a giant beetle. Seriously. It was huge. Naturally, I took a picture of it, not thinking anything of it. I wanted a picture in my scrapbook, that's all. The beetle, however, turned out to be a top of the line, robotic guard (similar to the fly in Get Smart, the one Agent 23 destroyed) and the flash from my camera set off a silent alarm, alerting CIA spies to our presence.

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Life Is Funny: Boys Are Gross

By MAD21

About a month ago, we went over to the "new" house of some family friends to help them paint and get ready to move in. The husband half of the couple, Mr. D, had the job of keeping all the kids entertained, their three and our two. He did a great job. They had a lot of fun going down to the river behind the house and hiking along the wooded areas. They collected tadpoles, jumped over logs and ran from a snake. All-in-all a terrific day.

My girls were finishing up dinner one night last week. They were sitting at the table and I was doing the dishes. They were chatting about how much they enjoy playing outside and going on hikes. They said they'd really like to go back over to our friend's house to "play in the forest" again, and started recounting all the fun they had had on their last adventure. After a short pause... was this the conversation:

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