11 months

Little Liam is 11 months today.
This is what is happening with him lately....

cheesy grins
kisses
spontaneous cuddles
3.5 new teeth (the .5 is almost 'cut')
ravenous appetite for any food offered
getting to like his nana and granddad a bit better
seek and destroy missions in our house
thick blonde hair
waving bye bye spontaneously, giving high fives and being fascinated with the garbage truck

He's the life of the party!

An Afternoon with Stanley

Just felt like going to the seawall at Stanley Park this afternoon...so we did!

Lost Lagoon

The weather was perfect. Warm but not too warm with a breeze.

We walked very briskly and did the whole seawall much faster than I thought we could. We had to stop for a rest at one point to feed Liam.

And we had a snack too. The very last of our treats from Europe.

Jaffa cakes are a soft vanilla wafer with a thin layer of orange jelly and then coated in chocolate. Quite nice!

I wouldn't say no to a cruise right about now.

We hadn't stopped at the totem poles for years. Didn't you used to be able to stand right next to them? I thought the landscaping was very poor....mow the grass or plant flowers or do a rock garden....anything would be better than that mess!

Reality will hit us all tomorrow as I start back to work! Yikes!

North West Washington Fair, Lynden WA

My mom made me an offer I could not refuse. She offered to take Liam for the day so I could take the boys to the Lynden Fair. Thank you so much, Mom!

Kori and Blake decided to come along too, so we set out this morning to the fair in the beautiful sunshine. I hadn't been to this fair since I was about 14 years old so I was excited to see how it had changed...or not!

Here we are waiting for the free shuttle to take us to the fair.


Chad standing in front of a VERY pregnant cow. I think birth was imminent.


Antique tractors.


Of course, a fire engine.

Nate, Chad and Blake. They are all great buds.

Chad was thrilled to touch a turtle. He loves them and wants one for a pet.

Why is it that fair food always smells better than it tastes? Chad and I had a corn dog which was tasty. I like one about every 5 years or so. We also shared some mini donuts and an elephant ear. Yeah....the memory of these tasty treats is just that. A memory. They didn't impress me today. Maybe my taste buds are so 'mature' that these things are just not for me anymore!

Each one got a chance to sit on a State Patrol bike.

My dad generously gave the boys each some cash to spend as they liked. They chose to play a midway game. I was surprised they actually hit the targets with a baseball and won a prize! Good job guys.

The kids spent some of the money on sweets. Of course. The rest they are saving up for going to the USA next week.

All the produce displayed for judging.

Yes, even vegetable creations have a place at the fair.

The flower displays were lovely.

I decided I wanted dahlias in my garden until I was told that you have to dig up the bulbs each fall.

The poultry barn was amusing. Those funny little roosters made such a racket and some had the craziest hair dos!

No boys.....no chickens as pets! Blake was a good sport about going into all the animal barns. His allergies were on high alert!

Kori and I trying to be very serious for our pose.

Having a bit of fun with milk in the agricultural display.

You could buy an ice cold carton of milk (plain or chocolate) for only .50 cents!

A fake cow with real milk...how fun is that?!

By about 3:30 we had seen it all, ate it all and were sweaty and tired. We decided to head home. Here the boys are patiently waiting for our shuttle bus.

It was a fun day. We ended off with some delicious ice cream cones at Edaleen Dairy on the way home. Cheese and butter were purchased as well.

And that my friends was our day at Lynden Fair. Won't be back for a while....once every decade is probably more than enough!

Liam did great at my mom's. He only screamed for about 45 minutes at nap time but otherwise did awesome. Good thing he's beginning to like her because he's going to be seeing A LOT of her in the very near future!

Day 21 ~ Homeward Bound

Our three weeks in Ireland were coming to a close. Looking back, I can't believe we were able to pack so much into our time there. I would have never imagined there was so much to see in one tiny corner of that country. We never had to travel far to see something beautiful, historical or interesting.

We woke up on our final day to an absolute downpour. It was the kind of rain that ran down your face and drenched your hair in a matter of minutes. It was absolutely socked in and since we really didn't have any plans it didn't really matter.
Sinead did take me out for lunch on our last day there. We had really wanted to get out, just the two of us and this was our final opportunity. She took me to a place called Cafe Blend for a tasty lunch and we were able to have a great visit without the demands of the babies. A treat indeed.

Afterwards we did a bit of shopping at some of the bigger outlet stores. They have a TK Maxx instead of TJ Maxx and a Home Base instead of Home Depot!

We were definitely looking forward to the evening because we had a sitter coming over to look after ALL the kids and were going out to dinner!

I'm sure missing those girls. It was fun to have some female company for a change.

We also attempted to get a group shot of all the kids. As you can see Clodagh was less than impressed with the whole idea. We finally got one that we were happy with though!

As we were getting ready to leave for our much anticipated night out, Darryl made the kids these supreme and deluxe ice cream sundaes. They were quite yummy looking and it was hard not to take a bite! Our dinner reservations were for 8:30pm so we could get all the babies to bed for Eileen!

They tucked into their sundaes and watched their DVD. Happy as clams.

For dinner we went to the Lemon Tree. It wasn't super fancy or anything but a very comfortable atmosphere. The food was all extremely fresh and delicious. The men had starters....Darryl and Keith both got crab cakes I think. My memory is failing me here. For the main course I had the penne with roasted vegetables, Keith and Darryl had pan seared cod and Sinead had some sort of chicken dish. It was all divine. We were able to visit properly and relax for the evening.

I was too full for dessert but Keith and Sinead decided to indulge. Keith had the creme brulee which was uniquely served up on a roof slate.

Sinead had the lemon tart with raspberry sorbet. It was so good....she was nice enough to let me sample!

After we had all stuffed ourselves silly we weren't quite ready to go home yet. Darryl and Sinead wanted to take us out for a drink. So we walked up the street aways to the 'Cottage Bar' pub. It was a most unique place with dark little corners, interesting photos on the walls and many people socializing and enjoying themselves. Keith and Darryl had a whiskey drink called an 'Irish Mist' while Sinead and I had a vodka with bitter lemon. Strong but good. By now it was midnight and Sinead was feeling the urge to feed Emma. We sadly left for home but also left with some wonderful memories. Eileen reported that the kids gave her no trouble and the babies never woke up either. Lucky her!

At this point we decided there was no use in going to bed. It was well past midnight and we had to leave the house at 3:30 am to get to Belfast Airport. Our good man Darryl took a quick nap because he was going to go straight to work after he dropped us off at the airport. Yikes!

So we sorted our suitcases, visited and whiled away the time until it was the moment to leave. We woke up the kids (who went to bed fully dressed for this rude awakening) and also Ceara because she really wanted to say good bye. We had some teary moments, very tight hugs and heartfelt expressions of gratitude for all the hospitalitiy we were shown. I'm all teary just thinking about it again!

Packing up the car was a bit more trouble than we expected for some reason and we left a bit late. Darryl drove us there with lightening speed and because I was so tired I didn't even care one bit! I'm usually a nervous passenger :)

We arrived with just enough time to check in, get through security (where I got frisked...YUCK) and arrive at our gate. Oh and changed ANOTHER vile and disgusting diaper of Liam's (his bum was raw by this point....ouch). The flight to Heathrow was quite bumpy and I had a very teary and panicky moment. Thankfully Keith talked me down and I was most happy to finally see London. The flight was smooth over the city and I was able to appreciate seeing London Bridge, the 'Eye' of London and a few other landmarks as we descended. Once we arrived we decided to try and find something to eat. Our body clocks were all messed up but we knew we needed something to help us get through the day! We found some smoothies and fruit and wraps in the airport and before we knew it, it was time to get to our gate again. On our way to the gate I stopped at WHS Books to get some magazines and found some massive family sized Cadbury's Double Chocolate bars. I bought several and was delighted with my 'find'!

We boarded and were sort of annoyed to find that they split up our family for seating. How dumb. So Nathan was behind us and Chad a row ahead and across from us. But we were too tired to make much of a fuss and the kids insisted they would be fine. It just meant that we were sitting with a stranger and it's more stressful that way with the baby. Oh well....we made friends with a nice English lady who was coming to visit her friends in Surrey BC and had never been to Canada before. It worked out okay. The flight was very smooth and Liam did alright. I had never felt quite so fatigued and just wanted to cry.....you know when you get to that point?! I tried to sleep but never could for more than a few moments. At least the flight attendents were superb, the food was actually very very good and the passengers were well behaved. I suppose it's all you can ask for on an international flight!

When we finally got to Vancouver I was so happy to touch down. We were home! We made it! The flight attendents just couldn't stop complimenting us on how nice our boys were and what lovely manners they had. We were most proud of them.

We got through Customs quickly, found our luggage without issue and were most happy to see my parents and brother eagerly awaiting us at arrivals. It's a nice feeling to have someone there to pick you up! My mom was bouncing up and down like a Mexican jumping bean in only a way she can :) I handed Liam over to them right away and he took one look at them and BAWLED. I guess three weeks is a long time for a baby and he was not having any part of these 'strangers'!

Chad drove back with my parents and my brother drove us home in our car. It was a fast drive with all the talking we had to do...catching up and sharing stories! It felt a bit odd to be back to driving on the right side of the road again.

Just super happy to come home to our house and climb into our beds!

We had such a good time and have made memories that will never fade. Thank you Darryl & Sinead for helping to making our dream trip a reality!

The beautiful English countryside.

Day 20 ~ Glencolmcille & Silver Strand

Today was our last day of touring. And to celebrate, I'm not going to hold back on the pictures! Believe me, it's still only a fraction of the ones I took but I can only sit here and upload for so long.

So, for the last time we packed up our little Golf and headed towards the seaside village of Glencolmcille. It was about an hours drive over a very bumpy and winding road. We passed through an intense rainstorm, many fields of sheep, villages and magnificent views.

This is a little roadside shine on the road up through Glenesh Pass.
We stopped briefly for a quick photo op of Glenesh Valley.

Yes, another village! Those Irish don't like to slow down....still 80 kph!

As we approached the beach, the sun decided to make an appearance.

Our destination at last. Silver Strand Beach. Now we had to get down to it!

What's that you say? Only 166 steps to descend to paradise? Piece of cake!

This beach was worth every single step....down AND back up again!

Once again as you can see the beaches in Ireland are terribly crowded :)

Watch out for the sheep dung, Keith! I guess they prefer the steps over the cliffs for getting up and down too.

Looking back up the steps. We'll tackle those later.

Ahhhh...we made it! It was cool but quickly warmed up to a beautiful temperature.

Hmmmm...my pics are out of order and blogger isn't letting me rearrange them. So we'll just have to jump around. Here we are heading back up to the car park. The climb confirmed the fact my cardio fitness is horrible.

I just wanted to drink in the scenery. Imprint it in my mind. I knew I'd be back but don't know when. I loved this beach.

Emma is one pretty girl.

Emma is giving Liam a friendly little ear tug. He's a brute though and didn't seem to mind at all!

Aren't they a beautiful family?

Don't want to get those pant legs wet in the surf!

A family shot. We were sad to leave but there was a big black cloud coming and we were all famished. Two good reasons to head back to the village.

Bye bye beautiful beach.

Some of the cliffs we saw on our way back to the village. Spectacular!

We stopped at the only place to eat really. An Cistin means 'kitchen'.

My fish and chips were excellent. Keith had the Beef Guinness casserole. The kids sat at their own table ( did their own ordering) and enjoyed being on their own. They were most well behaved and it sure made me pleased to know my kids are 'trained' well enough to be able to handle that.

Taken for Keith, of course. The fire station.

Sheep aren't quite as pretty once they've had their hair cut.

Our original plan was to go and visit more cliffs (highest in Ireland) but at this point we were all tuckered out. We pointed our cars back home and decided enough was enough.

During our whole time in Ireland I had seen these big plastic ice cream cones in front of every petrol station. Sometimes these ice cream cones had a brown stick stuck in the side of them. Sinead told me they are called '99s'. Basically a soft serve ice cream with a Flake bar stuck into them. I knew that before I left Ireland I HAD to have one. So on our way home we stopped at a petrol station and Darryl bought us all a 99. Yum. Yum. Yum.

But what was the best thing was that Keith came out of the store with a handful of chocolate bars saying: I found them, I found them!

What he had found was Cadbury's Double Chocolate bars. You see, last year Sinead had sent me one of these bars and I found it to be the most heavenly thing I had ingested in a very long time...chocolate-wise. I ranted about it to my fellow chocolate lovers, Keri and Kori and promised them if I ever went to Ireland I would bring them back a big bar of it. Little did I know that when I actually got to Ireland I could not find this particular bar for love or money. I could find every other bar Cadbury's makes but not this one and I looked in every single store we went to. I had basically given up and was feeling very sad about disappointing my friends. So you can imagine my delight that when Keith came out with the chocolate bars I was very very happy! You can ask Keri and Kori if it was worth the wait :)

So, happily we drove on back home. We had to make one emergency stop to change the most disgusting diarrhea diaper of all time. Let's just say Liam went home the rest of the way without his pants :)

Back home to our last full night in Ireland. Sniff sniff.