Tales from Ireland! ( lots of pics )

MUSIC ON?

( you need the irish feel of it...)

because Lori didn't have a camera for 3 days while in Dublin, Ireland...here's a teaser for you until you can get some copies...

AND

a sharing time for everyone else!!

( this is only a handful from dublin...)

aug.20 we arrived in dublin where we stayed for a 3 day mini tour

( tyler was pretty excited to be here as you can see )

...a first peek of Ireland from the plane...

...we stayed at the Holiday Inn in Dublin...
by far THE nicest hotel we stayed in the whole 3 weeks!

...snuggled in for bed...

on our first tour day we all chose to take the 'hop on hop off' bus tour or downtown Dublin.

aug.21

ALSO

miss courtney's 10th birthday that day!

( must wear green 'whilst' in Ireland )

heeheehee...

...this is a few shots around downtown dublin...

the Cathedral ( sorry i don't have my notes handy here with the name of it, but it was huge! )

...of course we had to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for mikey!

1 cool zippered hoody

+

1 cool t-shirt

=

$128 canadian!!!

...but very cool...

...downtown also holds praise to the famous

Grafton Street...

the street of SHOPPING galore!!!

it was pretty instense around there.

...grafton street fresh flower market...so pretty!

that evening, we had tickets to go to the Gaiety Theatre and see the performance of a lifetime...

RIVERDANCE

...LIVE in Ireland...

when will i ever see that again??

never.

IT WAS AMAZING!

( plus the lead guy that night was pretty hot too...heeheehee )

( but, my lead guy is the hottest!! )

-good save, I know...

after the show and back at the hotel lounge, we celebrated courntey's birthday with several gifts and a couple birthday cakes that i bought from MARKS AND SPENCER!!! hahahha....okay, YOU try to find a bakery in downtown dublin that makes birthday cakes...not so popular in europe!

...the lovely miss alex...

...on our last day in ireland, we all went on a country side bus tour for the day and that too

was

AMAZING!

we went first to ( i know it's spelled wrong, but this way you can pronounce it!! )

Glendaluck.

it was very beautiful and scenic and historical...

and not so surprisingly very much like Scotland...

...the hills and mountains were all covered in that purple hue of wild Heather plant, the sheep were wild on the hilltops and the view was just breathtaking!

...in 'glendaluck' we went to St. Kevin's cemetery and surrounding area.

this is one of the old celtic crosses that were in the hundreds in that cemetery...so cool.

...the kids and i went for a long walk up the mountain to the top where there was a lake.

surprise...it was simply called 'upper lake'.

have you seen the movie Braveheart with Mel Gibson?

well, this is the very lake that the movie used in several of the scenes and in particular when the english killed william wallace's wife by the lake...yep, this is the one.

after our visit here, we went on to a town called Bray.

It too was very pretty and scenic, and some of the group went shopping after lunch while mike and the kids and i went hiking up the hills!

...but NOT before we all experienced feeding swans up close and personal...

so fun!

they really are huge too!

...we had a nice visit with the Irish Sea as well...

mike, the kids and I ate lunch on the rocks and I told the kids to take off their shoes and roll up their pants and go for a splash...they were thrilled and didn't ask twice if I was sure that they could go play in the sea!

( Kelsey and Kyle, this is where Courtney and Tyler picked out the lava rocks for you!! )

~sigh~

so that was ireland!