Day 27 - Rivers and Civilizations

After being away for 4 days, we planned to just hang around the farm and relax.  It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and beautiful white clouds. 

View from the backyard...Just gorgeous!

We visited the mommy chicken and her little chicks that are growing up very quickly.

Mommy chicken and all her chicks. 

And the kids spent a while playing together with their toys.

Kian: Hello Princesses
Hannah: Nooo...you cannot come in...aaaaa
Kian: Why? I am a good guy...I am Bruce Wayne.
Hannah: Oh!!! I didn't realize it's Bruce Wayne...come in come in...

Hannah and Kian playing together

The kids also played on the iPads for a bit.  We got this new app called "Montessori 1st Operations".  It is a great app for teaching simple math, and Kian likes it a lot. Yay for educational app!! 

Kian playing the 1st Operations game

Since it was so beautiful, we couldn't stay put all day, so we decided to walk to the beach near the house before dinner and play for a while. The walk is about half a mile, but it is very peaceful and you rarely see a car to by.

When we got to the beach, we saw a vast area on the sand covered with some odd looking twirly things. At first we thought it was garbage...maybe strings? We were shocked to find out that it was actually just sand! We later witnessed the creation of these "strings" occurs when water would randomly push through small holes in the sand and create these shapes.

The water under the sand is actually from a river that is a small distance away from the ocean. There were terrible storms around here in December, which apparently damaged most of the beach.

One of the sand formations we saw on the beach

Because of the river, the sand is very wet and you only have to dig a little bit to have a pool of water.  We started off with just a little pool for Hannah to play in, but then my darling husband had this crazy idea of digging a river all the way to the ocean.

This would have been totally fine if we start just a small distance away, but noooo...we started off at Hannah's pool which was quite far from the ocean. Kian had fun helping us build dams along the way.

A few times I was ready to give up, but we finally did it and managed to connect our river to the ocean :) Yes sometimes we are bigger kids than our children.

This ended up resulting in a good lesson for Kian, though. After we built the river, we explained to him how the first civilizations in the world were built around rivers and why.  

Beach

Hannah's little pool

Beach

Daddy begins the river building project

Beach

River get closer to the Ocean...Kids entertain themselves at the pool

Beach

Getting reaaaaaallllyyy close!

Beach

The river builders! Project completed :)

Beach

The completed river...It was a lot of work :)

After the digging and the history lesson, we all headed back to the house to have some dinner and rest our arm and shoulder muscles from all the digging :) 

We are hoping for great weather tomorrow for the Louisburgh Horse Show.

Day 17 - Relaxing At Home

After our road trip to Leenane and Killary Fjord, we planned to take it easy and just play at home and around the farm. The decision was party impacted by the weather, as it was quite chilly and rainy. 

Nevertheless we put on our jackets, walked around the farm, visited the sheep and the chickens, and chatted with our host. They really are great and so very hospitable. He explained a few farm details about the sheep and then he gave us some of the brown Irish Soda Bread that he bakes along with a jar of homemade rhubarb and apple jam. 

Brown Irish Soda Bread & Rhubarb and Apple Jam

We also visited Mayflower, a Connemara pony horse, who is now about 7 years old. She is very beautiful. Mayflower and her mom, Jessie, live here on the farm. 

Mayflower

Afterwards we came back inside for some playtime. We have brought enough of the kids' favorite toys and gadgets to keep them busy :)

Hannah playing with her princesses and Kian's super villains 

Kian playing Lego Star Wars on the iPad while daddy gives him helpful hints

Kian ran around and played with Sam, the sheep dog, in the afternoon and would get bummed out when he would go looking for him and could not find him.

Kian returning back to the cottage after not being able to find Sam

After dinner we had our weekly family movie night and watched Sleeping Beauty.  Both kids enjoyed the movie and I was quite nostalgic. It was a great way to end a lazy day at home.

Family Movie Night - Sleeping Beauty

Day 15 - A Day in the Neighborhood

Monday morning brought more clouds, and since we had hiked quite a bit the day before we decided to stay close to home and not make any big plans for the day. 

As mentioned in previous posts, the family whose cottage we are staying at was away last week and they returned late last night.  Their sheep dog, Sam, was staying with another family while they were away, but was returned on Sunday night. 

Sam is a sheep dog, and his main job is to round up the sheep. He lives outside and he is quite happy about his living arrangements. Kian warmed up to him quickly and was very happy racing him all around. 

Kian and Sam (the sheep dog)

In other farm news, a hen recently had new baby chicks shortly before we arrived here. Until today, these chicks were not allowed to come out of the shed and their mama stayed with them at all times. All the chicks are now a few weeks old. They are all brownish, except for one of them which is a light yellow. 

I asked how they know if the chicks will be hens or roosters and was told that they are still much too young to tell. Apparently when they get a bit older the feathers of a hen will be different than the feathers of a rooster. There are already 2 roosters on this farm and they are usually fighting if they are near each other. So I asked what happens if they end up with more roosters, and was told in a very matter of fact way that they will end up in the pot, and that their meat is actually quite tasty, but is very different from the kind of chicken meat you get in the store. 

We had many more conversations and learned much more about sheep, chickens, and even the horses. So glad we decided to stay on this farm. 

Yellow baby chick riding his/her mama's back :)

In the afternoon, the sun started peaking out from behind the clouds and we decided to head to the Killeen Playground, which is only a few minutes drive away.

It is a fun little playground, perfect for children under 6. It even has a climbing and slide section shaped like a pirate ship!

Pirate ship slide at Killeen Playground

The kids had fun playing on familiar rides.

As well as the unfamiliar ones. 

A circular spinning ride.  You're apparently supposed to run on it and it spins as you do, but our kids preferred holding on while it spun.

They both had a blast on the big swing. This is the second time we have seen this type of swing on our travels. The first time was at the Diana Memorial Playground at Kensington Gardens. They need to bring these to the states (or at least to NJ, I've never seen them at any local playgrounds) as they are lots of fun and seem safer than tire swings.

And the monkey bars presented a fun challenge as well since they were very very high. So high in fact that I had a hard time holding Hannah as she went from bar to bar.

We had a great time playing on the playground, and met a few very nice families who live around here. Kian met a little boy a year younger than him that he had fun running around playing tag and superheroes with, and Hannah really wanted to play with a beautiful little girl who was about her age, but I think she was just being too shy to approach her. 

All in all a great day was had by the whole family. We ended up staying at the playground too late, and since everyone was famished, we just made frozen pizza for dinner. 

Day 10 - Wet Sheep

We woke up to a very cloudy and rainy day. Later we found out that the beautiful sunshine we arrived in is a nice tease in these parts. I walked in the kitchen to put some dishes away and start making breakfast and say hello to our wet sheep :)

View from the window above the kitchen sink

While I made breakfast the rest of the family played hide-and-go-seek.

Kian counting as Hannah and Daddy ran to hide

We were all still a bit tired from traveling a lot the previous day and so decided to take it easy and spend time at home and around the farm. Hannah wanted to play outside on the rocks and Kian wanted to visit the pet lambs.

Hannah Playing with the rocks

Kian visiting the pet lambs

The wind was too strong to stay outside so the kids came back in and started playing a game of tic-tac-toe together. 

Playing tic-tac-toe

But of course in every game there is a winner and a loser and the loser was not particularly happy about the outcome of the game.

Losing is no fun especially for a 2.5 year old :(

After this we decided to head into Louisburgh to buy some meat for dinner from the butcher in town. This was my first time driving the stick car and much stalling was in order. It is also quite terrifying driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Asides from remembering that you have to drive on the left you are also very confused about keeping proper distance on the left side. I almost nicked the mirror on the passenger side!!  Oh and did I mention the roads are very very narrow and the locals drive pretty fast. At least it seems fast to a driver terrified of stalling and being on the wrong side of the road! 

We bought the meat and managed to make it home unscathed. Kian helped me make dinner, Beef Stroganoff with rice. 

Teaching Kian how to cut peppers 

Kian mastering the art of cutting peppers :)

While I finished up a few final touches the kids played with daddy-o.

pre-dinner fun and games

Dinner was served shortly after.

Beef stroganoff and white rice - The kids also ate this with mostly the meat and also some yogurt on the side

After dinner the clouds finally parted and we were able to enjoy some beautiful views over the ocean.

Sunset over the atlantic Ocean - View from our living room.

We wrapped up the night by watching The Little Mermaid for our family movie night which happened to be on Wednesday this week. 

Family Movie Night - The Little Mermaid

Day 9 - Gorgeous Louisburgh

We left Dublin shortly after eating breakfast. Dublin is a 3 and half hour drive from Louisburgh. The drive was smooth despite being on a 1 lane “highway” for a good amount of the time. We stopped around 1PM in Westport for lunch. 

We ate at a restaurant called The West. Their seafood chowder was marked on the menu as worldwide award winning. It was truly the best seafood chowder we have ever had. If you are ever in Westport you must try this chowder! 

The delicious award winning seafood chowder

The drive from Westport to Louisburgh is about 20 miles and on a clear sunny day (which is exactly what the weather was like while we drove) it is absolutely gorgeous. As you drive you have tall hills and mountains to the left and the glimmering Atlantic Ocean to the right.  

We pulled up to the house around 3:45 and were immediately wowed by the incredible views. 

The view of the Atlantic Ocean

The hosts are extremely nice.  They welcomed us, gave us a quick tour of the house and then started to show us the farm. About 80 sheep, 10 chickens, 2 roosters, and 2 horses live here. We are allowed to pet the sheep’s wool. Oh my gosh they are so soft! 

Kian with the Pet Lambs

We took a quick walk to the beach to check it out. It is a nice beach and the sand entertained the kids and myself :) The Atlantic Ocean is still very cold so we just dipped in our feet.  There were some jellyfish type creatures the locals call "wafer fish" which had washed up on shore, Kian enjoyed analyzing them.

The Mortons

On the half mile walk back from the beach, the kids kept themselves entertained by picking fluffy dandelions and making wishes.  

"I wish the adventure would last forever" - Kian

"I wish for Dora" - Hannah

After we got back, we headed to the closest grocery store in Louisburgh called Durkans. Most of the items are very expensive, but we really needed some fruit and a few things to cook dinner with as we were tired of eating at restaurants. We will go to a much larger grocery store in Westport on Thursday or Friday.  20 Miles is a long way to drive for a good grocery store, but at least it's a nice drive.

After dinner, the kids were showered, had ice cream and went to bed. We were warned the the roosters will start with singing at 5AM.

A Note to our readers:

We do not have internet access in this cottage so the posts will likely not always be available on a daily basis. We will try our best to update the blog as frequently as possible.