Day 54 - French Playgrounds have no Swings!
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Dear France, your playgrounds called... They want their swings back!
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Day 31 - A Day of Mishaps
/Another day in which we had every intention of getting out of the house early, but again for some reason this task took a while. Eventually the kids ran out to the back of the house to play on the lawn.
I washed and cut up some delicious fruit as a mid day snack for everyone.
Midday snack :)
I came back inside, and shortly after heard Kian run in with a piece of paper. "Mommy", said Kian, "Richard drew Hannah and I a picture of Sam so we don't forget him when we go back home".
Picture of Sam drawn by Richard (Sam's owner)
We finally managed to get out of the house and head towards the playground. Unfortunately, it started raining. With the way rain comes and goes here, we decided to go towards the playground in Louisburgh (a different playground than last time) and see if the rain would clear up by the time we got there.
The playground seemed like plenty of fun, if only the drizzling would go away. Since we are too stubborn, we just put on our rain coats and continued with playing. In hindsight, we should have just abandoned ship and gone back home...
Both kids wanted to be pushed on the swings. Sure we said.
Hannah being pushed on the swing by daddy
Shortly after all sorts of craziness happened. Kian was trying to jump off the swing, since according to him he was all done swinging, but a combination of trying to jump while swinging fast, and a wet slippery swing, sent Kian flying off and landing on his chin!
AAAA....As we rushed towards him to see the damage, Hannah fell off the swing!
Seriously?
Kian's chin thankfully was just a bad bang up, soon to be a nice bruise, and Hannah was pretty unscathed.
We headed back home to ice Kian's chin with our ice pops :)
Kian stopped crying, and almost forgot about it after 20 minutes or so. He decided to color a Batman picture for Richard, as a thank you since he drew the Sam picture for him and Hannah.
Kian showing off his Batman picture before giving it to Richard
And you know what happens after a boy colors a Batman picture? But of course, he will want to go and dress up as Batman and jump off rocks!
The serious Batman face!
Batman gliding
Thankfully, the gliding didn't end with a new injury.
And such was the story of a the day of mishaps.
Day 26 - Ross Castle and the Traditional Farms
/The morning started off with a scrumptious breakfast a the B&B. This was by far the best breakfast we had and the kids really enjoyed their food.
After breakfast, we packed up and headed towards the Ross Castle, which is in the Killarney National Park.
The Castle, like every other Irish castle we have seen so far, is a tower house. We walked around the castle and enjoyed the outdoor scenery. Kian had fun climbing on one of the outside walls. We planned to go inside to see the rooms, but you cannot get in without a guided tour and the next available tour was not for another hour.
Instead of waiting around, we checked out the exhibition room, which provides a bit of history on the castle. It turns out that the majority of the castle was actually ruined at some point, and they worked hard looking for older materials/stones to match whatever was remaining to use in the restoration project.
After our visit at the castle, we headed towards the Muckross House and the Traditional Farms. We asked if a guided tour was required to see inside the house, and since the answer was yes, we once again opted for the outside view and walked towards the Traditional Farms.
There is a path that takes about an hour to walk, where you go through multiple farm house replicas, and get to see a small farm house, a large farm house, a school house, and farm labor cottage, and more. The purpose of these houses/cottages/stables is to show you how the traditional Irish farmers lived in the early 1900s.
We were told that all the houses we saw were replicas built for educational purposes only and that no farmers lived there at any point.
The walk was very interesting and the kids had fun going from house to house. In each place there was a person who talked about what sorts of things would go on in the house. They also had fresh baked bread and invited everyone to take a bite of the buttered bread they had on a platter near the door. Unfortunately we missed the milking demonstration, but did see a lady making butter.
The walk around the farms/farm houses took us more than 1 hour since we made a longer stop at the baby animal petting section and the little bounce house. As you walk around the loop, before reaching the visitor, there is small playground area called the "Woodland playground".
Hannah had been waiting for a long time to get to the playground, so despite being hungry, everyone took off their cranky pants and played for a bit.
After the playground we headed towards the Muckross House just to see it from the outside. Remember what I said about our cranky pants? Yah, they were back on! But the house and the grounds were beautiful, and if we had time I would have liked to see the inside.
We did grab a small and quick bite at the Muckross House cafe before getting back in the car to drive home.
We knew the drive home would take around 4 hours. We left Killarney at 4PM, and along the way we stopped for a quick dinner in Galway. We also stopped and got milk and cereal for next day's breakfast :)
We reached the Killary Fjord around 9PM as the sun was just starting to set over the mountains. The breathtaking views reminded us of how much we missed Louisburgh and the surrounding areas.
Killary Fjord at sunset
It really is incredibly gorgeous here. I am not sure there are proper words to describe how beautiful the sunset looked over Doolough Lake. But I guess that's why they say "a picture is worth a thousand words."
Sunset over Doolough Lake
We reached "home" with 2 very happy kids and the gorgeous pink sky over the ocean was just a bonus as we unloaded the car and headed inside to get ready for bed.
Day 22 - Little Swimmers & Delicious Desserts
/Unless you have a wet suit, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, around Mayo, is not really feasible unless you plan on freezing.
Fortunately the family we are staying with are incredibly sweet and gave us a few vouchers for a swimming pool for rainy days.
Since we woke up to a rainy and windy day, we decided to head out to the pool. The kids were extremely excited. In Ireland, it is a requirement for everyone who goes into the swimming pool to wear a swim cap, even children. Hannah totally enjoyed this.
Hannah posing in her swimming gear
After swimming, we went to the Westport Harbour for some food. We looked at a couple of restaurants and decided to eat at the Creel, mainly because of the airy and family oriented atmosphere.
We all enjoyed our food, the delicious desserts, and the fast Wi-Fi :)
It was still very windy and rainy, but Hannah really really wanted to go to the playground. Kian was too tired so he stayed home with Daddy. Hannah lasted about 5 minutes on the playground before she asked to go home. She had a great time for those 5 minutes.
After playing at home for a while, we made a quick dinner of carrot sticks, marinated sweet chili chicken wings (purchased marinated, baked in the oven at home), and home-made cheesy bread.
Chicken wings, cheesy bread, carrot sticks
We sent the kids to bed fairly early, since tomorrow we are going on a 3 day road trip down the west coast. We are very excited to see some castles, caves, cliffs, and more. A good portion of our drive will be on the Wild Atlantic Way, so I am excited about the views!
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 5 - Who says traveling with kids is no fun
/A nice early(ish) start to our day as we headed out a bit before 11 am to go to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. It was built in 2000 as a memorial to Princess Diana & her love of children.
An adventure playground geared very much towards the Peter Pan and Pirate enthusiasts.
Kian on the Pirate Ship in the main section of the playground
The playground has many different sections so the kids could be entertained forever.
Hannah on a small boat
We had plans to meet my friend Joan-Ann for lunch at Giraffe. We had to promise the kids that we would go back since there really wasn't enough time to explore everything and the weather was just wonderful.
We walked through Kensington Gardens towards Kensington High Street and grabbed some lunch. Giraffe is a great place to eat with Kids. The atmosphere is very relaxed and the kids liked the food.
After lunch we took a detour on our way back to the playground and walked by the Kensington Palace and the beautiful flower gardens.
Kensington Palace flower garden
Hannah and Baby Ginger
We went back to the playground and the kids had a blast playing for another 30 minutes.
See-Saw Fun
The crazy swing...Kian's favorite thing on the playground
Hannah's favorite section...a bit of water a bit of sand...perfection!
Baby Yogi - Downward Dog on the Sand
Before heading out of the park the kids enjoyed some soft serve ice-cream with "flakes".
Yummy ice cream
After ice cream we decided to walk the entire length of the Kensington Gardens to the Marble Arch. Along the way we discovered a few things we didn't even know existed. Such as the Italian Gardens and the Peter Pan Statue.
Hannah at the Italian Gardens
Peter Pan
We headed home after this with two tired kids riding on mommy's and daddy's shoulders. Dinner consisted of ravioli, chicken, salad and fruit. The grownups also got some fried onion on the chicken.
Hannah started eating before I took the picture. She was too hungry to wait.
After dinner we had a friday family movie night and watched Tangled.
Everyone lounging together and watching a movie
If you are looking for more pictures feel free to check out our England Gallery.