Lyndsey’s laziness in relation to this blog has continued over the last month, she’s been busy, don’t get too mad at her. In brief the highlights of the last month were her parents arriving on Thanksgiving and having our first Irish Thanksgiving, with Sara, Sean, Jasper, and our Irish neighbors, Elga and her kids Milo and Camilla. Her husband, Brian, didn’t treat the actual day like a holiday for some reason and was still at work.
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| Luke and Milo helping Lyndsey make Pumpkin Bread |
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| The Bird!! The Turkey came from a butcher in Donnybrook. It was so fresh Lyndsey had to pluck some feathers before lathering it in butter and herbs |
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| Thanksgiving in Dublin! |
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pre-turkey jet lagged nap
We had a great trip up to Donegal with Nana and Poppy on the north west coast where we stayed at our Irish cousins’ inn (actually, my sister in-law, Donna’s Irish cousins, but close enough). If you’re ever in that area of the world we highly recommend the Castle Murray House & Hotel, beautiful location with great food and a pub on the premises. |
After Nana and Poppy left, not too much exciting happened for a while, just normal holiday preparation stuff. Although the last week or so has been pretty action packed. Last Thursday (December 18th! haha), Lyndsey and I went to the Ireland-US Council Holiday Reception, invited by a partner I work with who is a council member. The event was great, we got a chance to meet and talk to the US Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin O’Malley. Then the following morning we flew to Belgium with the kids for a full long weekend. We landed in Brussels and took a train to Bruges where we spent Friday night. Bruges was gorgeous, a perfectly perserved medieval city.
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| Kids loving the train from Brussels to Bruges |
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| Kids admiring the canals |
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| posing |
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| The Markt of Bruges (Market Square) |
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| Another side of The Markt |
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| Canals! |
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| Canal selfie |
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| Erotic Chocolate store. Of course Lyndsey took photos. She also bought presents for Kelly Wakeham and Seth Harmon (yes Seth check your mail, Lyndsey is supposed to be mailing it shortly) |
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| dinner in Bruges! |
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| Ice Skating! |
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| loving the ice skating! Made us feel slightly connected to the skating party we were missing back home at uncle Bill and Auntie Leslie's house on Christmas Eve. |
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| Horse and buggy ride |
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| letting the horse stop for a snack and water break |
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| more posing |
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| more beautiful canals |
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| The littlest bridge in Bruges |
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| A Christmas parade came through the city complete with live animals, the Virgin Mary riding a donkey and the 3 kings, one in black face :) |
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| I could have constantly been taking pictures - everything in Bruges is breathtaking |
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| selfie |
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| snuggled up for the rest of the horse and buggy ride! |
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| Bell Tower in Bruges |
Saturday evening we took a train half an hour to Ghent and spent Saturday night there. Both cities had Christmas markets, but the highlight was definitely all the medieval architecture, well that and the chocolate, beer, and waffles. Made me almost forget the fact that they knocked us out of the World Cup last summer, ALMOST. Seriously, I can't believe a country that size knocked us out of the World Cup! Crazy. The kids favourite part was skating in Bruges and taking a horse and carriage throughout the city. Also, every Christmas Market we went to the kids had to go on the "Merry-A-Ground" as Luke calls it. We also climbed up the Bell tower, if you’ve ever seen the movie "In Bruges" with Colin Farrell, it really is very narrow as the characters told the overweight American tourists!
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| Cathedral in Ghent |
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| Ghent at night |
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| Cathedral with a Christmas Market in the background |
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| selfie plus photobomb |
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| Maya in the Medieval Castle in Ghent |
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| Medieval Castle in Ghent |
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| More canals in Ghent, family shot |
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| There was a bar in the old dungeon of the castle |
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| Luke and mommy selfie |
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| Maya writing her name on this tree in the Castle |
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| Ghent |
After Ghent, we took a 2.5 hour train to Cologne, Germany. Cologne is much more of a hectic modern city, but there is a massive beautiful cathedral in the middle of the city that has been there since around the 7th or 8th century.
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| Cologne Cathedral in the back |
The Christmas markets in Cologne were outstanding, I think there were 7 across the city and we made it to 4.
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| Walking through a Christmas Market in Cologne |
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| Christmas Market food and hot chocolate! |
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| YUM! |
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| night shot of the cathedral |
On Sunday night our friends Varena and Christopher who live outside the city met us at the hotel with their 1 year old daughter Ella and took us to a market and then to a German beer hall where the waiters constantly bring you 200ml beers until you put your coaster on top of your glass. They keep track of how many beers the table has by making a mark on a coaster for each beer. Varena explained the small beers are a Cologne thing and the rest of Germany makes fun of them, but she defended her city's small beers by saying they prefer their beer cold and fresh! Makes sense to me.
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| Christopher, Ella, Verena and Maya |
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| Meeting Ella! |
After dinner, Varena and Christopher went home and after the kids fell asleep, Lyndsey pressured me into going out and exploring the city a little, on my own. I didn’t make it too far, went back to a different section of the beer hall and then randomly walked by an Irish Pub that had American football on TV. Obviously I went in, got greeted in English, which meant not trying to communicate with sign language and the 5 german words Varena taught me. I stayed for a couple beers and to see the Cowboys go up enough before halftime on the Colts to know I wasn’t winning my Colts bet and I went to bed. Monday we walked around more markets, went to another beer hall for lunch and then spent the afternoon at a chocolate museum before flying back to Dublin Monday night.
Happy holidays to everyone, thanks to everyone who sent us a card, sorry we didn’t get our act together and get one out, so in continuing with our lazy theme, please consider this our holiday card. Happy Holidays and we hope everyone has a great New Year. (Clearly this is obsolete! Happy Almost Valentines Day is more like it).
