Fast Belfast

Just before Doug's family and my Dad left, we took a quick road trip to Belfast and Northern Ireland. It was a large group and we had to take two cars. The good news was-- we have two cars.

The bad news was, one of them was broken into outside our Belfast hostel and our GPS was stolen. Oh well, welcome to Belfast with Republic of Ireland license plates.

But I am ahead of myself.  First stop was castle Rouche. An old abandoned castle in the middle of a field. Doug even asked the farmer if we could park inside the gate.  The farmer obliged.

We stayed just long enough to enjoy a picnic in the rain. Luckily no one got cow manure on their shoes, because we were back in the cars and on our way to a 3 PM appointment at the new Titanic museum. 

We did not take any pictures at the Titanic Museum?  Except this one of some people playing 'Words with Friends', while we waited for our 3 PM time slot.  It is kind of strange that this city celebrates their role in such a major disaster.  They built the Titanic after all?  You would think they would down play it.

After a cold rainy night in Belfast  we hit the road again for The Giants Causeway (after we wrapped cellophane around the door and broken window)

Our first stop was the Carrick-ARede Rope bridge at Ballintoy.  It is believed that fishermen have been crossing some type of rope bridge over this 100 foot gap to the island for almost 350 years, in an effort to catch the spawning salmon (who are no longer around).

Then we arrived at Giants Causeway, a natural rock formation caused by an ancient volcanic eruption.  

Of course - according to legend it was built by two giants, one in Ireland and one in Scotland,  which is just a 'wee' distance away from this part of Ireland.  You can see it on a clear day. In fact, the clouds broke just long enough for us to have a few lovely sunny walks and get a peek at the Scottish hills. The legend gets much more bizarre from there, and includes a camel, chimneys, babies etc...so we will just leave it. 

We spent some time on the wishing chair.

Then we took some silly photos, because in the end... it was just a bunch of rocks, that did not do anything exciting.

Then we drove to another amazing castle ruin.  But this one charged an entrance fee.  No worries - it was closed, so we just walked around the outside.  It was quite imposing, up on cliff like that!

There was even a huge cave underneath the castle that lead right to the ocean. So we explored that.

I think we lucked out that it was closed. That way we could ignore the "do not enter" signs. 

We ended the day at a pleasant hostel in a charming LITTLE village called Downhill.  Nothing more then a few homes, including the white house turned into a hostel (behind Rebekah in this picture).  Downhill is on a massive sandy beach, overlooking the Atlantic, with county Donegal in the distance. 

It was a wind swept beach.  Here is some sand in your eyes!

And the best part; they allow you to drive on the beach. You may notice the nice tape job on the car window below.   Unfortunately, we had to get back to Dublin, so we left Downhill behind us, just one day before the annual Kite festival.

But before we left, we stopped at the local bakery in Castle Rock called Ruth's. Dad bought all kinds of scones, pies and breads. He was in heaven. 

Then it was off to a tiny park on the road side, where we battled the wind as we gorged on pastries and breads of all kinds. We needed the carbs.  It was a four hour rode trip back home. 

And some of could not see out the drivers side window (or hear each other talk!)

Ani is 6 months old or 3.5 in dog years...

Happy Birthday to our little Ani (Siddhartha Platinum Blonde) and her litter mates! She is six months old today and it's hard to imagine loving her any more than we do! We pronounce Ani with a soft a sound like "ahhh-knee"--it means "sister" in Tibetan.

Ani is an absolute joy. She is fun, playful, adoring and a bit mischievous to keep us on our toes. She loves to chew things and always is after new toys or items on the floor, so we have to be careful what falls to the ground. I've been very happy that she USUALLY focuses on her toys! She will go to her little basket of toys often throughout the day and carries them throughout the house. She does a wonderful job of not chewing our furniture and mostly leaves the shoes alone too! 

She's such a good girl!  Ani loves to go inside and outside the house, especially in this warm weather and uses a bell we hung from the door to let us know it's time to do her business or enjoy some fresh air. She loves our daily walks and has several friends we visit in the neighborhood and over at the park across from our street. She walks beautifully well on the lead and loves to go hiking with us up Bray head or Sugarloaf mountain. She also loves it when we walk down to the beach where she can dig in the sand and step into the water. She hasn't gone swimming yet--tho I keep wondering if she will one of these warm days...

We live quite close to Killiney Hill Park, where dogs are allowed off the lead to socialize. When she was younger we stayed away from there as her immunizations were new and her "puppiness" (high energy and biting at the ears of older dogs) worried me that she would get herself into trouble. However, I have started taking her back up there this last month, and she has matured a great deal. While still playful and happy to meet new friends, occasionally she will hang back behind me and avoid a dog she isn't interested to know. I am so thrilled with her sweet disposition, gentleness and sense for a dog even as young as she is. 

We've had cousins from the US staying with us for the last few weeks. Their 10 year old daughter is very afraid of dogs and wouldn't go near them, but Ani has been a wonderful ambassador and is really helping McKenzie to be comfortable. McKenzie will let Ani sit on her lap, walks with Ani on the lead and will go to play at the park with Ani, Douglas and Shaynie. Ani's gentleness has been a real blessing.

She's certainly not perfect. We get a bit brazen letting Ani off the lead, and at times that means we are chasing her in the park if she'd rather play with the people there than come back inside the house. We are teaching her to come with cheese and chicken as treats and are very lucky she is so motivated by food. I'm also working with her to learn to fetch--I've always wanted a dog that would, and the miniature toy poodles I grew up with were more 'barkers' than fetchers. 

Ani also likes to chew on books left around the house--just this week Douglas lost the last pages of Treasure Island (Bret's reading that to him at bedtime right now) and Shaynie's Book of Mormon now has bite marks in the corner.

The kids and I took Ani with us on a large Ferris wheel currently set up on the pier at Dun Laoghaire to celebrate her birthday. The dog was traumatized I'm sure, but the kids and I enjoyed it!

These are the kids together with Ani last Saturday before we took off on a family kayak adventure and had "The PERFECT Day." Bret will blog about that soon.

I took this photo of Ani on one of our evening walks last month. This is the park just above our house that looks over Killiney Bay.

Ani has stolen our hearts, and our efforts to maintain  Cesar Millan's "calm pack leader energy" go out the window when we walk into the house or get her out of her kennel in the morning. Bret left for a business trip last night at 2:30 am and suggested we let Ani sleep on our bed for the first time as he was getting up early and could let her out. I was shocked that he would suggest this, and then thrilled that our WHOLE family is as enchanted with her as I am...

Of course, I can't write any of this without thinking of our precious and beloved Kinley, who died at the mature age of 12, in October 2012. Kinley was our first child and a still is considered the perfect first dog despite her beautiful white hair gracing everything she touched. She set a very high standard all future Jackson pets will have to strive to live up to. We love you Kinley-girl. And Mom, thank you for giving her her last 4 years of heaven with you in Washington. I'll always be grateful for your willingness to keep her when the international moves proved so difficult.

Amsterdam it all.

The other week I had to travel to Amsterdam for a conference.  I was supposed to meet my brother Doug, who was flying in from Portugal. Since his son Matt was staying at our house, I took him with me for a guys' weekend in Amsterdam. (Sounds harmless enough.) 

Matt was a good sport, and was game to try anything. Unfortunately, we soon learned that Doug had a change of plans and would not be able to meet us. Matt was stuck with me. 

I showed him around the city a bit.  We stopped by the smallest house (#7 -no wider then the front door.)

We marveled at the old buildings, leaning, bulging, and crooked after hundreds of years in soggy soil.

Matt took some time to enjoy the public toilets.  Nothing like the fresh air.

We stopped by the Ann Frank house, which is a not-so-secret annex now.  The lines appeared to take hours, so he decided to skip the tour.

Of course I took him for some double fried Patat, complete with a dollop of healthy mayonnaise...

We even rented bikes one day and did some exploring.  Since it did not get dark until 11 PM, we had plenty of time after the conference. Bikes are a great way to see the city.

We ate a number of foods, from Dutch, to Italian, to Argentine steak!  Here he is with a fresh hot Calzone!

He even tried to the local favorite, fresh raw Herring. It was not a favorite.....  but he tried it.

One day we took the bikes to nearby Zaandam, to see the famous windmills.

The famous painter Monet spent some time here and created some beautiful landscape paintings. In some areas, things have not changed much.  

Of course while we were there, we also had to try some fresh syrup waffle's, hot off the grill and oozing sweet caramel.

We tried on some of the wooden shoes, but they were a bit awkward. I wonder if you could water ski in those?

We happened upon some battling goats.  One seemed to have a distinct size advantage  but the other one had horns.  Interesting dilemma.

Matt wanted to take this car home--in his carry on. It was a two seater.

We got stuck at a draw-bridge, but eventually made our way back to the hotel.

Before long, my work was over and we were off to Belgium to meet doug and catch our flight home.  I am sure Matt was ready for some new company, and to get away from the conference (where he spent some time wandering around the sales booths!)

When we arrived in Brussels, Doug was out exploring the city, so we tried to find him.

We had no luck. But we did happen upon the cities most famous citizen.

He is very small, but they say he saved the city from a major fire by urinating on it?  Impressive!

We eventually found Doug, and visited a few more of the city's hight lights.  Some were better then others.

Doug was determined to have some local food, so we enjoyed a french fry and brat-worst sandwich.  Luckily we were low on Carbs?

The next day Little Man Pis was all dressed up to celebrate a local university graduation. He was surrounded by drinking and singing students.  I wonder if the sound of his 'stream' made it difficult for many of the party goers to 'hold it'.

Of course we enjoyed a Belgium Waffle or two with our friend.

It was a brief visit, and before long we were off to the airport. It was great to explore some of the 'Low Lands' with Matt and Doug. It might not have ben the classic 'guys' weekend' in Amsterdam  but it worked for us!