Dingle!

Work at The Hoo, go to Ireland and stay in Dingle! An adorable seaside
village. We have HIGH hopes of some traditional Irish Music tonight.
I love the way they say this name, Dingle! It sound like a song every
time.

Our last night in Ireland and this is the hotel where we are staying.
Again, not my picture, this is courtesy of Google.

The Ring of Kerry, rain and all :)

This is not a picture I have taken, but a pretty good representation
of some of the sights we have seen on our coastal drive. Although it
wa cloudy we still had an amazing feel for the vast landscape and open
spacious water. Everytime we look out the window we want to take 100
pictures because it is so stunning.

Our Day at the Blarney Castle

Kenny, if you are reading this, we missed you today kissing the
Blarney Stone.

IRELAND!!!! blarney!!

Abby's Irish Coffee

Irish adventures

So far Ireland has been amazing. Dad seems to have mastered Irish
driving in the minivan we have named the Pot Belly Pig. So far we
have stayed in Dublin, New Ross and tonight in Blarney. I will update
more as we arrive at home, but for now, some highlights:

- mom posing with a leprauchan and calling a short man in the bar a
real leprauchan.
- VERY windy, narrow and unpaved roads that Ben slept through
- Dad vs. The Blarney Stone, the stone wins ( much more on this later)
- I am drunk blogging this right now thanks to my first and possibly
last Irish coffee.

Ireland is a wonderful beautiful land. Sheep and Guiness they will
never be without.

Can't wait to share more pictures and tales with the blog. Will do
more on Sunday.

---------------------------------------------
Sent from my iPhone with love

Beauty

The top pictures are some more of the best of Dad ever, and some great couples ones.

Just two lovebirds taking in the city!!














































The Second day in London while we were with Mom and Dad.

Here we had some breakfast in an Italian cafe, because, not surprisingly, Harrods doesn't open until 11:30 on Sundays.


Anyway, as they say here, not bothered! We had some breakfast, did a hop on hop off tour and met Kenneth John.


Uncle Bill if you are reading this, this picture is completely for you. They brought us two bowls of bread and WHOLE BOWL OF BUTTER.

We thought you would approve.

Here we are in front of Harrods. I have still not been, but have it on good authority and Dad's worn out credit card that Mom spent a long time in the Christmas section.

More London with the Parents, Roomates and Siblings.

Mom in the red phone booth


Dad and Ken in Trafalgar Square!


The Dears on a bridge!

Some happy boys on a bridge!

Some of my favourite boys all together at the market. Hanging out while the girls shop... too early for Christmas shopping, I don't think so!

Mom and Dad are here!!

Parents arrived safe and sound in London yesterday. We spent the day walking around London seeing a market, seeing a couple of pubs, but generally just enjoying all being together again!









Here is a nice family picture! Nice to see Kenny as well of course. He was here to visit 2 weeks ago, and I didn't take any pictures. We are pretty sure he got taller since he left. So great to all be together once more!





This is possibly my favorite picture of my Dad ever. He was so excited to be Trafalgar Square. Like, could not stop grinning. I imagine this is what he looked like as a young boy. He was so incredibly in awe of it all. It was amazing to be there and see him see the world in that way.

The saddest day in Rochester.

CONNOR- A roomate for all to love.

Our wonderful friend Connor has recently moved into the apartment. He is currently looking for some work possibly in London and will be living with us in Rochester for the year. We are really excited that he is here! He is an excellent cook and will make sure we stay nourished for the year :) Among other things Connor is really fun, since he arrived we have started a band, written the titles of the songs on our first album, drawn some wall art, and he has gone antiquing and bought a compass key-chain to keep us all on track. Thanks Connor.

Mr. Stone Graudates

Ben and I teach the same group of students. I teach them English and Ben teaches them Drama. So, on Friday afternoon before the party, I gave the students a few minutes to make some posters to congratulate Mr. Stone. However, because they are only 11, the idea of Ben having a graduation in another country didn't quite make sense. They wanted to know why Ben didn't just go home for Grad. I explained that it was a far ways away to go just for one day. One boy piped up with the idea that he should just tell the school that he has Swine Flu so that he could get two weeks off of school and go to his graduation. So if you look closely, all the pages say something along the lines of
"I hope you get Swine Flu". They mean it in the nicest way, they really do.

We have friends Part 2

Ben's Graduation Party

Recent Bachelor of Education Recipient


So, because Ben missed his Bachelor of Education Graduation Ceremony, due to being in Rochester, we thought we would have a celebration party of our own. Connor is here (will be a post about this in a second) and made an amazing and 'inspirational' speech.

I AM SORRY!!

OH how blogging has not been good in the last couple of weeks. I apologize. Those of you who follow us, please do not give up. I am posting a whole lot tonight and will never leave it this long again!

Promise!

Canterbury!!

We finally took a day to explore with some great friends we have over here. We spent the day in Canterbury. Those of you with English Degrees, might remember Canterbury from such famous Chaucer works as "Canterbury Tales". While we didn't see the animatronic celebrity voice driven Canterbury Tales exhibit we did see lots! We saw the candy store which did all the candy for the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Movie. we saw many neat shops and stores. We went on a little river cruise with Captain Thom and saw a duck!

One of the most amazing things was the Cathedral. It was so beautiful. With everything here being so old there are so many stories and tales about everything it makes each notch on every pew so rich in history. We just don't have that at home so it's very neat to see these things.













Above you see me enjoying some Peruvian Rice and Potatoes with Lime and Chili Sauce in Stir Fried Vegetables. I know crazy right? It's not cheese and bread. It was delicious. I hope I am this brave to keep eating weird (for me) food when I get home.

Below is Ben locking me into a phone booth. Not really, but I am inside and he is out. Sneaky. Overall it was a really fun day. We need to make sure we take the days like this to enjoy ourselves so we don't get burnt out at school.

Everybody's working for the weekend- and we work during the weekend.

The black cloud that sometimes hangs above us.
The lovely Kate :)

Here are some pictures of us working from last weekend. We haven't been great about balancing our life/work schedules. Which is crazy because exploring is what we came over to do. So here is a taste of our lives during the weekends.

Just a couple of random pictures

Might have posted this already- apparently I really enjoy thai food. Delicious.
A cool old building in Rochester- many old cool buildings in Rochester.
A trippy sunset in Rochester. Not sure why but the sky just seems to stretch on forever in this place. No mountains as a frame of reference I guess.
That's me there. Can you find me? London was very pretty but very windy that day.

Some more from our First Trip to London

Our Trip to BlueWater Mall

Above you will see me with a Starbucks. In heaven. Below, you see Ben with a skull and mini pirate ship pond. Also awesome.
This poster says: Some People are Gay. Get Over It. It's everywhere and it's awesome.
Took this from the train as we were going over the water. So pretty....