Ploughing in Flip Flops

Yesterday after Gillian got home from work, we went up to Auntie Maries for tea with the kids. Eoghan loves going up there to play with his two cousins Ben (4) and Charlie (3). Katie is the only girl in the group and loves watching the boys run around. We did a swap for dinner- Eoghan stayed up with Ben and Charlie came home with Gill, Katie, and me. Charlie is seriously the sweetest kid I have ever met. Taylor got to Skype with him for a little bit. He is so precious. We kept telling him that since he was at our house, his name must be Eoghan! He didn't seem to like that too much!

After dinner, Marie and her husband Tommy brought the boys down and we walked up to see William ploughing the field across the street. He offered to take the boys up for a ride and then they went home to bed and I got a turn. The plow was attached to a very new tractor- less than a year old. It was fancier than a lot of cars I've been in. It was a really nice ride!

I also had the pleasure of putting my clothes out on the line yesterday only to have them "muck spreading" on the fields next door. Basically thats spreading cow manure all over the field. I can only imagine the amount of perfume I'm going to have to wear to be socially acceptable. I guess they're used to it around here though!

Cork Mini Marathon

We went to Mass yesterday and Eoghan was primetime entertainment. Like most two year olds, he could not sit still for the entire service. Whenever the priest would say something, he would clap his hands and say 'Amen!' It kind of reminded of how Whit used to act when he was a little younger! His "bum" also kept "making noise"-- and no quiet noises at that. At one point, the priest rang a bell and Eoghan shouted "Happy Birthday!!" Then, after having Gill shush him so many times, when someone coughed behind us he said "Shhh!!" Needless to say, I didn't get much out of the sermon, but the services are so different here that I find it hard to anyway. Mass is very different from church at home and I'm still not quite adjusted to it, but I'll get there. I may also keep trying the Protestant Church when I get the chance.

This morning, we drove down to the village to watch a "Vintage Tractor Run". Really old (but well kept) tractors were making the rounds between all the local towns. It reminded me of the "Le Mans Raceway" at Busch Gardens. Hopefully the video will work to post.

Then I was picked up to head to Cork for the "Women's Mini Marathon". Saying I ran in a Mini Marathon makes it sound like I'm really accomplished but it was only 4 miles (so it was more like a "Teeny Tiny 10K"!). The other local women that went (mostly from boot camp) had an extra "Irish Cancer Society" t-shirt, so I wore that even though I didn't have the opportunity to raise money for the cancer society. Anyway, running in a race here was much different than any race I've run at home. 9/10 people walked the 4 miles, which meant I spent the whole time weaving through the crowd. That made it really really tough. The course was pretty and not hilly at all, so it was great. Since it was a women's marathon, only women could participate- that meant the guys that entered had to dress up as girls! I saw some ballerinas, some nuns, and some scary looking cross-dressers. It was quite the experience though.

Guinness' 250th Anniversary

So apparently today is Guinness' 250th anniversary- who knew? I definitely didn't know it had been around so long. Anyway, since I am not a huge Guinness lover, I am not doing anything to celebrate this huge event. I almost completely doubt I will have another sip of Guinness while I'm here.

The weather has remained really dry. It's been so great. I would say it hasn't rained for more than 30 minutes in the past two weeks. I almost feel like I'm back in America! (Knock on wood) its supposed to continue for a while longer.

Katie is not only fully crawling, she's flying. I have to watch her much more carefully than I used to, so I'm learning a good lesson in having split-attention. She has discovered the bottom stair, which makes me a nervous wreck. This afternoon, Gill caught her trying to lift her leg to climb up it- YIKES.

Eoghan had a small little fit today and had to sit on the 'naughty step' (coincidentally, also the bottom step!). It was my first time having to discipline him to that extent and I really hated to do it, but its the only way he would have learned. He was watching TV and fidgeting a lot so I told him to run to the bathroom. As soon as he stood up I saw I had caught him fidgeting a little too late because he was already wet. I told him that we had to turn off the TV since he was too distracted by it to go to the bathroom. He didn't like it so started kicking and hitting me (looked like an episode from 'SuperNanny' ha!) so I had him sit on the naughty step. He cried for awhile, but then happily decided he would go play with his tractors, so all is good now and we're friends again.

This weekend is the Cork city mini marathon (only 4 miles), so I'm going to that on Sunday. It shouldn't be too hard depending on how hilly the route is. It has potential to be mountainous. We shall see..

Since the other videos were such a hit, I figured I'd add this one too. The main reason I took it was to capture Katie's hunchback crawl and how she drags one leg. Gill calls it the Quasimodo crawl. You also get to see some "nice" brother sister interaction. I love it how Eoghan warns Katie about things being 'dangerous'. The things that are 'dangerous' tend to be his toys that he doesn't want to share!

Scotland

I forgot to post the video of Eoghan's best talent- he can make himself sneeze! It's pretty funny.

Today, I booked a flight to Scotland! I will be flying into Edinburgh on October 26th and returning to Ireland on October 31. That is the week of Gillian's mid-semester holiday, so I have the week off. I probably wouldn't mind hanging around here, but that is really my chance to see other parts of Europe. A girl I know from UVA, Anne, who is studying at St. Andrew's in Scotland, so I'm hoping to meet up with her for a night or two while I'm there. No idea where I'll go or what I'll see while I'm there, so if you've been to Scotland before, I'd love suggestions

Not much to Report

I don't have much to report, so I'm just going to post recent pictures and a funny video. Eoghan and I made a fort yesterday. How he pronounced fort consistently comes out as an inappropriate four-letter word. When Gill got home and he told her what we made, I had to translate! The other picture is of the kids in their Cork jerseys. Cork ended up losing the gaelic football game, but apparently it was a good match (I didn't end up getting to watch it because I was looking after the kids while Gill and Kieran went to the pub to watch it). It has still been really cool to be in an area that has a team to root for in such a big, national event. I hope the video works to upload because Eoghan decided to put on one of my "Wellies" and one of his. He didn't tell anyone he was doing it, we just looked outside and saw him teetering along. It was so funny!

Guitar Festival

Just to clarify, nettles are plants, not bugs. I think I was a little misleading about that in my reference to ticks. I guess its more like poison ivy..

Friday night, I had the cultural experience of getting together with the five other au pairs in Killavullen. I was the only native English speaker, so it was definitely an experience, but I'm glad I met with them. Two were from Germany, one from Hungary, one from France, and one from Austria. I really enjoyed being with one of the Germans (Maren) and the Austrian (Franziska). They both spoke very good English and we could really have normal conversations. The other three were a little harder to communicate with, so I didn't get to know them as well. I'm sure I'd like them more once the communication was easier, but now its a lot of me asking them questions and them staring at me blankly! The French girl kept saying that I talked too fast! One of the Germans is OBSESSED with America and wants to be an actress in California someday- Tay, I gave her your name and number.

Today, we went into Cork so Katie and Eoghan could have their pictures taken. Kieran won a free photo session with a photographer in Cork, so they scheduled the appointment for this afternoon. Afterward they dropped me off to meet up with April (the girl from Washington state that I met last weekend at church) at her boyfriend Matt's rugby match. April was nice enough to invite me to go with her. It was a lot of fun getting to talk to her- and very nice to have someone in almost the exact same situation as me. We bonded over things we miss about America and common expressions we get confused here. It was great.

After the match, Matt and April took me to Clonakilty which is in west Cork. There's a four day guitar festival going on there, so they thought it would be a fun thing to do. We went out to eat and then went to a pub to listen to guitarists. The pub was open-air (of course with HEAT LAMPS) and the band was really entertaining to watch. A different band plays each hour at each different pub. I think they were also holding seminars and workshops, but we didn't go to any of those. Clonakilty-or "Clon"-is honestly the prettiest and quaintest town I have seen here. It was so colorful and had a thousand cute shops I would love to eventually go back to see. It was a lot of fun being with April and Matt and they made me feel so welcome.

I forgot to mention the other day that Eoghan's cousin Ben told me that he wants to be a T-Rex OR a Triceratops when he grows up. Since I hadn't chosen a career path for myself, I'm thinking about becoming a dinosaur when I return to America...

Eoghan has also gotten into saying things are "dangerous". The reason I put that in quotes is that the things he says are dangerous are things like the remote control (when he is watching a show he wants to watch) or his "doe doe" (pacifier). He gets so serious when he tells you- its great.

Tomorrow is the all-Ireland gaelic football championship. It's between Cork and Kerry. It has been so much fun to be living around one of the participating cities. ALL the houses have red and white flags out to support "the rebels" of Cork. I assume we'll be watching that match tomorrow afternoon!

Nettle Sting

I forgot to mention the other night that I got stung by a nettle (?). I had never heard of them before and don't know if they grow anywhere around Virginia? Anyway, one night after dinner we all went on a walk and I went to grab some blackberries (go figure!) and next thing I knew, my arm had broken out in a rash. Its amazing that I hadn't been stung before then because its really everywhere! It was uncomfortable at the time, but was gone by the next morning. On the bright side, they don't have ticks here!

This week has been good so far. Today for some reason seemed like a long day, but that could be because it wasn't as pretty as it has been lately. On Tuesday Kieran took Eoghan to go 'baling hay' (another farming term), so it was just Katie and me all day! It was so quiet- we had no crazy two year old to entertain us! Yesterday was Kieran's actual birthday, so Gillian made a nice lasagna dinner and invited a few close friends over. Some of his family came over later for cake and ice cream. My goodness- I have never seen so many desserts! Eoghan and I contributed to the pile a little bit by making "buns" (cupcakes) and "rice krispie buns" (rice krispie treats) that afternoon. Needless to say, Eoghan's detox diet didn't go too well yesterday. Interesting little fact though- people over here make their rice krispie treats with melted chocolate instead of marshmallows! (they weren't as good either)

We had dinner at Auntie Marie's tonight and then I headed to boot camp. I missed boot camp on Tuesday, so I went tonight instead. It was nice because she had it outside. Its starting to get dark here really early, so I'm not sure how much longer she'll be able to hold it outdoors. There were three other au pairs there tonight (two from Germany, one from France) and they invited me to hang out with them this weekend. Not sure when, where, or what we'll be doing, but I figured it would be a very cultural experience.

Right now, Gillian and I are curled up by the fire downstairs. As much as I hate it being cold so early in the fall, I love having a fire burning!