Author: Jen

Working our way North we stopped in Adare to see the cute little thatch roof houses, and then at Bunratty castle to see the little tourist trap village and castle (total tourist trap, do not really recommend it, Jonah enjoyed the animals though). Dinner was my favorite part of each day, loved the food in Ireland. And I hear tell that the bars have some great entertainment at night as well, but we never stayed up late enough with the kiddos to find out.  

Declan took his very first airplane…to Ireland! Very appropriate. We arrived to a rainy day in Ireland. We went to pick up our rental car only to find that Ireland insurance is a bit complicated and we would have to pay more than expected. We got on the road and spent the first little while freaking out about being on the “wrong” side of the road. We made our way to Muckross house for a quick tour. The tour guide was so sweet to Jonah, towards the end of the tour she asked me if I was Irish. I told her yes and she said “I thought so. We know our own”. She then proceeded to tell Jonah to look after his Irish lass (me), and kept commenting how it was very obvious that Jonah was Irish as well, since he is so “spirited”. Darn this Irish blood for giving me spirited children! We then checked in to our first lovely B&B in Killarney.

The next day we drove the beautiful “ring of Kerry”. We stopped and ate fish and chips on the beach, enjoyed chocolate samplings at Skelligs chocolate, admired lot’s of views and ended with a picnic on Inch beach outside of Dingle.

For Easter we decided to make a quick trip to Assisi to see the “Easter procession” that goes on there. Assisi is the hometown of good old Saint Francis. (Some of you may not know this, but new popes get to take on the name of a saint. The brand new pope just became the first ever to take on the name of Francis, which is kind of a big deal. Francis was a bit of a rebel in his day. He believed in taking all that money that the catholic church had and giving it to the poor rather than building extravagant churches. The church did not recognize him or his followers at first. So anyways, I have high hopes that this new pope will be awesome.) The Easter procession was…interesting. They turned out all the city lights and lit these big candles. A procession of men carrying crosses, creeping drumming and people singing walked slowly through the town from one church to another. Assisi is beautiful and we enjoyed our stay, until we woke up in the morning and Nick could barely talk through his swollen tonsils…so we rushed home so that Nick could go to the hospital and have it drained (gross).

Also on the 28th of March, my cute little man turned 4 months! He weighs in now at 16 lbs. We are loving every moment! He loves to talk and squeals with delight constantly. He loves Jonah and will watch him with great fascination. He is very wary of strangers, especially when Mommy is not in the room. He is still not sleeping through the night and has yet to roll over. He chews on anything he can get his hands on. Still cannot keep a pacifier in to save his life (because he chews rather than sucks).

For my 28th birthday on the 28th, Nick pulled off an awesome surprise party for me. I don’t think anyone has ever thrown me a surprise party before…it was fun! He even managed to plan the whole thing without me suspecting until right beforehand. Thank you to my sweet hubby for planning the whole thing and everyone who came and made me feel so special.

Three months old. Lot’s of smiles, Daddy always gets the best ones.

I keep thinking this little man must be teething. He could care less about sucking on a binki, he loves to chew on fingers. Anybody’s fingers, and he’s recently discovered that he has fingers too.

And he slobbers…he really seems like he is teething, but it is way too early…

Just got the jumperoo out for him. He loves that blue frog.

While my mom was here in December we got our very first snow that stuck to the ground here in Italy (none last year!). Well February has been quite the tease. It goes back and forth from about 50 degrees to freezing. And we’ve had snow on the ground….TWICE!

Jonah thinks I don’t see him doing this…but I’m pretty sure if I tell him not to he will just eat more…

Love

Note: If you read nothing else of this you must go to the very last picture and read about it.

Carnevale in Venice is world famous. Which means that A TON of people come to take part in it. It’s essentially two full weeks of dress-up parties for everybody, not just the kids. There are some amazing costumes and events going on. Nick braved it last week to get some nice photos and then this week we all went. It was a madhouse! We took the train there, the first train that pulled into the station was so full that people practically fell out when the doors opened so we had to wait for the next one (which was good because we got seats and sat next to a lovely older Italian couple who we enjoyed talking to). Walking to the main square took twice as long as usual, every time the path narrowed foot traffic slowed way down, plus people were stopping to gawk at costumes and store windows. But we made it.

Jonah has a cape that his Grandma Lloyd made him that is super awesome. So for his carnevale costume we had a custom mask made to match his cape. SUPER JONAH!

Everyone throws confetti at each other. Jonah LOVED this part. And made a few friends.

OK, now here is my absolute favorite part of all of carnevale. We are headed to the train station and we come up over the last bridge and sitting at the bottom of the steps are all these people in white fuzzy bear suits. Remember Declan’s white fuzzy bear suit I just posted a picture of the other day??? Yep, he was wearing it. Declan found his herd.

And then these bears happened to climb on the same train booth with us! Turns out the lady holding him in this picture is a teacher at a preschool near Vicenza. I enjoyed talking to her and a guy that was studying oriental languages at a University in Venice and was headed home to Verona for the weekend.