Ward Words

Hey you. Yeah you! Get yourself off the floor! Wipe those tears from your eyes! Clear the drool from the corners of your mouth! Put your clothes back on! While your descent into a desperate and seemingly unending depression is understandable in the absence of an update on our blog, a cure has arrived: A New Post!

The last weekend in April my sister Breanne got married to her Longtime Sunshine Zac. She looked great - that's her and me in the photo above. Kelly was a bridesmaid so she looked hot, and I was a groomsman so I was looking good too. That's why my sister made us put on sackcloths and stop appearing in photos. Aside from the itchiness of my unexpected evening wear, we had a good time visiting with Breanne, Zac, my parents, grandparents, and all sorts of extended family. Kelly's parents even came to the wedding! One highlight of the shindig was hearing my grandmother make a borderline inappropriate joke about condoms. Yeah!

The day following the wedding Kelly and I drove back to Houston and Kelly's parents came along to visit for a few days before heading back to Omaha. We hit up Moody Gardens and Galveston, played Trivial Pursuit, and played Boggle.

There are pictures from the wedding and the Parents Beck visit in Picasa. Click here or a virus will erase your harddrive. I swear.

Last week I went to a conference in Pasadena, California for a project that I am working on. I was flying into the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, picking up a car, and driving to my hotel. Being unfamiliar with the area, I of course turn to Google Maps. This was despite the unreliability in Ireland (I let it slide since it was a foreign country) and the issue of telling me the county tax building here was several miles down the freeway from where it really is. Well Google Maps, I am done with you.

Check out Exhibit A:

First notice the line marked with a "1." This is where Google told me to turn left on I-5. This would have taken me to Sacramento, and later Seattle. Already a bit leery of Google's reliability, and because the road sign said "Pasadena - right," I turned right.

Now notice the area marked with a "2." I arrived in Pasadena last Monday night, the night of the NCAA men's basketball championship, with about 10 minutes to play in the second half. "Yay!" my brain said to my self, "You can catch the end of the game!" Well, Mario Chalmers hit the tying 3 while I was parked on the side of the road trying to figure out where to go from my Hertz map. You see, even though I typed "Pasadena" into the search box, I was given an address in Alhambra. The address was some dude's house in a residential neighborhood. I finally made it to the hotel more than an hour later than I expected. Below you can see where the hotel really is. Point A is Bob Hope Airport. Point B is Joe Schmoe's house in Alhambra. Point C is my hotel. And it really is in Pasadena! Fancy that.

To be fair, Google does state that the maps are "for planning," (see highlighted box in Exhibit A) but I had actually used them quite often for maps with no problems. Now, I'm done.

Today was our last day in Ireland. As previously mentioned, we did not have access to an alarm clock and were counting on Kelly's ipod, the sun, and our bladders to wake us in the morning. The bladders obviously failed, as we were both up at 2:00 to take care of that business; but the sun woke us both up minutes before the ipod alarm actually went off. We were awake, on time!

Since we had packed the night before, we just got dressed and went down for our first "continental" breakfast of the trip. Our flight was early and we didn't want to trouble Marie with cooking so early in the morning. Lucas had one last bowl of his favorite Irish cereal (Shreddies) and we both had some fruit with our tea and juice.

After saying thanks and goodbye to Marie (and Irish Wembley), we returned our rental car to Hertz and took the shuttle over to the airport. It turned out that our plane was delayed due to weather in Chicago, so we had a lot of time to waste. We spent the rest of our Euros on some chocolate and looked around the duty free shops. The airport was packed with all the high school marching bands from the parade. After leaving the shops, we stopped to turn in our tax back refund forms and began walking towards the gate.

Lucas had a near disaster when he left his passport and boarding pass in a gift shop after setting them on the counter while he tried on a sweatshirt. We were nearly to our gate when he realized he was missing them and took off running back towards the shop. Luckily, he did not have to remain in the airport like Tom Hanks in "The Terminal"--he found his passport and boarding pass right where he had left them.

We boarded the plane for our flight (looong flight) back to Chicago. Eight leg cramping hours later, we deplaned and hiked to our next gate for our 2nd flight from Chicago into Dallas. We had an overnight layover in Dallas, so we stayed with Lucas' parents. The next morning we boarded our final leg of the trip and arrived back in Houston on Easter morning.

We don't have any pictures from the last day, but if you check Kelly's food blog, you can read about the Irish dining experience.

Today we woke up without the aid of an alarm clock and made it to breakfast by 9am. If you know us, you know that this is quite a feat. Again we gorged on a full Irish breakfast in Ballyboy House's formal dining room, which was quite literally filled floor to ceiling with china and silverware.

After finishing breakfast and packing our stuff, we said goodbye to Breeda and took a walk on the trail around the house down to the river. As Kelly said, Ballyboy House was 400 years old and had been in the same family for all that time. There were some ruins along the trail from an old part of the house or maybe a barn or stables. We shot some photos of the ruins and the river valley, then headed back to the car for the drive back to Dublin.

We planned our drive back such that we would pass through Kilkenny, which was only about 1.5 hours from Ballyboy House. We parked almost across the street from Kilkenny Castle and headed for the shops. We were saddened to find out that the craft center - our main reason for passing through - was closed due to Good Friday. So were about 50% of all the stores. We did stop in a small souvenir shop where Kelly bought a sugar and cream set and the owner gave us a map and directions to Powerscourt House and Gardens.

For the drive to Powerscourt, we took mostly backroads. These roads were again very narrow, and had a number of hairpin turns. There were occasionally signs that looked like the letter "N" to warn you of the turns. That or a sign with simply "Dangerous Curve." We even saw one that had a picture of a car falling off the road and into the river.

Despite the roads, we made it to Powerscourt with 1.5 hours to spare before closing. We picked up a few things in the gift shops and headed for the gardens. The house dates to the 13th century and had been rebuilt/remodeled a number of times. Signs said that the gardens remained true to the original plans dating back a few hundred years. We took the shorter walking path due to time and the fact that it was cold and windy. Still, we got some good photos.

From the gardens, we hit up the M50 highway and headed back to Dublin. We returned to Glendowan B&B where Kelly was excited to once again see Wembley's doppleganger. This was our last night in Dublin and our plane left the next morning. However, our room (the same one we stayed in the first night) had no alarm clock. There were no spares at the B&B, so when we went for dinner in Swords we looked at a few stores, but again, it was Good Friday so not much was open. We picked up dinner at an apparently popular place called Fingal's Cafe (the line was out the door, and it's just pickup). We grabbed our burgers and headed back the the B&B. We had dinner in the breakfast room with some plates and silverware provided by the owner, Marie.

When we finished and went to our room, we thought to check our iPods for alarms. Eureka! Kelly's had an alarm that proved reliable, though to be sure we would get up, we both drank tons of water. I nearly made myself sick, and the plan backfired anyway as we both had to get up within two hours of going to sleep. In addition to the water, we opened up the blinds to let the morning sun in. Surely between the voluminous ingestion of H20, the iPod, and the sunlight, we could get up in time in the morning!

Click the photo for the whole album of our day!

Today was our first day of really unpleasant weather. We had been lucky with mostly sunny and semi-warm weather up until now, and today the rain/mist and coldness came back. We were told the warm weather was unusual, so we felt lucky to have had any warm weather at all!

After our last breakfast with Frank and Joan at Petra House (yum), we walked into downtown Galway for some souvenir shopping and to check out the Spanish Arches. The arches are on the left bank of the Corrib River, at the point where the river meets the sea. The 2 remaining arches (of 4) are what is left of a 16th century bastion, meant to protect merchant ships from looters. Spanish merchants often docked at this point in the 18th century, thus the name. There is an inscription dedicating the arch to Christopher Columbus. There are many stories about how Columbus sailed through Galway on his way to the Americas--but most agree the stories are unfounded, although Columbus did mention sailing through Galway on earlier voyages. Another nearby site, St. Nicholas Church, is storied to be the site where Columbus prayed before his voyage. As there is a lot of conflicting information on this, it's hard to say if any of that is true or not...but it was still cool to see!

After walking through town, we picked up our bags from Petra House and headed south-east toward the Rock of Cashel. It was about a 3 hour drive, and we had no idea of where the castle was located, other than in the town of Cashel. Luckily, it was situated atop a hill, so all we had to do was drive towards it. Unluckily, being atop a hill, there was no protection from the wind and cold and it turned out to be an outdoor attraction. So cold! Lucas had especially looked forward to the Rock of Cashel and was a bit underwhelmed--there was only a small visitors "lobby" with minimal information followed by a short, poorly made film in the audio-visual room. We missed the last tour by 30 minutes, so we took ourselves out into the cold for a self-guided tour of the ruins. Much of the castle was covered up because of UV irradiation being undertaken to kill microbiological growth on the art. We did see some neat carvings and tombstones, and in general it was cool to visit.

After the Rock we walked into town to visit the former Bishop's Palace, now the Palace Hotel. Frank at Petra House had highly recommended at stop there, and we were glad we took his advice. The hotel itself was beautiful, and we stopped in the Guinness Bar on the lower level to warm ourselves up with tea and coffee. It is said that this bar was the birthplace of Guinness beer, as Arthur Guinness lived here with his father, who was once steward to the bishop. Inside the bar is a wall handpainted with names of all the famous persons who have visited--a small list includes: the Edge, Hayley Mills, President Reagan, Princess Caroline...

We left the hotel and drove on to Clogheen, where we would be staying for the night. We found our B&B, Ballyboy House, fairly easily, considering that road construction had sent us into town on a detour and our directions were backwards unbeknown to us! Once at the house, we relaxed with tea and muffins by the fire, provided by Breeda, the owner. Breeda also provided us with a recommendation for a place for dinner, so we headed out to the Lucky Leprechaun. This night happened to by Holy Thursday, so the restaurants were empty while everyone was attending church services. In fact, we were the only ones at the restaurant, save for the staff...The server was very nice and even though we had a bit of trouble understanding her accent ("are you here on hotlist?" turned out to be "are you here on holidays?" after our 4th time of asking her to repeat herself....). After dinner, we went back to Ballyboy House (which, by the way, was a 400 year old house!) and researched our drive back to Dublin for the next day.

Click the photo for the whole album!

After showers and another big breakfast, we walked down the road from the B&B to purchase bus and ferry tickets to visit the Aran Islands, of the western coast of Ireland. By the way, it was really great having the huge breakfasts. For one, the food was good but it also allowed us to skip lunch and spend the extra time site seeing.

We barely made the bus to head to the ferry, and it didn't hurt that it was a bit late. The ferry ride took about 60 minutes. Being on the water and moving fairly fast made for a chilly trip, but the sea was calm to make up for the cold.

We arrived at the large island, called Inishmore, and walked to the bike hire. You can tour the island three ways: bike, foot, and tour van. The weather was nice so had planned on renting bikes (€10/person). The bikes weren't in the greatest shape. Kelly's seat had issues staying up but we managed to rig it into position. Lucas' bike chain fell off anytime he changed gears, so it was one gear for the whole day. To avoid the main crowd of cyclists, once we got going we turned off of the main street. We shortly found out this put us on the tour route, just going backwards, which was fine. The road we were on followed the coastline and made for some great vistas. Our first stop was some church ruins and then a seal habitat. The seals were out (we think) so we tried to snap some photos with the digital zoom. You can be the judge if those are rocks or seals.

Later we came to a fork in the road and chose the 5km round trip that took us first to Clocan na Corraige, which is a hard way to say "beehive hut." These huts were commonly used by monks during the 5th and 6th centuries. They were small but provided enough shelter and the slant of the rocks shed rainwater from the dwelling.

The next site on the 5km trip was Na Seacht Teampaill (Seven Churches). These church ruins included a graveyard that is still used by island natives today.

After returning to the road fork, we headed up to Dun Aonghasa, the main attraction on the island. There was a small fee and an large uphill climb, but it was absolutely worth it. The hill climb ended at a sheer cliff dropping straight into the Atlantic. At the cliff's edge was Dun Aonghasa, a ring fort. The fort is essentially a semi-circle, with the open end bounded by the cliff. Unlike the Cliffs of Moher, there was no barrier here - you could just walk off the edge. The walls of the fort were built from stacked stones (as were all fences on the island - see the pictures)in three distinct layers/levels to account for settling earth. The views of the island and the ocean were spectacular and were popular photo subjects.

The ferry left the island at 5:00pm, and if you weren't there, you were sleeping on the island, so we headed back. The trip back was much more uphill than we expected, and after a whole day of riding we had to walk our bikes up a few hills. We made it to the dock with some time to spare and visited the Aran Sweater Shop. Sweaters from the island are known throughout Ireland for their quality and have to be certified. They have certain knit patterns that mean different things, such as love, wealth, happiness, etc. Some clans have their own knit pattern as well. Many of the sweaters there were handknit from wool from the islands. We returned our bikes after leaving the shop and headed for the ferry. In all, we guess we biked about 15 miles plus walking--an exhausting day. The Aran Islands were Kelly's favorite part of the trip and would be her recommendation to anyone planning a trip to Ireland--make sure to spend a day at least on Inishmore. The ferries to the other 2 small islands should be running by the summer, but were not running during the winter and spring months.

We took the ferry back and walked back to our B&B to unload our backpacks. We had dinner at a restaurant called Finnegans--Lucas had Irish stew and Kelly had Shepherd's pie. From there, we went by An Pucan (the pub from the first night in Galway) and enjoyed a drink while listening to the "trad" (live traditional Irish music). It was a fun way to end the day.

Click the picture below for our Day 4 photo album.

We began our first full day in Galway with another giant Irish breakfast. Then we walked to the city center and hit up the visitor center for some information about taking a ferry to the Aran Islands. Then it was back to the car for a day trip to the famous Cliffs of Moher. But first, petrol! Our first fill-up in Ireland cost us about €42 (the equivalent of about $66US) and all we had was a Kia Rio. Egad!

From looking at our maps, we knew the drive to the cliffs would carry us past a number of other places of interest, so we had planned to stop. After overcoming an error on our map and missing a turn, we made it to Dunguaire Castle near Kinvara.
This 16th century castle overlooked a bay but didn't have much information about it. We snapped some photos and were on our way.

This is where the drive got a bit insane. We were on the roads Ireland classifies as "regional." This can be alright for driving or downright scary for a foreigner. The road narrowed to about 1.5 Kia Rios wide. Then the speed limit was 100 km/hr (~60 miles/hr). Since this was farming country, we occasionally came upon a slow-moving tractor. And then construction. Suddenly 1 of our 1.5 lanes for two-way traffic became .5 lanes. After only a few near-death scares we stopped on Corkscrew Hill for some photos. In one of them you can see the switchbacks up the hill. THOSE were switchbacks! Right there we decided to take a different route back.

From Corkscrew Hill onto the Cliffs of Moher, it was a pretty bumpy but fairly quick drive. Although we had no trouble finding parking in the lot, we couldn't imagine what it must be like in the summer. Best of luck to anyone with plans to visit anything in Ireland in the summer--leave early and good luck parking! We paid a small fee and walked up to the entrance. The Cliffs of Moher extend for about 5 miles along the coast and are 702 feet high. We walked along the edge (there was still a guard rail at this point...) toward the viewing tower, which although looked like an ancient castle, was actually built in the 19th century specifically to be a viewing center. We took a bazillion photos (maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much--as you will see when you view our photo gallery). As we walked, we took note of the many warning signs, which featured a cartoon like man falling over the edge of a cliff into the water below and kept a few feet between us and the edge.

As we continued to walk, we came to what looked like a dead-end, but noticed many people continuing to walk just beyond the wall. There was a sign there posted that read, "Private Property--no entrance beyond this point." Well, seeing as there were already near 50 people breaking this law, we joined in the fun and hopped through the break in the wall, committing our first (and only) international crime. As this was private property, guardrails were left up to your imagination. Lucas was not a big fan of this and chose to stay as far as possible from the edge. Kelly tried to get closer to the edge, but this made Lucas unable to watch out of fear that she would trip over a stick or pebble (it's been known to happen on occasion...) and become a real life version of the cartoon warning, so she kept her distance after snapping a few pictures.

Before leaving, we visited the in ground gift shops. A sign informed us that they were built into the ground to preserve the scenery and view of the Cliffs.

On the drive back to Galway, we made our way through the Burren. The Burren is an area in County Clare that is distinguished by its rocky landscape and rock wall fences (Boireann--the Irish name--means Great Rock). Our new route took us by the Poulnabrone Dolmen, which was an ancient portal tomb dating back to the Neolithic period (sometime between 4200 and 2900 BC) and one of the largest such tombs in the country. We had read that this particular site (just off the road) could get extremely busy during the summer (read, bus loads of people at a time), so we were please to find ourselves joined by only 2 other people. Here's to spring travels--despite the chilly weather, there are some perks!

As we left Poulnabrone, the light was fading, and we decided to head back rather than navigate the roads in the dark. We stopped in at Petra House to freshen up, than walked into Galway city center to find a place to eat. We walked around for about an hour, then settled on Skeffs, a restaurant below the Skeffington Arms Hotel, across from Eyre Square. We didn't know it at the time (because everyone we spoke to still referred to it as Eyre Square), but Eyre Square was renamed in 1965 as Kennedy Memorial Park, in honor of JFK, who visited Galway shortly before his assassination in 1963.

That pretty much wrapped up day 3. After dinner, we made it back to the B&B and got some sleep! (note: I have noticed that we post that we have gone to bed each night shortly after dinner...in order to make us seem less like sissies, we didn't actually get back until 10:30 or 11:00 most nights--they were late dinners.)

Click below for our Day 3 pictures.

When we decided to visit Ireland, it didn't occur to us that our visit was going to coincide with St. Patrick's Day. This turned out to be a fortunate coincidence and catalyst to our newest travel brainchild: visit countries/cities that tend to be associated with a given holiday. St. Patrick's Day-Dublin, check.

We woke up fairly early (for being jet-lagged), and headed down to the breakfast room for our first taste of the "Full Irish Breakfast." This was staple fare at all the bed and breakfast we stayed at during the trip, with slight variations at each home. Marie served up a delicious feast (truly, a feast), starting with cereal and hot tea. She soon brought out a basket of toast and bread with Irish butter and 2 plates full of poached eggs, ham, sausage, potatoes, bacon, and black and white pudding. A pause here for a brief lesson on the puddings. In America, pudding is generally a dessert treat. Pudding in this sense would not be considered as such. Black pudding is otherwise known as "blood pudding." It is made from the blood of the animal and mixed with oatmeal, spices, and such to form it into a patty much resembling a sausage patty. The taste is pretty much like a meatball. Not so bad...

After our puddings, we packed up and paid Marie. We left our bags in our car at the B & B and walked to the bus stop to catch a ride into Dublin City Centre. We road in a double decker bus (on the top deck, of course) for the 25 minute ride to the city centre--smack dab in front of the route for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The parade didn't start for another hour or so, and our destination of Trinity College didn't open until 1:00, so we ended up walking along the parade route. Along the way, we purchased our first souvenirs--Ireland scarves. So, now we weren't only warm, we were festive! We walked all the way to the start of the parade where the crowd was still thin. We found a great spot right along the barricades and settled in for a 35 minute wait before the parade began. We were close enough to hear the bands warming up, however, so we had some pre-parade entertainment. This included Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer"--the first of many non-Irish things to come. The parade began with the Irish military bands. Behind them entered...an American high school marching band, followed by more high school marching bands from such exotic locals as Alabama, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, California, and Wisconsin. They played such Irish classics as "My Country Tis of Thee," "We are Family," "Celebrate," and the John Phillips Sousa marching band classic. The floats and costumes were very bright and colorful. There were also giant balloons, circus acts, fire throweres, stilt walkers, elaborate themes, and the St. Patrick's Day vampire.

We had intended to leave after a short amount of parade and head over to Trinity College, but the crowd became so thick we were boxed in--thus watching the entire parade. When it was nearly over, we made our way through the crowd and walked toward Trinity College with a slight detour to the Library....where we thought the Book of Kells was housed (it's not...it's at the Treasury). When we arrived at the Treasury, we realized that the entry fee had been waved for the day since it was a public holiday, so we just walked on in. There was an exhibit with panels telling about the history of the Book of Kells and such. In a seperate room, the Book of Kells was housed beneath a glass table. There were 2 pages on display, along with some pages from the Book of Armaugh. The Book of Kells dates from 800 AD. Upstairs, we entered a room called the Long Room, housing the oldest book collection held by Trinity College. Originally only one story, the roof was raised in order to fit more books.

We picked up some postcards and stamps at the gift shop and walked down past St. Stephen's Green to Lower Baggot Street and the Mercy International Center, where Catherine MacCauley founded the Sister's of Mercy convent (Kelly attended Mercy High School in Omaha). From there, we headed for the bus back to the B&B to pick up our car and head to Galway, on Ireland's west coast.

What would it have been without construction, missed exits, crazy drivers, and mislabeled roads? Not a trip in Ireland, that's for sure! We eventually made it into Galway and found our B&B, Petra House. Frank met us at the door, showed us to our room, and suggested a local pub, An Pucan, for dinner. We walked down to the pub and had a meal of fish and chicken, followed by our first Guiness beer, served in an Irish pub, in Ireland, on St. Patrick's Day, while listening to Irish music (well, mostly Irish tunes--throw in some country songs, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Johnny Cash, just for fun).

We were exhausted at this point, so it was back to the B&B for a much needed sleep.

Day 3--Cliffs of Moher.

Click on the picture below for photos from Day 2:

As Kelly promised, here is a post about the first day (really two days) of our trip to Ireland.

We left on Saturday, March 15 and flew from Houston to Chicago, Chicago to NYC, and NYC to Dublin, arriving on the morning of Sunday, March 16 in Ireland. The first two flights went smoothly and both were about 30 minutes early in arriving. Well, mostly smoothly. While boarding the plane from Chicago to JFK, the pilot asked Kelly if she had the week off of school, insinuating she was, oh...12 years old. Kelly told him she worked in a school and received the ever handy reply: "You'll appreciate looking young when you're older." I told her she should have asked if she could sit in the cockpit.

We got off of the plane at JFK about 7:40pm and our flight didn't leave until 9:40pm. We figured we had plenty of time, so we changed some money and checked in with Aer Lingus. While waiting in line at security, I heard on the overhead announcements the Last Call for Aer Lingus 106 - our flight! It wasn't even 9:00 yet and they were about to close the gate for boarding. I noticed our boarding passes said the gate closed at 8:55pm (thanks for the warning Aer Lingus counter agent!). We started to mildly freak out as the line did not move fast. We finally made it through, and by now Last Call had been announced 5 or 6 times. We stopped to stretch out and then sprinted for our gate, which naturally was the last one in the terminal. We made it, out of breath, and got on the plane. We were so close to missing our flight other passengers were commenting on our luck. Kelly was like "Whatever - we stretched!"

The flight was 5 hours and we arrived in Ireland just before 8am. Saturday pretty much seemed to not exist. Kelly and I did not check luggage, so after customs we bought a map of Ireland and caught the Hertz shuttle to pick up our rental. The car was a Kia Rio (I thought the trip was doomed at that point) and had "scars" all along the left side of the car (US driver's side, Ireland's passenger side). All of the damage was previously noted so we began our adventures driving on the wrong side of the road.

Our bed and breakfast was only 4.9 kilometers away. 58 kilometers later, we arrived (thanks for nothing Google Maps!). It turns out Ireland is not a big fan of street names, but instead prints the road's destination (ie nearest next city). Things got slightly easier when we figured this out.

The B&B was called Glendowan and was just outside of Dublin near the airport. We dropped our bags off and headed for some sightseeing. We first drove to Bru Na Boine, the valley of the Boyne River. This is where the Newgrange passage tomb is located. The passage tomb was built between 3300 and 2900 BC. The original paleolithic stones are still present inside the structure. Builders of the tomb had to bring stones weighing up to 6 tons from 45 to 60 kilometers away. Without cars!. The tomb's entrance at some point had collapsed, thus perfectly preserving its contents until its rediscovery. The exterior was reconstructed using all original stones, leaving it looking as it must have when it was in use. The entrance stone, and many stones inside the tomb, had the original carvings still visible. Of particular note was the tri-spiral, or triskel, which has become a sort of Irish national symbol. At the entrance to the tomb is a "roof box" (read rectangular hole). You enter the tomb and when you reach the end of the narrow, short passage, you have walked vertically 8 feet. At the winter solstice (and on 3 days on either side of it), sunlight enters the roof box about 9am, casting a sliver of light across the floor of the pitch black tomb and for the next 17 minutes gradually fills the space, before leaving the tomb dark again. It is posited that the ancients thought that in this process the sun took the souls of their dead away. The phenomenon was demonstrated for us with electric light and was quite cool. The visitor center holds a raffle and winners get to come and be in the tomb on the winter solstice to witness the event themselves, provided it's not cloudy.

After Newgrange, we drove to Trim. Or tried to drive to Trim. We got lost, which came to be a common occurrence. Nevertheless, we arrived in Trim while it was still light outside. The main attraction, Trim castle, had already given it's last scheduled tour for the day, but we were still able to walk around outside and take photos and read signs. Trim castle was built by a Norman knight named Hugh de Lacy in 1176. It is the largest castle of the era in Ireland and was famously featured in Braveheart.

By now, it was early evening and we were jet lagged and exhausted. We made our way back to our B&B to freshen up and then headed out again to get some dinner. We ended up eating Indian food (which was quite fantastic) and returned to the bed and breakfast where we met the B&B owner's dogs, one of which was small, with really short legs, but was Wembley's personality doppleganger. Kelly loved him. We headed to our room, showered, and went to sleep. The next day is St. Patrick's Day!

We have uploaded Saturday and Sunday's pictures to Picasa. Click on the picture below to see them! (I think the best way to see them is with the slideshow).

The Wards are back state side after a week across the pond in Ireland. To come: a series of posts chronicling our trip, complete with pictures, commentary, unwarranted opinions, and a glimpse into the Irish cuisine (black pudding included).

In other exciting news, our dog Wembley is a graduate! He has earned his first diploma in basic obedience. Sure, it was by the skin of his teeth and maybe a bit of luck and a glance the other way by the instructor, but he passed 4 out of 5 tests--even the 2 minute down stay. To celebrate, we put him in a kennel for a week while we went abroad. We will make this up to him by the purchase of a new stuffed toy for him to demolish. It is pretty pathetic watching him drag around empty shells of what used to be a penguin, dog, and whale.

We have also been a bit neglectful in posts detailing our progress on the house. I'll be working on remedying that in the near future--we are down to the final 2 rooms, friends. It has been a long haul, and I can't wait to be done!

To end--does anyone with a yard have any tips on controlling clovers and vine-like things that take over your grass? Our current solution has been hand-pull as much as possible, then mow it down so it just looks like short grass. We also have a slight problem with ants that just seem to move instead of die when the ant poison hits them. I think we are making them stronger...

~Kelly

Today is my dad's birthday--today meaning February 28th. This post inadvertently got saved and posted on the wrong date. He celebrated the big day by taking a long over due vacation to Arizona, then returning home to celebrate at home by taking a nice day off work, having dinner with family (including his favorite birthday cake--Angel Food--, playing pool, and watching LOST. Happy belated birthday, Dad!

It's been a while since I last posted. I just checked and the last time was November 29th. In that post is a picture of Wembley that I encourage you to look at. Kelly did a real nice job pixelating Wembley's "sensitive area."

About the Grammy's. Kelly and I watched last night and to be honest, it was a very lackluster show. Highlights for me were the performances by Kanye West with Daft Punk and Amy Winehouse's performance. I found it interesting that they packed a nice little bar/restaurant with nicely dressed folks and had Winehouse perform at what had to be almost 4am in England. I also really enjoyed when Amy Winehouse thanked "Blake incarcerated" after winning.

Although her performance was good, I had a bit of a problem with it. Why in the world did ABC and the Grammy's promote it so heavily? So she has a decent album, she also has been fighting a losing battle with drugs (is she really fighting?). She couldn't even get a visa for the drugs! Still, lets make her the centerpiece of the Grammy telecast. I don't get it.

I say we bring back the blacklist. We can call it the Back to Blacklist and if you are publicly riddled with drugs, no media for you! Think of the children!

One more thing...Herbie Hancock for best album?! I had flashbacks to when Steely Dan beat out Radiohead, Beck, and Eminem in 2001.

- Lucas -

Hello.

I have started a new blog to detail all my goings-on in the kitchen. You can find it here. Don't worry, this blog will still be updated (yes, we do in fact still update this blog...), but all food related stories will be in the "other" blog.

Thanks.

Today is my mom's birthday! She is not 23, but she does look like it =]

Happy Birthday, Mom!

The house we live in happens to have a Meyer lemon tree growing in the backyard. We currently have a crop of about 30 lemons nearly ripe for the picking.

I have gradually been acquiring lemon recipes so as not to waste our home grown citrus harvest. We tried a Lemon Cajun Shrimp recipe a few nights ago. Shrimp is plentiful and cheap here near the Gulf, so I am always up for different shrimp recipes. This one was super spicy, but tasty. Of course, since it was so spicy we had to have a cool and refreshing beverage to accompany it and what goes better with Lemon Cajun Shrimp than fresh squeezed lemonade?? Nothing, friends. Nothing. We have also made a lemon poppyseed bread with lemon glaze. Mmmmmm.
Now, your assignment is to send any suggestions for recipes using lemons! If we make your recipe, we will picture it here and credit you with the delicious idea. Thanks in advance!

~Kelly

Today (Thursday, the 20th) is Lucas' birthday! A mere 23 years old, again. It is amazing how many times a person can turn 23. This is Lucas' 5th time celebrating his 23rd birthday. Here's to many more 23rds!

~Kelly

We went to Omaha for Thanksgiving, and took Wembley because he is too young to receive a rabies shot, and therefore can't be boarded. To be honest, I was terrified he would be an awful traveler. But, as it turns out, when you keep a puppy awake for six straight hours, there's not much it can do but sleep for a few hours. So, the plane ride was surprisingly smooth.

Thanksgiving was good too. We saw most of Kelly's extended family, including new baby Hunter. It snowed in Omaha. And it was cold except for Monday before Thanksgiving. Aside from family visiting we went to an art auction and a couple of movies. Kelly and I were involved in a bidding war on two pieces at the auction, and lost both. Lady With Green Velvet Pant Suit ended up paying $175 more than she would have though, had we not bid. Kelly's brother and girlfriend did score the piece that they wanted. The movies were American Gangster (ok, but too long and with unnecessary plot elements) and Bee Movie (real funny - I liked it more than I expected).

Now we are back in Houston. It was in the 70s today. My car is falling apart, and making quite a racket while doing so. I've started working more overtime at work. Kelly got her very own speech room that she is very excited about. Wembley has also readjusted to life at home. To close, here is a nice photo:

Here is what happened regarding our internet service when we moved to the Houston area:

Our apartment had a cable internet provider, up with whom we signed (Nana and W. Churchill would be proud of that sentence). After about 3 or 4 weeks, we received a flyer on our door saying Comcast was becoming the new provider and to call the following Monday to get services with them. In the meantime we were told to enjoy complementary cable television. Nowhere in their notice did it mention an internet outage, even a brief one. After all, we would be getting cable television. Well, the internet did go out on a Thursday. I called Comcast many, many, many times. The number we were told to call was busy about 80% of the time, and there was no hold, just a busy signal. Then, when I actually talked to someone to find out what was wrong, they said they didn't know and all they did was sign people up. They referred us to the apartment manager. I called the apartment office many, many, many times and left messages because people were never there. And they never returned calls. I was persistent enough to eventually get ahold of the manager, who was a condescending jerk. The management company were also jerks. Everyone at Comcast was incompetent and not knowledgeable about anything really. I asked one manager at Comcast what the rates would be, because we had a nice deal before they shut the connection off. He didn't know and deferred to one of his underlings, who also didn't know.

In the end, the internet was out of service for 3-4 weeks. Comcast never explained the problem, and only stuck pricing brochures in the doors to announce things were back up. I asked Comcast for some sort of price break or any sign of good will to make up for the inconvenience of them not providing service and was flat out told no. Nevermind that people had to drop online college courses, were unable to work from home, etc, etc, because of them.

In the midst of this mess, we got out of our lease early because we had had other problems in our apartment. We bought a house and moved in and got Verizon dsl, with hopes that we may get fios around here sometime.

dot dot dot

In other news, we are going to Omaha for Thanksgiving. We leave on Saturday and are taking Wembley with us. Say some prayers that the other passengers on the plane don't kill us because of Wembley (he doesn't much care for his travel bag).

It seems to be popular to sell home security systems door to door here in Houston. When we first moved in, a guy stopped by offering a severely discounted home security system in return for us putting a sign in our yard to "advertise". However, he led us to believe he was from ADT (not true - they don't do door to door), claimed to have no business cards, and had no way we could contact him. We said no.

Then tonight, two other guys were going around in our neighborhood with the same pitch - an older guy between 50 and 60, and a younger guy. When they finally arrived at our house it was dark. I answered the door and they older guy said, "Are your parents home?" I looked at him and said, "Uhhmmmm, this is my house." You could see the guy's brain begin to backtrack until he said "Oh, you're young!" Then he gave his pitch and I declined.

Kelly about died laughing at him asking if my parents were home.

Anyway, thanks door-to-door security guy for tonight's hearty laugh.

Kelly and I have a new addition to the family. He is part chihuahua and part blue heeler. He is also 95% bat. And his name is Wembley. (Three cheers if you guess correctly what his name comes from.) For the record, we chose the name Wembley over the competing names Craig and Soup. Here is a picture of the dog/bat. Click on the picture for a whole album of the guy.

Things he likes to do: Pee in the house. Pee every couple of hours. Eat bark. Eat grass. Sniff poop. Chew on Sully from Monsters, Inc. (blue thing in the pictures). Hump Sully from Monsters, Inc. Not learn his name. Bite stuff.

Plainly he has been fun. Since his ears now stick straight up, he really does look just like a bat with four legs. We may fashion some sort of bat suit for Halloween, but that sounds ambitious. And I am very conscious of trying not to become one of "those animal people." You know what I mean.

The other addition to the family is Kelly's new car! Her transmission decided to die two weeks ago. (In my experience, this seems to happen to Hyundai's around 100,000 miles.) We replaced the Elantra with a Toyota Prius. Now she can drive a nice new car and feel better than every one else killing the earth at a faster pace. Ohhh pretension!

Speaking of the Prius, we took it on its first road trip to San Antonio. My company had a gathering nearby on the Guadalupe River where Kelly and I kayaked Saturday afternoon. Then we stayed near the Riverwalk in the city. We took in Howl at the Moon piano bar, and spent Sunday morning at the Market Square. We also did a drive by photoing of the Alamo. Pictures:

San Antonio October 07

Prius

This is a harbinger of things to come: pictures of the dog, stories of our adventure to San Antonio, our 2nd newest addition to the family (comes with 4 wheels), and maybe more (if you're lucky). Coming Sunday! Cabbage man has seen his last days.

Interesting post I ran across on Craigslist today (link):

Carpenter will work for organic cabbage. Medical condition requires cabbage use.
PLEASE HELP! (decks, siding, hardwood and laminate floors, rotten wood, built-ins etc.)

It's Kelly's birthday! Wish her a happy one!

Admittedly, Kelly and I seldom watch the nightly news. We primarily rely on something called "the world wide web" or "internet" for news. So, today we were surprised to hear that a tropical depression had formed off the gulf coast of Texas. The storm rapidly advanced to puberty and will arrive as Tropical Storm Humberto, or as the National Weather Service likes to say, Teenage Hurricane Humberto. He is moving ever closer at 6 mph, meaning heavy rain in Houston overnight.

Six miles per hour doesn't sound fast, but in college I had this class that allowed you to test out of the early morning gym portion if you accumulated enough points in a number of events/exercises. One of those was a timed 1 mile walk. I had heard that it was a walk because too many people got sick or passed out trying to run a fast mile. Anyway, to get the maximum points for the mile walk, you had to complete it in 10 minutes. I finished in 11, even with the professor/coach yelling at me every lap that I was jogging. I'd alter my gait and head around the turn thinking that if I was jogging, I'd be done by now. If running were allowed I also wouldn't have had to listen to my roommate repeatedly remind me that my speed walk form makes me look like a praying mantis.

In other news, tomorrow morning my dad is having brain surgery. He has a small growth that has made its home for the last 6 years in the space between his brain and skull. It's benign and slow growing and hasn't caused any problems until recently, when he has started having what my parents call "events." Supposedly he's had them when I've been around. They're short in duration and an outsider can't notice, but I have the strange feeling that my parents only claim that they are a small nuisance and in fact the tumor allows my dad glimpses into the future. Or he can see through people's clothes.

The surgery will last about 4-5 hours. Kelly and I are headed to see him on Friday and will spend the weekend there. He will be in the hospital the whole time, but will return home on Monday or Tuesday. One positive is that he gets off work for 4 weeks, though I'm sure there are better ways to do that than getting brain surgery.

I have created a league on Yahoo for fantasy football. The league is called "Old Kentucky League" and the password is brendo2007. I have all the settings as Yahoo defaults, so if there is anything you want in the league (ie head-to-head or points, etc) let me know and I can change it. Hurry and sign up!

This url may or may not work: http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/oldkentuckyleague