Strongbow's Castle

So, I made it back safely from Portugal. I had a great time! .... But this post isn't going to be about Portugal, the next one will be when I get the photos together. I'm posting some photos that I took right before we left.
We found Strongbow's Castle!!! I read about Strongbow when I was a kid, an English knight that married an Irish princess and made Ireland his home. Very romantic to say the least. I always loved the story but never knew that I would find his Castle... one day some one told us they were going to take us out to some ruins and low and behold Strongbow's castle!
I didn't take very many photos of the ruins.. Jolie was to cute!


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Oh how she grows!

Well I am off to Portugal with Jolie on Saturday for a week. We are going to go to a parenting meeting, and poor Steve is going to be left behind in rainy Ireland.
I don't know if I am going to be able to post any photo's before then, so I'll just post a few up dates on Jolie and what she has been up to.

- She has weaned her self or dummies... first sign of independence. When I first got PG I was quite happy with the thought about an independent little child.. but now I'm not quite sure if I like it all that much.

- She cut 2 teeth (about 2 weeks ago). The teething time wasn't to bad, she did have a number of fussy days, but thank god no Fever or anything like that.

- She says "Ma ma ma ma ma" & " Da da da da da"... although I don't think she yet associates it with Steve & I .... soon though.

- She fell of the bed for the first time the other day :( hopefully the last although with her being the Aries that she is I have my doubts... they always seam to have plenty of adventurers and manage to hurt them selves along the way.

- She is not yet crawling but she will very soon! With her determination to to put everything she sees in her mouth I'm sure any day now the crawling position scooting backward (which is what she douse now) will turn into the real thing!

- She has already been to 2 continents (N. America & Europe) and 5 countries (Ireland, Germany, Austria, Canada & U.S. by Saturday 6)!

The making of Jolie

Sadly, I didn't take as many photos of the different stages of when I was PG as I should have :( Oh well, we'll just have to make do. I put together a few that I could find for fun.... to give you a bit of an idea of the 'Making of Jolie'. They go by order... The first, what it starts with, second 2 months PG, 4 months PG, 4 and a half, 7 months, next two about 8 and a half and last two 9 months, a week or so before I popped!

A few from the Emerald Isle

Here are a few recent ones from the past couple of days.. You'll see some of Stevo & Liam (my youngest brother) stacking turf, Lots of work! The Irish use it like wood or coal, and burn it in winter. A true Irish experience!

Some more

Sorry it's taking awhile to get these pictuers up... but here are some more from our time in the U.S.