the rest.............

We were done with the shops and had eaten and seen the city sites but were not ready to go back to the hotel. so I asked a cabby about different places to go and see. He said most go to the town of Kinsale with the tourist sites and then go to Blarney Castle. but he said he knew of a place near the sea called Crosshaven it is a very old village buildings from year 1100) and has very nice scenery, he also said it is the place that the round-the-world sailing yacht races go into. Well as Annapolis lovers we said lets go!
What a place!! very much off the beaten path but it just gave us a chance to see that much more. theres one pic up of the local village center that I had forgotten to take a picture of untill we were leaving, thats why its taken from inside the car. the others are of a lookout point where the guy that drove us goes to hike down and go fishing. The boys were begging us to take them down to the caves but we didnt want to give Devon the chance at drowning us so we moved on. Lesson learned, This is the way to see Ireland! not the usual tourist traps but just wing it! There is question as to whether people have been kissing the wrong stone for hundreds of years at Blarney Castle anyways. And I dont think I could have resisted the chance to do something to the stone that Stace would yell at me for anyway.
Very much looking forward to going back someday but I hear of some coastal villages in England and Whales that have caves and are nice for the kids so maybe we'll do that first.

BTW if this doesnt make a whole lot of sense...you missed the last post!

Cork, Ireland

we're back. what a great place! we all had a good time and now that we've had a little taste of Ireland we are looking forward to going back for a longer trip someday. These first few pics are of us in the city of Cork in the south of Ireland.
Its a very nice town with loads of nice shops and great places to eat. we went to a small cafe type of place just because it looked like it was a "local" kind of place. there were people going in and out like crazy and most other places looked empty. Boy were we right to go there! it was great! now we know where to take people over to when they get around to visiting (cass!)
anyways we loved the town but wanted to see the Ireland that you picture in your mind or see in movies (or in a ENYA song).................

getting old i guess

I am not going to upload any of the pictures that stacey took of me in the hospital bed for obvious reasons. They let me out finally and told me I have galstones and have to see a specialist about them and have more tests done on my galbladder and liver. then in 2 to 3 weeks I may have to have it out. all I know is I feel like crap and hope to feel well enough this weekend to still go to Ireland. This sucks to happen right now after starting a new job and having all sorts of things going on right now but at least I havent racked up 20 grand a night hospital bills and paying 50 dollars a pop for asprin! its all free! no bills comming for me in the mail.

We won nother car on ebay while I was in and had a friend go with Peter to pick it up. Its called a rover 75. I had driven these before and remembered how nice they were. Stace drove it for the first time yesterday and now agrees with peter that its somehow nicer than his Jag x-type. so ive put the french car we baught before we got here back on ebay.
Thanks you to everyone for thinking of me or your calls while I was in the hospital.

its nice to see places older than the USA.
anyways...work is going well so far and we cant wait to go to Ireland in 2 weeks! I still havent booked the spain trip for our anniversary. We may wait on that till summer and go to Stockholm instead.

These are from matt and sarah's place. the only thing that could have made this a nicer weekend had been if the "award winning chip shop" next door had been open! oh well....its probably better it wasnt'I mean...why else do you think I dont include many pics of myself?!?

old friends

you may remember when our friends Matt and Sarah came to visit us a-while back in Florida. This is when we took them over to Cathy and Carls house for dinner. They had a nice time and we had said then that we all wanted to come and visit them in England some day and see thier house. well cathy and carl did go and see them just after they had gotten back from getting amrried in Italy. they had a reception in England that carl and cathy went to. well we finally got to see thier place....
the next post will have plenty of picture of where they live with a very nice lake in front of thier house where the boys got to feed the geese and we walked around. Thier house was built in 1750 just at the beginning of the industrial revolution.m they live nearby a place called IRONBRIDGE, that has a huge bridge.....the first one made of iron instead of wood.

Kiss my Blarney...........stone

well we've booked a trip to go to Baltimore Harbour only this is a shorter flight and its in Ireland. We go to Cork Ireland on Feb 23rd. Its just me and Stace taking the boys and its only a short trip but should be fun. I should have plenty of pictures when we get back. Cork is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places and from looking online it sounds fantastic.

I cant believe it....

I owe an apology to my father for laughing at his lilac painted bedroom. this top pic is what I have been reduced to in life. nice view and the bed is ok but COME ON!!! PURPLE!!??
Mason got the better deal. the other is his bedroom. he even got the one with the bathroom! I would have taken one of Devon's but guess I sort of did! I really didnt take one of where I end up sleeping. The top one should have said Stace and Devon's.

snow?? before, during and after...

you call this snow?? this first pic is of the town my current job is at from up high this morning. The second is a little while later when it first started to snow at work. it was going heavy for nearly an hour. then it snowed on an off for the rest of the day and the third pic at night is all we ended up with. Stacey and the boys had gone to Birmingham again on the train to see a symphony with some friends. it was nice because it was really for school aged kids and they taught them while they played about different sounds and they had seats up front so close stace said she could read the music they were playing. thay had a fun day out.
after they got back and I got home from work, we went out with friends to eat and when we went back to thier house I took the boys and thier 2 girls outside to play in what snow there was. we managed to scrape enough snow off the cars to have a battle and to build a small snowman so they are looking forward to tommorrow to see if its still there and see if it snowed more in the night. the forcast is snow for the next three days. that should make service in the morning fun anyways....e