Tuesday, July 15 was a nice, low-key day for us. It was also an iPhone-photo kind of day, when we left the big camera home and just took it all in. As we recorded in our journal, we spent time in our own little coastal town of Castlerock before driving over to the more "busy and happening" Portrush in order to spend some more time with Jenni and Sam. I admired the foresight they put into planning their wedding week, blocking out Thursday and Friday for wedding preparations, but making a point of seeing their out-of-town friends earlier on.
"We had a nice gentle start to the day, eventually walking down to Ruth's Bakery for potato bread and soda bread, which we carried to the beach for our breakfast.
"The girls loved the sand and Gemma esepecially loved the water!
"She got all wet, but thankfully her dress dried quickly in the wind.
"Stopped at Costcutter on the way back for some more food supplies and Gemma picked out some sand toys to get with "her" money. We spent the rest of the morning doing laundry, playing in the back garden, John did some work I think, and Ruthie got a good nap. Ate pasta in for lunch, then drove over to Portrush to meet Jenni et al. on the East Strand.
[April entertained our little ones while we played around a bit!]
"We didn't know what was planned or what to prepare for. Turned out to be beach "football" and cricket while Gemma played with April then ran off and got all wet (again) and survived in a pullup, Gretchen's cardigan and her raincoat for several hours until her dress dried enough to wear.
"When we were all cold and tired, we headed over for coffee/hot chocolate at Bert & Bob's as a large group, then let the kids play at the beach playground while we waited for our 8 pm dinner reservation at Jackman & Pye with Jenni+Sam, April+Tim, Sarah+Logan.
[Playing around outside while the rest of us waited for our food!]
"Had some outstanding surf and turf and scallops at dinner. The girls did well but were very tired by the end of the night, as were we. We had to find our own way back to Castlerock sans GPS as we had no cellular signal in N. Ireland--used the partially loaded googlemap to bushwhack west, only to find ourselves at a dead end on a coastal road, several miles of beach from home. But made it back ok with road signs and John's good sense of direction." [If I recall correctly, after approaching the dead-end, John performed a three-point-turn. And as we debated what to try next, he instinctively started out in the right-hand lane on that dark summer night, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a car coming toward us! That may have been our only close call, actually.]
[Ruthie and the groom]
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