Ireland, the end

July 22- For our last full day in Dublin, I didn't journal anything, but thankfully things did improve considerably upon the previous day!  Our little ones finally discovered the "kids' check in" in the hotel lobby, where they climbed up the stairs to receive little coloring packets.  :)

 We enjoyed another full-Hilton breakfast, Dublin-style.  

Once again, we parked the car and made our way into the city.

Thanks to the bus ride the previous day, we got a feel for what we wanted to make sure we saw--Trinity College, where resides the Book of Kells, and the Guinness Storehouse.  

Admission to the Book of Kells included a brief tour of the campus, so we joined another tour group and learned a bit of the history we probably should have read before we went.

Tradition has it that if you are walking under this arch when the bell tolls the hour, you will fail your exams for the term.  I imagine this is not a prime make-out spot!

This statue of a provost with a grimace-like smile depicts the man who supposedly was the last to resist the admission of women into the college.

Our guide had a good personality for the job, and was required to part of the original Trinity College school uniform.

This sculpture was supposed to mean something besides Death Star, which is all I remember!

Once that part of the tour was finished, we were invited to join the line of people waiting to go into the library where the Book of Kells was kept.  However, we realized that we hadn't put enough money on our parking ticket for such a long line, so John left with Gemma to catch the bus while Ruthie and I waited our turn.

The Book of Kells and several other ancient documents were preserved in the basement of this building.  We saw them first (no photos allowed, of course), and then finished the cycle in this delicious old library, lined with marble busts of famous scholars.

Ruthie was a bit of a challenge the whole time, so I didn't spend long there or in the very nice gift shop.  We caught the next bus and headed on to meet John and Gemma at the Guinness Storehouse.

Yogurt helped.  :)

I guess John and Gemma had some fun while they were waiting for us in front of the gate!  

The storehouse was neat; I believe the museum is relatively new.  We aren't really into beer, but we learned a bit.

The design of the building itself is quite fun.  The self-guided tour begins at the bottom and continues upward, with the top level being all glass.  Everyone then drinks his included pint in front of a splendid view of the city.

 

One pint was more than enough for John and me to share, so we used our second drink voucher to get an orange Fanta for Gemma, which she thoroughly enjoyed experiencing.

After that, we drove into a large park in town and found a playground to relax at for a while.

We decided to make our last dinner in Dublin a pizza!  

Later, I remember that we returned to the hotel to put Ruth down for a nap and let John work for a while.  Gemma may have slept, too; I know that I set off on foot for a shopping center a quarter of a mile away to get sandwiches and snacks for the evening and the next morning.  We had just enough time in the morning to grab a roll when the breakfast buffet opened and head out to the airport.  

What a delightful way to spend some of the hottest weeks of summer!  It was a trip we will remember for a life time, How thankful I am for God's good provisions to us, enabling us to go celebrate with Jenni and Sam.  How thankful I am for God bringing them together!  

Stumbling about Dublin - Ireland, Day 12

Monday,  July 21

[When John saw what I had written up for this day, he chided me a bit for my pessimism.  I was trying to be realistic, I guess . . . traveling with little ones is not all roses!  Still, every moment of this trip was a great privilege, even though some were particularly difficult.]

"This was easily the worst day of our trip so far . . . here's hoping that it stays the worst and tomorrow is better!  It started at 3 AM when Ruthie woke up.  She would not calm down for anything, and we can only conclude that we really ran her ragged with too much activity and not enough normal sleep over the past few days.  She had just lost it.  Finally around 4:30 or 5 when she was sitting on our bed between us, screaming her head off, she sucked on her bippy, closed her eyes and flopped over in exhaustion until about 9 AM.

"Gemma was up shortly after that and we let John sleep until 10, since breakfast was open until 10:30. We ate a nice full Hilton breakfast (thanks Grandpa B!) and made the 15 minute drive into the Dublin city center, arriving around 11:30/12, since we got detoured with trying to find a gas station and making wrong turns.  We finally found a 'pay and display' parking spot and all felt a little less cranky after taking a pit stop at a Spar nearby.  

"Soon we found the City SightSeeing bus we were looking for and bought two-day tickets.  We had just enough time on our parking ticket for the bus ride without hopping off, so we set our minds on that, but the girls were quite difficult by the end of it.  

"We headed back to the car and John took Gemma potty at the Spar again before setting off.  Ruth fussed almost the entire trip, and suddenly Gemma started fussing, too, when she realized that we didn't have her baby.  Flustered, we took more wrong turns (thankful for our GPS at least!), and John finally dropped the girls and me off at the Hotel and went back to the city center to get the baby from the bathroom at the Spar.  

"Of course Ruthie had fallen asleep in the car and woke up as soon as we got her out, but thankfully she ate some yogurt in the room and then took a nice long nap until around 6 pm.  Also thankfully John found the baby without a problem and returned to do some work. 

"We decided on Fish and Chips for dinner since we still hadn't had any yet, and we were quite hungry having only snacked on Pringles for lunch.  We found a place 7 minutes away that we could get to without going into the city, which was not at all appealing anymore today.  Picked up one fish and chips and two "snack boxes" of fried chicken and chips because they were BOGO.  Carried them over a block to eat them at a playground we'd spotted.  It was fun spending some time with the local kids, even though the playground was pretty filthy and the kids were not at all interested in eating when playing was in front of them! 

"Then Gemma had an accident--numbers 1 and 2, the first pee accident in a week and the first poo accident in months.  Finally we loaded the kids back up, Ruthie screaming all the way of course, and got them home, bathed and in bed.  Thankful for a quiet evening in the hotel, and here's to hoping that tomorrow, our last day in Ireland, is better.

[Most of these photos are from the bus tour we took around the city.  There were cathedrals everywhere.]

 

Two Wrights - Ireland, Day 11

The Lord's Day - July 20

[The wedding was over, and there's a strong sense in which everything could only go downhill from here!  We had three more days in Ireland, but on Sunday our week-long rental of the Castle Rock house concluded, so we spent the morning hurriedly packing up the car between yawns and getting ready to say our sad goodbyes to Sarah and Logan.]

[A few last photos of the rental house . . . which we would highly recommend!   A very fair price for a lovely, beautifully furnished and excellently organized home in a great location.]

"We were up, packed, and ready to leave for church and leave the house around 9:15 am.  We exchanged hugs with Sarah and Logan and stufed the partially-dried laundry from the dryer into plastic grocery bags and into the trunk.  We couldn't find the grocery store soda bread we'd been planning to eat for breakfast in the car, so we stopped at Ruth's bakery one last time and picked up a few fresh ones, as well as a cup of take away tea for me.  The girls happily stuffed that delicious bread down!

[I don't care for my tired, sad face in this photo, but let's not be vain . . . ]

"We were at least ten minutes later than the 10:30 start time at Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Newtownabbey, where we were hoping at least to see the Donnellys!  But when we pulled into the car park and there was not a soul or an auto in sight, we grew concerned that we had made this trip for nothing!  A few minutes later, a young man cruised in on a bicycle and explained to us that there was no Sabbath school in the summer, only a prayer meeting at 11 before the 11:30 service.  And sadly the Donnellys were away at an international conference in Scotland.  However, everyone else welcomed us warmly and we'd had a lunch invitation even before we went inside!  As Ruthie very quickly became unmanageable, I spent most of the service in the cry room with a kind lady named Jill who was keeping her 14 month old granddaughter, as well as two other young mothers.  The Psalm singing was underwhelming from the cry room, but we did our best, and the preaching was from Isaiah.

"Afterward, we followed our kind hosts, David and Susan Wright, to their home in Ballyclare!  They had a very comfortably furnished typical smallish British house and were all ready with toys for the children, as well as a high chair and pack n play (thankfully they have grandchildren and are used to this!).  They were extremely kind to us and fed us a wonderful meal of soup, ham, broccoli/cauliflower, potatoes, beetroot, and rhubarb crisp with custard and icecream for dessert, and tea and cookies later before the evening service.  They introduced us to the Jonathan Mark books, which Gemma loved, and we read their entire collection of 6 or 7 of them to her that afternoon! [Oh, how they outdo us in hospitality over there!]

"We had told them of our intentions to visit their sister congregation in Ballyclare that evening, and we learned to our surprise that not only was their home literally around the corner from the church building, but Mr. David Wright and Mr. George Wright of the Ballyclare church are first cousins.  :) AND Mr. David Wright is the brother of Mrs. Donnelly!  So it was a very quick journey to evening worship, which Ruthie certainly appreciated.  Gemma was out cold during the first prayer, but with Ruth we were not so fortunate.  She was so rebellious that John kindly took over her care early in the service and ended up sitting with her in a Sunday School room listening to a sermon on his phone while I sat in the actual service, undistracted.  The preaching was on Pontius Pilate's question "what is truth?" and once again everyone was extremely welcoming and kind.  

[Back in 2007, Derek and I had hoped to visit Pastor Donnelly's church, for this precious servant of God has preached at many of our conferences in the U.S. in the past, and it was under his preaching that I believe I was converted.  Time constrained us back then, and we made it to to their sister church in Ballyclare, where Mr. and Mrs. George Wright had kindly invited Derek, Jenni and me over afterward.  We maintained a skeleton of a relationship with them over these years and contacted them ahead of time.  They very sweetly invited us over after the evening service again.  I only hope we may have opportunity to return the favor some day!]

"We had been greeted with a 'holy kiss' by George Wright in the car park when we first arrived, and we followed them back to their home in Ballymena afterward.  The children played on their swing set for a little bit before we went inside and then they played with the toys they had there.  They served us tea, sandwiches, and a vast array of sweet things and we squeezed in friendly chatter between wrangling our tired children.  They also had an enormous rocking horse which Gemma was very very happy to ride before we said our goodbyes after 10 pm.  It was 12:30 or 1 am by the time we arrived at the Hilton in Dublin, quite exhausted."

[Gemma adored this horse, but was a bit shy of Mr. Wright, as our blurry iphone photo shows.  What a Lord's Day, though!  We were truly humbled by all the kindness, and leaving a little pot of maple syrup here and some knitted fingerless gloves there didn't seem like enough.  But even if we are never able to host them in return, we look forward to fellowship in heaven with these loving saints!]

The Wedding - Ireland, Day 10

July 19 - At last the day was here!  The wedding of Jenni and Sam was the reason we went to Ireland, and we felt keenly how privileged we were to be able to celebrate with them that day!

Jenni and Sam got married at Kells Presbyterian, that stately old stone building where Jenni and her dad had worshiped and she had taught Sunday School for some number of years.  Derek and I remember the short drive down the road to the church from their home when we visited back in 2007.

April and Tim.  :)  April read Scripture as part of the service.  

 Sam and his three best men taking a selfie before the service began.

 

I don't have many good official-looking wedding photos, and the ones we do have are heavily weighted toward photos of our family, but I chose around 30 of the best of our 120 to share (and this is after my original sifting!).  This moment is just a memory . . . the wigglies while we were all waiting.  :)

No bride's face here, but there is a glimpse of the happy groom's . . .  

They were married by Jenni's pastor from Belfast, where she'd lived in N. Ireland most recently.  And that's all we have from the ceremony, sorry!  I spent the sermon outside with a noisy Ruthie, but I do remember singing at least two hymns/spiritual songs.  The order of their service was different from our own wedding, but the elements were the same with one notable exception.  While music played, the bride and groom and their witnesses signed the marriage certificate in front of everyone.  I loved it!

 Afterward, we took in the beauty of the pew decorations for a bit.  They say that friends of Jenni's crocheted all these lacy jar-holders!  Unique and beautiful.  Later, we helped pack them up to decorate the reception site as centerpieces, etc.  (There's a photo in a bit of many hanging from a barn door.)

It was soon time for Reception stage 1.  :)  The Pastor had invited the general population into the fellowship hall for tea, and I share this photo partly to illustrate how much more care the British put into dressing for weddings than we do.  There were many hats, headdresses, formal updos and semi-formal gowns, even for an afternoon wedding.  It was all lovely!

Friends serving tea, which accompanied a large table of dainty desserts.

Meanwhile, the children played in the nursery and we did our best to capture the two Gemmas.  :)

 Then we drove over to a farm where this cheerful bicycle welcomed us to the Reception, stage 2!  It was something of a working farm, with real animals out in pasture nearby.

(The aforementioned barn door.)

 The waitstaff then welcomed us with teacups full of some kind of creamy soup with leeks in it.  We carried them over to this enchanting sitting area and chased away the July chill(!) with hot sips.  Other servers circled with a couple other trays of starters.



While the bridal party took photos, we explored a little bit and tried to get some portraits of our own, with mixed success. :)
 

Before long, we were all welcomed to find our seats in the barn.  The rumor was that Jenni had brought back these teacup place card favors and coffee beans from a market in Ethiopia.  The children had jelly beans in theirs.  :)

We had lots of laughs over dinner, especially once the speeches started.  The British truly outdo us in speeches!  Both dads spoke, and all three best men spoke (Sam's brothers holding up a bar graph to display the relative number of spankings each sibling received growing up!  According to them, little sister Yolanda had just about none . . . ).  Sam spoke, Gemma's husband Graham spoke . . . and there were probably others, but I had to spend some of the time outside, corralling little ones.

This photo really shows Jenni--trying to get her dinner, yet ready to smile for a random camera while someone else tries to get her attention!  Lovely Yolanda is in the background.

Making friends.  :)

Always the self-forgetting hostess, even on her wedding day, Jenni was soon working her way around the tables, greeting all her guests.  In the course of chatting with our Irish tablemates, John and I learned that the clinking of glasses was a foreign custom to those present, but we decided to try, and clinked in sync, as loud as we could.  Others looked around, a bit confused, but Jenni knew what to do, and quickly found her husband to give him the kiss requested by us Americans.  :)

Cutting the cake . . . after serving us each a large dessert!  There were three choices, and I remember that I had an exceedingly rich and delicious caramel pavlova.  

Then we briefly detained poor Logan, pipe-in-hand, hoping to get a family portrait in front of the stone building.  We tried.   

After dinner, the waitstaff asked us to wander about while they removed the tables from the barn for dancing.

There was plenty to do while we waited.  :)

The children, being darlings . . . Gemma and Graham's girls were so sweet to ours.

The afternoon wore on, and the little ones began wearing out.  :)  I love this photo of Mr. Campbell, being a sweet grandpa.

 

As it grew dark, it was time for Reception, stage 3!  The British outdo us not only in speeches, but in their celebrating!  Since the barn could seat a limited number of people, additional friends were invited as "evening guests," arriving about now in time for a completely new buffet of sausages, sandwiches, chips, more sweets and more tea.  I snapped this photo after the table had been rummaged through a bit and it was growing dark.  

Soon the DJ was ready and the dancing began with a Cèilidh (pronounced "kaylee," I believe), which was practically speaking an Irish barn dance.  :)  A caller organized us into circles, lines, or squares, as each dance required, and walked us through the steps for each one.  It was loads of fun, though a bit hard for our little ones to understand.  Gemma was content to stand in the middle of a circle with all the grownups skipping around her, but Ruthie was tired and confused, so I attempted to dance with her on my hip for a few rounds.

We sat out for a couple of dances, then Sarah and Logan kindly watched our children while we returned to the barn for what became the last "dance" of the Cèilidh--the hat game.  It was like a version of musical chairs, with height being a certain advantage as it involved passing hats to the person behind you and making sure you had one on your head when the music stopped.  I say this because John ended up being one of the two or three finalists.  :)

Then the DJ started playing the usual stuff, and even our little ones had fun with daddy for a song or two.  It was growing late, however, and as it neared 11, we realized the party was going to last longer than we were.  We loaded our exhausted children into the car and drove back up to the coast in the dark after a full day, later seeing photographic evidence that we had missed out on some fire-breathing by abandoning the party so early!

Oh, happy day!  2014 was the year in which the Lord provided good men for two who are so dear to me--my own sister and Jenni.  Not only did He give them good men, but he gave one a graduate of West Point, and the other of Oxford and Harvard!  (I hope you don't mind if I brag on the mercies of the Lord a little bit!)  I'm sure that both will tell you that it was worth waiting a bit longer than they'd expected to be married.  It was similar for me--I never expected to marry a Ph.D., yet here I am.  It's not that education really matters at all; I would rather have a good man with no degree than an educated fool!  (John notes: "I am both, having a degree _and_ and being an educated fool") I only mention it because it's one way in which the Lord blessed exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we asked or thought (or hoped or dreamed!).  To Jenni and Sam!