Today(when I started writting this, not when I finally published it) is Friday and the kids don’t have school today. School was canceled to allow their school to be used as a voting center for the big to kill unborn babies or not to kill unborn babies referendum vote in Ireland today. Fast forward a few days and the Yes vote won 2 to 1 with an overwhelming majority. Personally, Michelle and I are both on the side of choice and quality of life and we’re pleased with the outcome. We would have voted yes, but, not being Irish yet, we were not able to vote.
Adventure one — Phoenix Park
We’ve been in Ireland for 10 months now and have not made it to Phoenix Park yet. Phoenix Park is like the largest city park in the EU or something; I’ve heard it’s a big deal. To get to the park via LUAS you have to take the red line and the red line is like bus icky / the wrong side of the town zone. That’s our excuse, well that and it was cold and wet most of the winter months and we were not motivated to walk in a park in the cold with four kids. No more excuses, it’s time to visit Phoenix Park.
It’s going to be in the 20s today, it’s a weekend day for me, and the kids are off school, we might as well have an adventure in a big park. Michelle and Maddex were looking online and have found a free art Museum and a fort and a kids play area to visit. I want to check out the US embassy which is located smack dab in the middle of the park and the Irish presidents house along the way which looks to have a killer view overlooking the park. It’s a late start for us today ;we don’t make it on the LUAS untill about 0930.
The girls both kitted out with sun glasses, purses and toys. On the LUAS they might have been a bit distracted because three propels around me have picked up toys they’ve dropped and handed them to me. I said thanks everyone who gave me a toy, did not tell the kids, and put the toys in my pocket. Still waiting for the girls to notice they have lost LOL dolls and an Eiffel tower. I’m wearing a cameo long sleeve running shirt under my shirt to block the sun from my arms and neck. Having been sunburnt last weekend we covered up and sun creamed well today. The running shirt is super wicking; I should be nice and ripe by the time we make it home. Not that it will matter being in cameo no one can see me.
We Took the Green line to O’Connel, walked about and bought some fruit then took the Red line and got off a Houston station. From there we walked across the river towards the park. Maddex looked down at the river and asked ” Dad, how many bikes do you think are in there? Do you think our magnet will reach?” He is a fun kid. Little did we know the river level was currently high due to tide. On the way back it would be significantly lower. On low tide we could see the muddy bottom of the river. No bikes but there was a shopping trolley and some other things in the mud. – Maddex wanted to fishing but we skiped it today. The park was about 5 minutes from our river crossing.
Phoenix park is bigley hugely massive – Cut and paste from the Wikipedia “ Its 11 km perimeter wall encloses 707 hectares (1,750 acres); it is one of the largest enclosed recreational spaces within any European capital city” We only walked maybe 10% of the park on todays adventure? We walked a bit north towards some ponds and a kids play area where the kids played for a bit. Someone by the fishing pond gave the kids some food to feed some swans. Then we crossed the main road down the center of the park towards the tall thing in the distance.
The tall thing is called the Wellington Monument, at 203 feet tall it’s the tallest obelisk in the whole of Europe. The open grassy field around the monument is larger than many entire parks we’ve been in with the kids. After climbing on the monument and avoiding broken glass we hunkered down in the shade and ate had our normal picnic lunch. Sandwiches, honey roasted nuts, fruit and some cookies. While we were eating Maddex and Mom setup some goals and started playing some football.
Our House guests, Angie and Josh were headed to the park to meet us, and Michelle needed a toilet for a potty; lunch is over now. Across the road towards the zoo we go looking for the toilet. Turns out the zoo had no free toilets but they did make a sugestion that lead us to the Tea room which had 2 public toilets. We all shuffled through the toilets then we ran down a hill towards a huge gazebos where Mila and Khaleesi put on a dance show for us while we waited for Josh and Angie.
Eventually we met with Josh and Angie who also needed to use the toilet. Good thing we met at the tea house where the public wash rooms are. We all took a nice easy walk along the main road past the Irish presidents house, over the Phoenix park monument where we peaking in at the US ambassadors house. We tried to get in to touch some US soil, but, sadly no one was home at the gate to let us in; Oh well. It’s hot and the kids are getting tired. Back out of the park on wards towards City center we go. First stop some more fruit and a McDonald for ice creme then home we went. – Fun day in the sun exploring the park. It’s big. We’ll have to go back.
Dad kids day – Adventure two
Saturday we started the day off with an odd acid trip of a movie; Wrinkle in time. Not sure we enjoyed the movie, but we watched it to the end. There was some flying lettuce and a black tentacle monster, huge Oprah and a young girl who could have been Oprah’s daughter and Kirk in the movie. It was an odd Movie is about the best I can say. After the movie I took Maddex and Mila on a scooter ride to Dundrum for some p-sausage and bratwurst. We stopped in a park on the way and wow did Mila want me to watch her on the fireman pole. She kept screaming for me to watch and I kept asking what she said acting like I did not hear her. Then she would scream louder – fun times, boy can she get loud.
Mila had our only wipe out of the day and it was not too horrible. No Blood was spilled, but she did require some snuggles to calm her sniffels. My top priority is in an accident is to make sure the kid is ok. While holding Mila her scooter took off and almost went into the road. Thankfully a nice american sounding couple grabbed it and brought it over to us; Thanks whoever you were. After our accident we bought some cash, sausages and cookies and stopped in at Dealz. Maddex picked up some little fighters, Mila got Roxi a doll, and Khaleesi a unicorn. Mila then picked out some dinosaur poop slime for herself.
I was thinking the slime would not last too long or interest her. Mila proved me wrong and played with the slime for hours after we made it back home. She covered her face with it, made bracelets, and necklaces, put it on her dolls, and so much more. She cannot wait to go back to dealz and get the pink version of the slime called Unicorn poop.
After getting home mom wanted a quick break from the MillFam so the kids and I walked across the road to a park for a bit. It was starting to rain so we cut the park and went towards home. Then the rain stoped. With out rain we walked around the neighborhood killing more time on the way home. Two hours later we made it home and cooked up some fried rice for dinner, then had a social and went to bed
Maddex to work with Dad – Adventure three
Sunday no one else on my team was going to be in the office, and three kids is less than four kids, soooo, Maddex came to work with me for the day. Waking up at 4am is only an hour early for Maddex to get up, but for most people it means the end of the world. Not Maddex. He was up and at-um dressed and ready to go about 5 minutes after I woke him up. He told me the night before to just wake up gently. I’d hoped he would ask for some kind of fun wakeup, but he went with boring. After getting ready we loaded up on the scooters and rode into work.
I gave Maddex the option – ride down the long hill by the Clayton, or ride across the LUAS bridge. He asked me “how do avoid being hit by the LUAS?, can we even ride across?” I told him the LUAS is not running now and it is official an “offence” to cross the bridge but people do it. Having not been on the bridge before Maddex voted for the bridge. We walked the scooters across vs ridding them. The Sidewalk is only about 18″ wide with a fair drop onto the tracks. on one side and a metal fence on the other. While crossing we came across about 6 other people coming the other way towards us.
Maddex was a bit shocked by how much traffic we came across. I explained to him that this only happens on sundays. Sunday mornings I normally run into people at 4am coming home from their nights of chaos. Any other day there is no one out and about this early. At work we started setting up and noticed we forgot to pack our breakfast and lunch; DOH. I spent some time the night before cooking us some burritos for lunch, fried rice for breakfast, and packing snacks. By now there is a full on lashing rain storm with thunder and lightning outside. We decided to rough it with what ever we can find in the building. Which turned out to be not much at all; Epic food fail dad.
After we setup and Maddex found all of the Nerf weapons we went down to the gym and lifted for about 20 minutes. Maddex was into the leg machines where he could lift his body weight on most of the machines. He’s super excited to lift some more. Then we took showers, got dressed and back to work. On the walk up we checked all of the soda fridges looking for some soda. Fail, we find them all empty. We also tested the vending machines and found them offline; another fail. Food options are looking slim so far. We went back down stairs to the cafe and cleaned one of the soda fountains enough for Maddex to be able to have some Fanta, then took the stairs back up to the forth floor.
Back at the office for a bit I closed a few tickets, reviewed some others one and installed Minecraft on Maddex’s laptop. He’d never played Minecraft on PC before, but he’s played plenty on the Xbox. After setting him up I turned my head for a few minutes, and when I looked back he had worked out the controls, the mouse, chat, and was crafting pick axes already. Guess he will be entertained for a bit. Between games Maddex shoting me a few hundred Million times with Nerf darts and we played one round of pool.
Around noon the peanuts I had in a drawer were not enough for Maddex so we let the team know I’d be offline for 30 minutes and we scootered home for lunch. After lunch Maddex setup his laptop next to me and kept right on playing Minecraft. We might need a bigger desk in the kitchen if he is going to keep playing next to me. He’s bigly interesting in making youtube videos of him playing. Michelle and I have been telling him he needs to talk more to make good videos. We’ll get him all setup and started next week and see how he does.
Three day weekend, Three adventure days with the kids.
More Pictures
Out with dad
At work with dad
