Wes visit – 2 – HappyMillFam

TLDR – Dun Laogaire, and Kilkenny Castle with Wes and Carie and John.

Dun Leary (SP)

Today’s adventure is a trip to Dun Laogaire (DL) to walk the pier, see a light house, farmers market and what ever else looks fun. We started the day with breakfast and messing with Johns phone.Somewhere last night before bed he reset his password, went to sleep and proceeded to completely forget his password while sleeping. Wes and john fiddled with resetting the phone a few times and failed. Turned out the cable they were using was flaky causing their method to fail. New cable and Yeah phone reformatting started working.

Nerd boys doing Nerd things on a messy table

We left and John stayed behind waiting for his phone to reinstall because we are nerds and demand our nerd accessories before we can leave the house. We took the LUAS to the end at Bridges Glen, boarded the 7 bus to blackrock and got off above the park by the pier. We separated from Wes after getting off the bus. He wanted to find an ATM, and we were going to walk around the park and check out the farmers market. He told us he’d find our dot after buying money. Find our dot is a reference to the shared location with iPhones. – living in the future is amazing. We’ve all shared location with each other allowing us to stalk each other in real-time.

Food option preview – we ate things from there and there and here

Walking to the pier we took a preview walk through the farmers market and scopes out the food options planning lunch. The pier was not horribly windy but it was windy enough to make Michelle and the girls happy to be wearing two layers of pants. We’d promised Carie a light house when we set off on the day’s adventure; we almost delivered. At the end of the pier is a light house. Sadly we discovered the light house was closed when we made it out to the end. We were able to see the top the lighthouse but were not able to make it to the base – sad face.

Cullen and Mila walking towards the end of the pier

After the pier, we hit the farmers market for meatballs, chips, and cheese bread. Wes was so into the cheese bread and bought an entire batch of it as we were leaving the park. When he showed us the bag full of cheese breadsticks he held up the bag and proclaimed “I’m going to find someone on a keto diet and tempt them” – Then he evil laughed; sure have missed his sense of humor!! By now the kids are starting to look cold so we called it enough for now and found a bus home.

A few days later

Wes and Carie left us for a few days and popped over to London for some adventure. They checked out some museums, were run over by people in a hurry, watched Aladdin live and mostly reported having a good time. Wes, being taller than the rest of us was not a fan of the limited space Ryanair provided on their flight over. Living a world of gold bars he elected to take a different route back to Dublin. On the way back they took a train to the coast and rode the ferry back to Dublin.

Kilkenny

Ou first adventure after Wes and Carie came home was Kilkenny town and castle. We left at 0745 to make a 0910 train at Heuston station. As we were leaving the house the LUAS we wanted to be on went by without us on it. Being early on a Sunday we had 19 minutes to wait for the next LUAS. Those 19 minutes meant we arrived at Heuston station with 8 minutes to board; we can do this! We split up. Wes found the gate number, and Michelle bought tickets. Then we met back up at the gate booked it to the train. We made it on the train with about 2 minutes to spare. We had some much time we had time to find a table for the kids to sit at. Waiting at Abbey street station for the redline we found a clown waiting for the train. Mila and I walked by him and he said hi to her. Which rightfully scared her a bit. When we walked back by mom Mila told mom “mom he said hi to me, it was scary ” – when we boarded the LUAS the clown did not get on with us. Not sure why he was waiting there talking to people, but the LUAS was safer wtihout him.

20181014_074933894_iOS — Stalkie with the clown in the background

20181014_074833915_iOS — Stalkie, Carie Photobombing, and a Clowns head

Train ride was peaceful thanks to iPhones and Wes and Carie buying everyone snacks. We covered the train tickets and they covered the food for the day, is the agreement came to after bought the train tickets. It might have worked out evenish. Only a math person who kept track of such things could tell. Only one of those people not paid in gold bars would care. From the train station in Kilkenny, we took the wrong right out of the parking lot and ended up on the back side of dunes with no way out. We gave up on that direction, turned back to the station where we found the “correct” way out to the road from the train station.

Kids on a train doing things on their Iphones

After a short walk, we crossed over the river and came to the castle. Carie bought the kids and I each a 99er, and she purchased coffees for the adults. Who cares that it’s only 10 degrees out ICE CREAM. From the sweet shop, we split up. Wes and Carie took the castle tour and we walked along the river into the park. They won some timing game and managefreerere tour. They were told ” for the moment the tour is free” Hard to pass up free. On the river walk Maddex was pushing Mila in the stroller and Mila would yell “punch it chewie ” and Maddex would push as fast as he was able. It’s cute when they get along and play well together and have fun.

About half way into the river walk we started to see pink shirts and people with numbers pined to the pink shirts. In the distance, we could hear an announcer. We figured there must be a race. The closer we got to the castle park the more runners we passed. It was the race for the pink breast cancer 10k/5k run. All of the runners had pink shirts on Some of them went above the minimally required flare and had pink hair or tutus on. I bet you can guess which runners the girls liked the best.

We played in the kids park for a bit while the Mills were still in the castle tour. I rode the swings of insanity with the kids and kicked their feet before Khaleesi needed the toilet. Knowing where a toilet is and how little time we have when Khaleesi says she needs to go while playing; we booked it towards the castle to use the washroom. Michelle the kids went in and I waited out front. By the time they came out of the castle Wes and Carie found me. We shared adventure stories then decided to leave the castle, turn right and walk into town and explore.

We cruised around town hob nobbing and shopping for a few hours before hitting a papa johns for lunch then back towards the train where we hit a mall for snacks before training back into town on the 1540 train to Heuston station. On the ride down the sun was low and blinding the side of the train the girls were on. On the way back the sun was low again and blinded the side I was sitting on. – no shades on the train, just blinding sun. We made it home in time to feed the kids and put them to bed.