Day 27 - Rivers and Civilizations

After being away for 4 days, we planned to just hang around the farm and relax.  It was a gorgeous day with blue skies and beautiful white clouds. 

View from the backyard...Just gorgeous!

View from the backyard...Just gorgeous!

We visited the mommy chicken and her little chicks that are growing up very quickly.

Mommy chicken and all her chicks. 

Mommy chicken and all her chicks. 

And the kids spent a while playing together with their toys.

Kian: Hello Princesses
Hannah: Nooo...you cannot come in...aaaaa
Kian: Why? I am a good guy...I am Bruce Wayne.
Hannah: Oh!!! I didn't realize it's Bruce Wayne...come in come in...

Hannah and Kian playing together

Hannah and Kian playing together

The kids also played on the iPads for a bit.  We got this new app called "Montessori 1st Operations".  It is a great app for teaching simple math, and Kian likes it a lot. Yay for educational app!! 

Kian playing the 1st Operations game

Kian playing the 1st Operations game

Since it was so beautiful, we couldn't stay put all day, so we decided to walk to the beach near the house before dinner and play for a while. The walk is about half a mile, but it is very peaceful and you rarely see a car to by.

When we got to the beach, we saw a vast area on the sand covered with some odd looking twirly things. At first we thought it was garbage...maybe strings? We were shocked to find out that it was actually just sand! We later witnessed the creation of these "strings" occurs when water would randomly push through small holes in the sand and create these shapes.

The water under the sand is actually from a river that is a small distance away from the ocean. There were terrible storms around here in December, which apparently damaged most of the beach.

One of the sand formations we saw on the beach

One of the sand formations we saw on the beach

Because of the river, the sand is very wet and you only have to dig a little bit to have a pool of water.  We started off with just a little pool for Hannah to play in, but then my darling husband had this crazy idea of digging a river all the way to the ocean.

This would have been totally fine if we start just a small distance away, but noooo...we started off at Hannah's pool which was quite far from the ocean. Kian had fun helping us build dams along the way.

A few times I was ready to give up, but we finally did it and managed to connect our river to the ocean :) Yes sometimes we are bigger kids than our children.

This ended up resulting in a good lesson for Kian, though. After we built the river, we explained to him how the first civilizations in the world were built around rivers and why.  

After the digging and the history lesson, we all headed back to the house to have some dinner and rest our arm and shoulder muscles from all the digging :) 

We are hoping for great weather tomorrow for the Louisburgh Horse Show.

Day 21 - Louisburgh Horse Race

On Sunday morning, we woke up to rays of sunshine creeping through the windows. I decided to take advantage of this and go for a nice run. The pet lambs came to see me off, and I was on my way. I was able to go towards the the ruins of a stone church that I had seen from a distance before. It was a very uphill road, but it was totally worth it.

Church ruins near Devlin

Church ruins near Devlin

Once I got back home, Kian, I mean Batman and I decided to visit the pet lambs.

Batman visiting the pet lambs

Batman visiting the pet lambs

If you ever get a chance to pet a lamb/sheep, do it and don't hesitate for a second. They are so so soft and wooly :) After our visit, Batman, "glided" down the hill.

Batman "gilding" down

Batman "gilding" down

Then it was time to say good morning to Sam. I don't believe I mentioned this before, but Sam has two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue! 

Sam checking out Batman's cape

Sam checking out Batman's cape

We also went to visit Blackberry, the hen that is sitting on eggs now, but her bucket was covered and we did not want to bother her. 

After all our visits, we headed back inside as daddy also seized the opportunity to go for a run. While lunch, was being prepared, the superheroes and super villain had a battle around the house.

BLAAAAMMMMM....

BLAAAAMMMMM....

KA-POWWWW!

KA-POWWWW!

Lunch was served...chicken noodle soup with bread and lots of fruits.

Chicken noodle soup with bread and fruit

Chicken noodle soup with bread and fruit

After lunch, we all got ready and headed down to Carrownisky Strand for the Louisburgh Horse Race. Yay for sunshine and blue skies!

What a wonderful family event. There were bouncy slides, a face painter, balloon animal makers, food, ice cream, and more. There was also an area for people who bet on the racing horses. We found out later that the horses come from all over Ireland for this race. 

Batman

Batman

Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty

There was a small admission fee for adults, but a good number of the children's activities were free. 

Yay balloon doggies! 

Yay balloon doggies! 

It seemed that the races were on every 15-30 minutes. It was really neat to see horses race on the beach. 

Racers coming down the beach

Racers coming down the beach

Kian was also able to test out his driving skills on the go-karts. He only crashed a few times and had a blast :)

Vrrrrrrooooom...Vrrrrrooooommmmm

Vrrrrrrooooom...Vrrrrrooooommmmm

Back home, we continued enjoying the beautiful day and grilled some burgers for dinner, while trying to get some internet access.  The chickens were extremely interested in the laptop and hung about for a bit.  This picture would make for a great meme...caption suggestions anyone?

Chickens checking out the laptop

Chickens checking out the laptop

The cheese burgers were served with a side of home-made fries, or chips as they say here.

Cheese burgers & chips

Cheese burgers & chips

After dinner, Kian and Daddy played some soccer in honor of the final world cup game, as Mayflower continued her munching on grass. 

Kian catching Daddy's attempt at the goal

Kian catching Daddy's attempt at the goal

Then we all watched the final game and cheered for Argentina :( We were bummed out that they lost, but I was glad Kian stayed up and watched the whole game with us, even though Hannah didn't quite make it to the end before asking to go to bed.

Thank you sunshine! We had a lovely Sunday being outside.