where will baby sleep?

There’s not much space in our little condo and we’re not moving until the baby is about 3 months old so you may be wondering where is the baby going to sleep until we move?

In the cradle, of course.

My dad handmade it out of cherry back over 24 years ago when my sister was pregnant with my niece.  It was intended for all of the family’s grandkids but it’s BIG and too heavy to ship so after if got to New Jersey for my sister’s kids (through the kindness of friends of friends who were moving to NJ), it sadly never managed to make it back to Texas for my brothers’ kids.  We are fortunate to live close enough that we can pick it up from them (and then move it to Colorado with us).

It’s gorgeous and will be parked next to our bed once the baby is born until we pack up to move.

fun with baby stuff

We’ve gotten a few things for the baby so far.

Our first present was from one of Will’s cousins –

so cute!  We’ve had them since before Thanksgiving but they’ll be perfect for next Christmas season.

We’ve also received a baby shower present a little early from one of my high school friends – a Performance Ergo Baby Carrier.  We’re super excited and really hope baby likes it. 

But first… Will had to model it with Snuffles acting in place of the baby.

He looks thrilled, right?

So I mentioned in a previous post that I ordered this:

It arrived!

It’s a little bit more Elmo red than I would have thought from the picture but it’s still adorable.  Snuffles was called in to model yet again.

I was in a weird mood.

whoops…

I realized yesterday in the shower that I’ve lost my toes.

looking straight down – no toes.

oh… there they are.  Had to lean over a little bit to find them though.

Most weeks the weekly Baby Center baby development e-mails include a cartoon (sometimes it’s a dumb joke – I like the cartoons better now that I’ve discovered them)
 
Here’s the one for 30 weeks.  All symptoms accounted for with the exception of the swelling so far.  whew.

day 12 – kylemore abbey

Our next day adventure was to one of my favorite places in Ireland – Kylemore Abbey.

We really kind of felt like we were lost driving through the Connemara Coast (more karst if you were interested) because it was pretty desolate.  Pretty though. 

We did finally get there!

 
Happy couples.

The view back across the lake

Inside the abbey itself:

One of the owners of the castle had a gorgeous gothic church built to honor his dead wife.

 

Walking back toward the Victorian Walled Gardens Dad found a cool stump to inspect.

The gardens were a new experience since they’ve never been open on any previous trips since they’ve been under restoration for many years.  They were worth the wait.  We’d stopped at the gardens cafe for some lunch and ended up finishing up right about the time that the guided tour of the of the gardens began.  It was a good tour.

Because we were on a mission to find another Avoca Handweavers to replace a jar of jam that my dad had bought and then dropped, we took a different route home.  Will even was able to stop and find a cache.

 
He didn’t know that I was taking pictures with the telephoto lens :)

It had turned out to be a long day so we stopped for dinner at the first place we could find before getting back to the B&B.

View Ireland - Day 12 in a larger map

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca
Day 7: Dublin Part 1
Day 8: Dublin Part 2
Day 9: Newgrange
Day 10: Mullingar, Belvedere House
Day 11: Aran Islands

day 11 – aran islands

For our first day adventure from Spiddal, we drove down to Rossaveal to catch the ferry out to the Aran Islands, specifically Inishmore.  The weather wasn’t going to be fantastic but it also wasn’t likely to improve so we made the trip.

The Aran Islands weren’t on the itinerary for my very first trip to Ireland (in 1993) but they’ve made the cut on all subsequent trips.  Mom thought that we would rent bikes which is typically what young “in shape” people do but we hadn’t yet told them that I was pregnant and not keen on the idea of riding a bike around a cold island (the time I did it, 9 years ago – it was a fantastic summer day and it was hard work).  Our plan was to get a horse drawn cart because there was an old lighthouse that we didn’t figure would be on the regular bus tour and we wanted to try to walk back. 

But first we had to get some food – pregnant ladies get very concerned about when they get to eat.  This guy was “parked” outside the Spar in the town.

Just as normal as could be in a parking spot just like the cars.

It turned out that the horse drawn carriage idea – EXPENSIVE!  So we ended up on a regular old “bus” tour in the end anyway which was what my folks had done right after getting off the ferry. 

First stop, Dun Aengus, the fort at the top of the island.  What they were protecting, no one is sure.  You can only get so close to the fort before you have to abandon all other forms of transport and rely on your own two legs to get there. 

Here are some random shots as we walked up hill through the karst to reach the fort.

 

Ah, we’ve finally made it.

One of the main reasons for going up to the fort is the views of the cliffs that you are afforded with no barriers between you and the drop off.  Gotta love a society that isn’t as overly litigious like Americans.

 

Alright, I have to admit that even though on previous trips I just waltzed right up to the edge and peered over.  This:

was as close as I could get and Will took all of the cool pictures.

Must have been that early motherly protective instinct kicking in or something.

And a couple more random shots from the top and/or the way back down where we found my parents in the little “town” that has cropped up at the trailhead.
 

The next stop on the tour was the 7 churches – mostly a collection of old ruined churches and a graveyard.

Oh, and a few cows.

Our last stop was out to the end of the island where the functional lighthouse resides.  We found a pair of fishermen just beginning to repair their boat.
       

As it turned out, we didn’t have time to make it to the old lighthouse (one of our goals because there was a cache there) but my parents did!  It was the first stop on their bus tour in fact.

 
Clearly, we should have just stuck together for the day after all.

Then it was time to catch the ferry back.

I think my folks were a little tuckered out after all that fresh sea air ;)

View Ireland - Day 11 in a larger map

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca
Day 7: Dublin Part 1
Day 8: Dublin Part 2
Day 9: Newgrange
Day 10: Mullingar, Belvedere House