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Day Six.  Just two days from leaving Ireland, and the day we left Kilcoobin and the Morans.  I'm not going to lie--I was feeling pretty darn sad.  We and the Morans had developed quite a rhythm for life--wake up late, head out and see some cool things, find somewhere to eat, do some grocery shopping, come home, relax a bit before dinner, make dinner, play games.  Who wouldn't want to live that life, I ask you? During the night, a fuse had gone out, and none of the outlets were functioning.  Thankfully, Jared figured it out, and we were up and running again in the morning (FYI fuses in Ireland are NOT the same as fuses in the US).  Jared took Sarah to a tea room in Bushmills called "The Copper Kettle" where we hear Jared got a plate of "Yankee Pankees" :-)  We got everything packed, took one last picture, gave hugs all around and headed our separate ways.  I was feeling very sentimental about the fact that we had had another chance to be together...

This was the day the depression hit.  It was our last full day in Northern Ireland, and I saw the writing on the wall--the vacation was coming to an end. I was even happier that I had watched the forecast and we had gone to The Causeway the day before, because the morning (and the day) was overcast and cloudy.  However, it reminded me of all the times we had visited Ireland before, and it felt strangely comforting. I wanted to head into the village one last time.  I had mail to send to a certain lucky boy in Russia--all postcards collected from the different places we had visited so far.  The cutest leprechaun postal worker was in the post office.  She kept saying something that I couldn't understand for the  life  of me--88p.  It took her repeating it for me to understand that it was a combination of numbers and a letter, and another second for me to think about "p" meaning "pence".  We had only paid for things with a credit card before ...

Again we slept in.  And I think we had convinced Sarah to do so too, especially after staying up until all hours the night before playing games! The weather forecast proclaimed Wednesday the sunniest and warmest day of the week, so I figured it would be the best day to head to The Giant's Causeway.  Turns out that it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site (we were keeping track and feeling rather accomplished about visiting so many of them). I'm a map person.  I have loved maps since I learned to read.  Our cottage was Kilcoobin, and you can see it marked on the map.  It proves how close we were to the ocean.  We were only a five minute drive from The Giant's Causeway. The Giant's Causeway is an area of interlocking basalt columns that run along the uppermost coast of Northern Ireland for about three miles.  There is nothing else like it in the world.  Depending on whom you speak with, they were either formed by a volcano 50 million years ag...

Most times, the simplest answer is the best one. Not to toot my horn or anything, but I think John and I have done a pretty good job of parenting.  Like Alma, I'm not boasting in my own strength, but I'm thankful that the Lord has been there with us, helping us along the way.  We didn't have the best of examples as parents, nor did we grow up in ideal situations.  It would have been easy for us to continue the dysfunctional cycles that we were shown, but we have fought hard to create our own, new style of parenting with the Lord's help. There have been times along the way that we simply haven't known what to do, and we have gone purely on instinct and the Spirit.  I felt that was a better way for us than getting advice from parenting magazines and from other people.  It hasn't always been easy, feeling rather blind at times, but we have been blessed.  Our kids are making righteous choices in their lives, and we are thankful. Funny thing, that Spirit. ...

I sat down with Glo today (post trip) and asked her what thing, or place, or person was her favorite part of the trip.  I already knew what my favorite was, but I was curious to hear what she had to say.  Turns out, her number one was also my number one:  Kilcoobin Cottage. Funny story.  We were told the combination to the lock box (for the key) was 3030.  We tried every combination of that with no success.  We even figured that maybe I misunderstood, Keith, the leasing leprechaun with the thick Irish accent, and thought that perhaps he had told me 1313.  Obviously, we wouldn't do well on "The Amazing Race"  seeing as the combination was:  3131. This might sound ridiculous, but our little cottage on the north coast of Northern Ireland was almost a character in and of itself in our vacation.  A couple of months ago, when I had the itinerary of the trip mostly planned, I started looking for a vacation rental.  We had stayed in ...

We all agreed to just sleep in.  After all, a vacation isn't really a vacation if you don't relax a bit.  We were all feeling mighty fine when we collectively woke up at 10 am, until we discovered that Sarah had already gone RUNNING that morning!  Yep, she put us to shame! After a quick breakfast, we drove ten minutes to Carrick-a-rede bridge.  The Carrick-a-rede rope bridge was originally built by salmon fishermen as a way to connect them to their nets (and the island, Carrickarede) from the mainland.  It's 68 feet long, and 98 feet above the rocks and water below.  Of course, the bridge didn't have the safeties and security originally and was rather dangerous, but now it's just a test of courage as one crosses over the gap. I love this place.  It's just such a fantastic experience...and the pictures aren't bad either.  The only downside is that the bridge is cleared to hold only eight people at a time, and there is a guard (armed with a trai...