The Barnetts: 2011

Monday, December 12, 2011

Meanwhile, back on the farm (or lot)...

We're back and just in time for Christmas! James and I just finished decorating the house and made it through our first Christmas tree experience without breaking our marriage vows. Sure we made it through the for better or worse...but we're more proud of the till death do us part!

We initially planned on going to a local Christmas tree farm with my sister and brother-in-law, but that dream (tractor rides, hot coco and live deer) was smashed when James said, "Babe, we live in Central Alabama and the only Christmas trees at that farm will be pines."

Since I wanted a Frasier fir, we changed our plans and made our way to the overpriced tree lot located in the Winn Dixie parking lot. Nothing says Christmas like a parking lot full of trees, a temporary fence, and an RV trailer.

Regardless of the setting, I found the tree I liked right away. It was at least 9 feet tall, very full with a beautiful shape. Unfortunately, the Grinch informed me that we had to stick to a tree with a 4 foot circumference. I mean...who says circumference after they graduate from high school and who goes out to a Christmas tree ~~farm~~ lot and measures around the tree?? The Barnetts, that's who!

Since my 9 foot tree was about 9 feet around, we had to pick a much smaller, Charlie Brownish tree. Where's the fun of Christmas when you bring home a tree that's barely taller than your husband?

We paid our $80 bucks (ludicrous) and made our way home to spend the next three hours trying to get the tree in the stand and then to stand up straight.

Once we got the tree up, James realized how pitifully small it really was and said, "Well we're just going to have to add more lights and maybe nobody will notice."

Right.

I lost count of how many strands of lights we wrapped around the four foot circumference, but Alabama Power would be horrified to know how many volts we're running through one outlet!

Here's our holiday tour:

Yes...there is a large amount of space between the actual tree and the star topper. Just look at the lights and maybe you won't notice anymore.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Monday, December 5, 2011

Ireland Journal - Last Entry

September 24, 2010 – Day Seven

It's is flat cold folks! I asked the girls what the temperature was and Amanda said, "I don't know...cold!" Cheryle said, "I can't convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit" Right! I keep forgetting about that. I just went to weather.com and it's 39 degrees. Burr!

Today we slept in (not much different than any other day), walked to the bay and went back into Kinvara to do a little bit more site seeing and shopping. It's so weird to see the bay in the morning versus the late afternoon. Apparently in a full moon (which we have right now) the tide goes out 17-20 feet. In a non full moon, the tide only goes out 5-10 feet. Yall would die! Docked boats are laying on the ground in the morning and floating in the bay in the afternoon.

We went to another coffee shop and bakery (What?? It's who we are), bought a few more souvenirs, ate lunch and came back home to read and nap (Zip it! That's who we are too!).

We went to Keough's for one more taste of their seafood chowder. Yummy! It's the best chowder in the village. We know because we've tried them all. We left Keough's and walked to O'Connolleys Pub for our last Irish beer and live music. It was a ton of fun!

A gent came up to us and asked if we were here to locate our ancestors. We said Cheryle was and he asked her sir name. She said Simon. His last name was Dodd! Get this, his mom and dad's names are Chris and Anne. Um...mom, dad...do yall have something you need to tell me? Do Chrissy and I have a brother named David? His friends call him Doddsky, so from here on out I'm claiming Doddsky as my new nickname!! Turns out the Dodds of Ireland are from Bray and there is a huge cross on top of a hedge (bigger than a hill, smaller than a mountain) called Dodd's cross of Bray. David's grandfather blew up the hedge with dynamite to put the cross in the rock. He almost killed himself. If that doesn't sound like a Dodd, I don't know what does! Also, they got the dynamite from the Irish military and had some left over after the cross incident so the Dodds stored it in a vault underground. In the 1960s the leftover explosives started leaking and the military had to be called to remove it! Another typical Doddism. David was so excited about meeting a fellow Dodd. He kept asking if we are all over Alabama and if we've taken over. I said "umm no, there's just two of us in Alabama." Then he asked about daddy's siblings. I think he was disappointed that there are only a few of us. Oh well.

I thought I'd end our adventure/vacation with some random thoughts:

1. The ketchup here tastes funny. It has kind of a brown sugar flavor. Yesterday in Galway City I found one packet of Heinz ketchup you would have thought I'd found gold in Galway! It was the only packet on our table so I began strip searching the other empty tables' condiment dishes. Sadly, it was apparently the only Heinz packet in all of Galway County. I guess I'll have to come home.

2. The music in every restaurant and pub, and on every radio station for that matter is all 80's and 90's all the time!! Today we heard the theme song from Free Willy (You are not alone by Michael Jackson) and more Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette than Lilith Fair.

3. Tonight Cheryle has all the sudden honed in on her Irish accent. It's really funny and strangely really good!

4. There is a government levy on plastic so if you want a plastic bag at the grocery store or when you're shopping you have to pay €0.22 per bag. Also, ice is rare. We kept asking for more ice in our drinks and they kept looking at us like we were crazy. When we went grocery shopping, we asked for a bag of ice. They had to go in the back, get a box of ice and open it to get one bag. It is crazy expensive so Amanda became the keeper of all that is ice. She would fill our one ice tray that had 8 cubes and was cracked at least twice a day. Every time she would make ice, she would say, you'll thank me for this later. We did!

5. We pronounced everything wrong! Every time, all the time!! Here are a few examples:

Correct Spelling: Kilmacdough

Phenetically: We would call it, Cat man do

Correct: Kill mac do a

Correct Spelling: Dunguaire

Phenetically: We would call it, Dung a ree

Correct: Dune gurr ah

6. Piecea was parked six rows deep at our hotel in Dublin due to the football game. Since we weren't heading out until later that afternoon, the ladies at the hotel said they would move our car to the front around 3:30. When we got back, the car hadn't been moved. Apparently only one person working at the hotel could drive an automatic!

7. We now know why Hillary told Cheryle why it's not nice to call people Tinkers! Apparently it's another word for homeless!! So there you go!!

September 25, 2010 - Departure

We're now at the Shannon airport with the exception of Cheryle. She flies back tomorrow. After lots of hugs, we left Cheryle, Piecea and Ireland. We got breakfast at the Shannon Airport and low and behold, there were buckets of Heintz ketchup packets. Now I can live here! : )

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Ireland - Day Six

We left the house at 11 this afternoon (Don't judge! We're on vacation!). This was about 45 minutes after our estimated time of departure. Not uncommon for us considering we have four heads of hair and one travel size hair dryer.

Our first stop of the day was a cute little shop we discovered last night while we were leaving dinner. We each bought an Irish necklace that the owner of the shop made himself. Cheryle's necklace was inspired by Donegal, the area her ancestors were from.

Next we drove the short distance to Dunguaire Castle aka "Our Castle". The castle sits on the shore of Galway Bay and was built in 1520. It was lived in by Richard Martyn, Mayor of Galway, and his family until 1642. Then it was renovated in 1924 by a famous surgeon, though he never lived there. Dunguaire was acquired in 1954 by Christobel Lady Ampthill and she lived in the castle for over 20 years even after she opened it to visitors in 1966.

The tide was so far out this morning that people were walking in the bay around the castle where yesterday, in that same spot, swans were swimming . We all agreed that the castle tour was anti climatic. I guess we built it up all week, which set us up for a let down.

We drove into Galway City, which is about a 30 minute drive from our house. Galway is a vibrant city with a great town centre for shopping. The claddagh ring (the ring with two hands holding a heart with a crown on top) originated here. The ring stands for love, loyalty and friendship.

The oyster festival is this weekend in Galway City. We asked about it and the description that was given reminded me of a small Mardi Gras. Today was for the "common folks" and tomorrow you had to buy tickets (€175 a piece) and it's black tie! Apparently all the local celebrities are at this event. Not sure who those celebrities are, but oh well.

Once we parked (try parking in a deck with everything backwards), we walked towards the city centre. The first thing we saw was six military guards on each corner of a major intersection with guns drawn. Curiosity finally got the best of me so I asked one of the guards what they were doing. He pointed towards two armored vehicle at a nearby bank and said that they were guarding the trucks. Wow! I've never seen that many soldiers with machine guns drawn EVER, even when guarding one of our US bases. Amanda took a picture of one of the guards and he started waiving at her and said, "no photo!" She said, "hey!!" and waived back, not realizing what he had said. She thought he was just being nice.

We began our shopping trip bundled up. It was very cold and rainy. The more we shopped the more Cheryle and I started stripping off layers. As we'd take them off, Carrie would add them on. Towards the end, she looked like an NFL middle linebacker. Cheryle went up behind Carrie and tried to push her arms down and they would just pop right back up!!

We shopped for a few hours, had an amazing lunch, and I realized that it was Cheryle's turn to drive. Lord, you are too good to me!! We made our way back home and as soon as we pulled into the drive the sky turned black and the wind kicked up. We wanted naps, but we had 30 minutes until the world toast. Besides driving, this was our biggest stress of the week!

Today is Arthur Guinness day. It's the 251st year since the founding of the brewery. Apparently last year, the first world toast, was so successful that they decided to do it again this year. I’m not sure what makes a toast successful?

We waited around until it was 5:59 and we raised our glasses. I said a traditional Irish toast that was apparently too long, as the girls started propping their arms ups and groaning (bunch of arsses).

At 6:15 we were all napping. We didn't start stirring until after 8. Carrie went to wake Cheryle up after 9 and said "Cheryle, it's 9:15." Cheryle said "It's WHAT??" She got up like a woman on a mission. We're now watching a movie and trying to stay warm. We are bundled up with bare feet. The floors in the house are heated! What a bonus!

We'll probably be up as late as yall tonight! Let's just say we trying to adjust our bodies back to US time. Tomorrow's our last full day in Ireland. We're really sad, but homesick for the following:

Cheryle - a toilet that you can sit on and your feet touch the floor! Her toilet is made for Shaq.

AM - DOT and wider roads. Amanda said "convicts on the side of the road." I'm also homesick for a full keyboard.

Amanda - Pest Control. She's killed four spiders (she says they're tarantulas) with spray kitchen cleaner.

Carrie - Central heat. Her radiator kicks on at 5:30 in the morning and pings until 9. She has said every morning "this will not beat me!" She has two more mornings!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ireland Journal - Day Five (Part 2)

Today we went site seeing at Kilmacduagh which I mentioned previously is a monastery that was founded in the early 7th century. It's about 3 miles southwest of Gort. The churches were plundered in the 13th century but the site remained the seat of a bishop until the 16th century. The round tower on the property was a place of refuge for the munks in case of attacks. The tower leans 2 feet out of the perpendicular and probably dates back to the 12 century. There is also a roofless church, known as the cathedral or Treampall. In the surrounding fields lie the remains of several other churches that once depended on the monastery.

We had a great time and took a ton of pictures. Afterwards we drove into Gort and got a snack and coffee at a local bakery. It was fantastic.

We left Gort to drive to "our castle" (Dunguaire Castle) but we just missed closing time due to an unforeseen blockage in the road. Two HUGE cows walked in the middle of the road for quite awhile. Every time we tried to pass them they would move over and block us. We have it on video. It's hysterical. I was driving, Amanda and Carrie were video taping and Cheryle wanted to look at their ear tags and return them to their rightful owners.

We're going back to "our castle" first thing tomorrow morning and then to Galway City to do some shopping. Since we missed the castle, we did what we do best and ate! We went to Pier Head for dinner. The food was amazing and the view of the bay reminded me of Mobile. The surrounding village reminded Cheryle of Newport.

After dinner we walked up the street to Greene's Pub (the owner of our house recommended it). We met Mary, the pubs owner, and her daughter Hillary. Hillary is a 23 year old young woman with special needs. She came into the pub about 5 minutes after we arrived, walked right up to me and Carrie and told us to "scootch" over. She sat down next to Carrie and wanted to play cards. We told her we needed to wait on our friends. So Hilliary proceeded to heckle Amanda and Cheryle the entire time they were waiting for their drinks. Once we all sat down, we figured out that the game we all knew was Go Fish (aka Fish in the Pond). Hillary got out her Elvis card deck and the game started. I won the first round, but we soon discovered that the Elvis deck was missing a few cards. Ah, who cares, we were just playing for fun...right?! Would somebody please tell Hillary? Every time she was forced to give up a card she would say "feck you!" We are quickly learning that the F word is not a curse word in Ireland.

Hillary's sister or care taker walked in and said it was time to go and the tears started flowing. Ultimately her mom let her stay and play about 5 more rounds of cards with us. After Hillary had a good cry, she came back to the table and while wiping her eyes said "I'm so sorry girls." My heart melted. Cheryle said, "What for? You're surrounded by a group of girls that are a threat to have a meltdown at any moment." Hillary asked why and I said, "because we're women!" Then Cheryle called her a stinker and Hillary informed her that it's not nice to call people tinkers!

We played for money on the last round of Go Fish. Hillary won 25 Euro cents and 11 American cents! She was thrilled. We left Greene's and came back home to watch the rest of the movie we started last night.

What a great day we had. It's funny how God put Hillary in our life to remind us what child like fun is all about! Well until she threatened to "take me outside" after I won the first round of Go Fish. It's nice meeting another fellow competitor!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Ireland - Day Five

Limerick was a bust! We expected a quaint shopping trip and instead we found the 4th largest city in Ireland. Weird huh? It even had a Claires, the junky jewelry boutique in the states. We left Limerick and drove through Shannon. We found the airport and morgue, but ironically enough no Hertz. Since we're flying out of Shannon this served as a trial run for Saturday. We also think finding the morgue is helpful because it is a more appropriate resting I mean parking place for Piecea than Hertz.

We drove back to our house, cooked an amazing dinner and watched another chick flick. Before we went to bed we watched the "Sweet Mother" video about 10 times and laughed harder each time. I have a correction to make, I screamed "My Sweet Mother!" Not just sweet mother. So there you have it mama, on my death bed I talked about you and I have video to prove it.

Ok, so back to business. The girls next door had their knickers in a knot and mooed ALL night long. Cheryle and I woke up first and decided to see what all the fuss was about. We walked next door and there were several cows at the stone fence. We realized that the moms and the calves had been separated and the babies were NOT happy about it.

When Amanda woke up, she and Cheryle went back out to see them again. They got to meet the farmer who had a very heavy Irish accent. He asked if the cows kept us up last night and Amanda said that she thought there was one in bed with her!! He asked if we were staying all week, Cheryle said that we were and he immediately let the mothers out. As soon as he did, the babies settled right down and we haven't heard a peep or mooo out of them.

It just started raining. It's so weird because it was just beautiful two minutes ago. Since the sun is shining, I'm hoping for a rainbow!

Today we're going to go to Dungaire Castle which is about five minutes from the house. Then we're doing to drive to Gort and go to Kilmacduagh which is monastery dating back to the 900s. It has a preserved round tower that the monks used to hide in when the Vikings raided.

PS...just caught the most beautiful full rainbow!! I've never seen one from end to end! We got pictures of it and it was unbelievable!!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Ireland Journal - Day Four

September 21, 2010 – Day Four

We got out of the house about 10:30 and made our way to the Cliffs of Moher. We decided to pack our lunch since we weren't sure of the accommodations. It was my turn to drive so we loaded up and headed out for the 45 minute trip.

While I'm finally getting use to driving on the left hand side of the road, I'm not use to staring down large vehicles as they pass me on the narrow rodes. Just my luck, the drive to the Cliffs was two lane the whole way and about twenty minutes into the drive an extremely large tour bus was on the opposite side of the rode coming straight at us. As soon as I saw the bus, I pulled as far over to the left as I could, tried to pull in the side mirrors , covered my eyes and curled in the fetal position. Everybody screamed but Carrie. She video taped it. Now that we're all alive and the car is unharmed we can laugh at the video. You can hear "Livin’ on a Prayer" playing in the background as I shakily say, "Sweet Mother! Y’all that tour bus was in my lane!!!"

Amanda decided that Livin’ on a Prayer was our theme song while we drive and Cheryle and I decided that we will slow to a stop for every vehicle coming at us, even a fat man on a bike. Cheryle said that an extra four inches on each side of the rode would make all the difference in the world, just like fur on a squirrel makes it "not a rat"!! Preach it sister!

We made it the Cliffs with only one casualty. AM - 1 Trash can - 0. No worries, Piecea was missing the cover of the side passenger mirror before we got her. Another redeeming quality!

The Cliffs were amazing!! We walked all the way to the top and the view was breath taking. It was very overcast and windy. I'm glad we brought layers because it was warm (60 degrees) when we left the house. The cliffs rise 700 feet at the highest point and range for 5 miles over the Atlantic Ocean.

At the top of the cliffs there was a gate and signs that said to not go any further, yet people were climbing over the wall and walking even further up a road to the edge of the cliffs. After seeing a memorial for all the people who have died at the Cliffs, Cheryle and I decided that driving was enough of a near death experience for us! Amanda and Carrie needed to live on the edge a little more. Literally!! They went just about a quarter of a mile up and took some amazing pictures.

We walked back to Piecea and made our ham sandwiches (out of the trunk) while two crows sat on our roof and watched us with excitement. When they started to get closer, we ran into the car with our food and slammed the doors. We ate our lunch while they pecked on the car roof!

We're heading to Limerick this afternoon!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Ireland - Take Three

September 20, 2010 – Day Three

Good morning from Kinvara. Well more like afternoon. We all slept so great last night, in fact Carrie's still asleep and it's 12:30 in the afternoon! We were in need of some rest.

We left Dublin at 4:15 yesterday (about 45 minutes after the kickoff of a huge Gaelic football game). The drive out of the city was stressful even after we waited until 90% of the city was at the game. Trying to drive on the other side of the road in a big city is very confusing. On our way out of Dublin, we bumped mirrors with a French woman (nicknamed Frenchie). There was NO WHERE for us to quickly pull over (envision parking in NYC). After we drove about 50 yards, Frenchie magically appeared out of no where to let us know that she wanted us OUT of the car or she would "ring the guards". All I could picture was sitting in an Irish jail with our passports revoked.

Since Cheryle was driving and is typically the most level headed, she got out to speak with Frenchie. Amanda also got out to be a witness (read...to take pictures for our scrapbooks), which did not make Frenchie happy AT ALL! She kept saying, "Why are you taking pictures? I didn't say you could take pictures!"

The funny thing is that Frenchie kept pointing to our mirror to make her case that we hit her. After twenty times of Cheryle stating that she was illegally parked, our mirror looked like that already, and we were not going to "ring the guards", Frenchie got into her little car and drove off. Crisis averted!

Once we got out of Dublin it was smooth sailing until we got to a toll booth. Cheryle was driving (and doing a great job) but her brain kept saying that we should pay the tolls on the left. The toll lady was on the right. We ultimately figured out, paid our 3 euros and went on our merry way.

The drive was breath taking! Mountains in the distance, pastures so green they looked fake and sheep everywhere! We were so excited and ready to get to the country.

Our house is about 3 hours west of Dublin. It's long and yellow and sits right on Galway Bay. We each have our own bedroom and there's 2.5 baths. We drew cards and Cheryle won out on the master, Amanda and Carrie got to the two middle rooms with queen beds and a jack and jill bath, and I drew the twin bedroom! No worries, I slept like a baby.

The showers are interesting. There are about four cords hanging from the ceiling. You have to pull them until they click to activate the boiler to heat the water.

After we got settled in, we drove into town (about 3 miles from the house) to get something to eat and do a little grocery shopping. The roads are all two lane and so narrow that every time a car would pass, we would all shrink our shoulders in and scream. If you've ever seen the movie Holiday with Cameron Diaz, it's just like that.

We had a great dinner and came home and crashed. Today we're going to walk to the bay and go into town. You can go to http://www.kinvara.com/ to see the town near our house.

September 20, 2010 – Day Three Part 2

Good evening from Kinvara. Today was a very relaxing day. We walked to the bay late in the afternoon and took a ton of pictures. Special thanks to Wanda for lending us the gorilla tripod (Amanda keeps calling it the monkey). It has been a god send. We set the timer on my camera and clicked away. Amanda wanted us to all do leprechaun jumps in front of the water. We complied, but her jump looked more like a Jackie Chan round house kick. The two old girls (me and Cheryle) are a bit sore from all the crazy jumping! I see Advil in my future.

Today was a beautiful clear, bright and sunny Irish day. It didn't get below 65 degrees during the day. We are right next door to a sheep farm (wool farm??) and we have tried to make friends with them. No luck thus far. Did you know that instead of branding the sheep, they dye initials in their fur? It’s crazy to see sheep with blue and pink initials in their hair.

We went into the village and ate at an Italian restaurant for dinner. Funny huh? We got a pizza and it was far better than Pizza Hut! : ) Following dinner, we walked across the street to Keough’s and split apple pie and ice cream. Yum. Yes, we are eating and drinking our way through Ireland.

After dessert, we went back to the grocery store to get some more staples for the week. I went to the meat section to get a pound of ground beef and the butcher and I had a language breakdown! Ground beef is minced steak and they sell it by the kilogram. Approximately 1 pound is a 1/2 a kilogram. Once we figured each other out, we became good friends. We also bought some lunch meat, bread, coffee, and milk. I'm sure we'll be back many times before we leave.

We came home, poured glasses of wine and settled in for a good chick flick. What a great, relaxing day!! We did invite our neighbor cows in for some after dinner drinks. They seemed appreciative but mostly just stared at us.

Right now, Carrie is playing sudoku, Amanda is typing an email and Cheryle is writing in her journal. We're making good use of our sun room (with heated tile) and the beautiful full moon!

Tomorrow we're going to The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren & Galway City.

Driving still sucks. Remember..."Stay to the left!!" Hopefully Hertz won't look at the passenger's side of the car! There might be a few new scratches on Piecea!! : )

The Barnetts