If you’ve made it to Part 2 before reading part 1…. Part 1 can be found here. – This is a long one due to the number of pictures not the number of words. Only about 3000 words, 50+ images; I stopped counting. Have fun, and don’t mind the typos

20180601_134526053_iOS (2).jpg — Great shot of mom and dad on the viking tour.

When we last left the Millfam6 and the Miller grandparents we’d ended Friday night at home after taking the Viking tour. We planned on heading to Cabineteely park and shopping at Dundrum Saturday. Followed by, heading out to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced leery) to walk the pier and explore the coast Sunday. And that’s what we did.

Before we head out Breakfast

Mom and Dad are pretty simple in the mornings. Dad like Cheerios, and fruit, Mom likes oatmeal, and they both require pots of coffee and newspapers. Friday Maddex and I went shopping before dinner and picked up some random papers to read in the morning. The other requirements we’d previously stockpiled in preparation for their visit. Simple breakfasts with mom and dad have been a pleasant start to the days it’s nice catching over with them.

The girls participated in the morning paper reading with Grandpa

Michelle and I do a light clean up after we eat a meal then do the big work in the morning. The bigger stuff Michelle does on Sundays when I’m off hiding from cleaning work at nerd work. Mom likes to do everything the second the meal is over, then sweep the floor and clean the fridge and do more laundry and clean everything else….. ETC. It’s impressive, but it’s not how we run the house. We went along with mom’s way of doing things while she was here because a busy mom is a happy mom right?

Cabinteely Park

After breakfast and a deep house cleaning, we hoped on the LUAS and headed towards the Carrickmines stop. Well most of us headed to the Carrickmines stop. Michelle stopped off one stop earlier to go shopping and pick up some stuff for Miss Roxi’s second birthday party. Roxi was cute, When we asked her what she wanted her answer was to have some of her current toys put in a box and wrapped up. She really wanted a box to colour but figured it would be nice to have things in it. I love it when kids don’t NEED new things all the time. Sadly, we know she will out grow this innocence soon.

The walk from the LUAS stop to Cabinteely park is about 2km mostly up hill. Mom and dad were checking out all of the plants along the way. Naming off what they recognized and commenting how similar the bushes are to home. Part of the walk to the park is on a trail in the woods. Plenty of plants to comment in the woods. The park has a huge kids play area. We spent a good hour there on the zip line, swings, climbing things and in the sand. I spent the most time in the sand water play zone with the kids. Mom and dad spent the most of their time on the swings with the high back chairs and Roxi.

High Back swing seats made for grandparents – and Mila dancing

Dad must have been feeling young and bold because he climbed halfway up the big rope climbing thing, then he got on the odd side to side slide of death thing with Maddex. Mom was feeling a bit bold too, she got on the spinning thing of death mounted on springs.

Looking down from the top and Maddex and Grandpa climbing after me

The slide back and forth thing of death – look borken bones, no hands!

Grandma on the spinning spring thing of death

Roxi Birthday Lunch

While we were out playing at the park Michelle was in, best mom ever for the Millfam mode. She made and frosted cup cakes, and bought and wrapped presents for Roxi. She ever set up the table and put a candle in a cupcake for Princess Roxi. About 93 seconds after getting home and sitting at the table Mila says in her loud Mila voice ” Can Roxi open her gifts?” Michelle and I look at each and silently say in our parent language “ I guess, don’t see why not, f-it, let’s DO this, we’re doing it live!! ” It’s nice being able to talk via telepathy with your partner.

Happy birthday Roxi, here’s your loot boxes

Roxi had fun opening her presents, and the bigger kids managed to not take over for her. After we open gifts we sing happy birthday ™ and had cupcakes. One of her gifts was a fancy bubble machine we somehow managed to skip getting pictures of. The kids had fun playing with it for about 5 minutes before someone screamed and we put it away. My rule, if I hear screaming and fighting I go out and take toys or turn off the tv and leave the room. Don’t say anything I just take the stuff. The kids are starting to get the message. They are now yelling at each to stop because dad is going to come to take everything away if they dont stop screaming.

Dundrum for some shopping and a movie

One of my mom’s things with the grandkids is buying them shoes. When we asked her what she wanted to do with the kids out here taking them shoe shopping was at the top of her list. After our birthday lunch, we took the LUAS to the local mall, Dunrdrum town centre. Specifically, at Dundrum we were going to take mom and the kids to Pennies. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s a three-day weekend with brilliant weather here in Dublin, and the mall is packed. Which looked to be a bit over whelming for mom and dad. Way too many people in a new place.

Dad’s picture of the water feature at Dundrum

One of the less crowded areas of the mall as we’re walking out past Tesco

We took our time walking around the water feature then hit the mall crowd and were in and out as quickly as possible. Each of the grand kids picked up a pair of shoes and we walked away with a few shirts and such. We left Dundrum for the LUAS where we left mom and dad who headed straight home. They were done going out for the night and wanted to watch the kids for us. We stayed at Dundrum.

Michelle and I don’t have any child minders here in Ireland, so we’ve not gone out with out kids since moving here. Child minder is Irish for baby sitter. Our plan is to head to the Dundrum movie theater and watch the new Avengers movie. Maddex said he would direct everyone home on the LUAS. He knows his way around so we were not worried at all about mom and dad getting everyone home. We were a bit worried about mom and dad wondering the way around a new kitchen. We ordered them dominos pizza to be delivered in an hour – problems solved!

Kids bathed, feed, and dressed for bed colouring

We enjoyed the movie, and the kids had a brilliant time with their Grand parents. When we made it home they were still up waiting for us and in great moods. They took baths, ate all but 2 slices of two pizzas, and were calming down colouring. It’s nice to come home and know everyone had a great time.

Sunday – Dun Laoghaire trip

Sunday morning we had breakfast then hoped on the LUAS headed to the end of the Green Line, Brides Glen. Where we waited for 15 minutes then loaded onto the top deck front seats of a double-decker Dublin Bus headed to Dun Laoghaire. No matter how much mom and dad felt like the bus was going to tip over around the corners it never tipped over. We stopped the bus around the hotel Michelle stayed in for her Xmas break night off and walked to the west side of Dun Laoghaire pier. We’ve been out the east side a number of times and figured it would be nice to mix things up on this visit.

1.5km walk from the start to the end of the west pier

According to the internets the walk from the start of the pier to the end is 1.5km, plus we walked out the little jetty bit in the middle. We had a good one-way 2km walk on a 200-year-old stone pier. Dad noticed all of the docks we could see with boats parked on them were not connected to the land. You need a boat to get to our boat we guessed. The east pier we’ve walked down before is all paved, it has washrooms and gun mounts at the end and a big stage looking the thing in the middle. The West peir is gravel most of the way with nothing much exciting. There was a nice view of the harbour, and the boats, and the ocean, and some people fishing at the end of the peir, but nothing too exciting.

Trying to get a picture of everyone is a challenge.

Being such a nice day I had everyone stop a few times trying to attempt to get a good family picture but no one wanted to participate at the same time. Might be worth spending some time with photo shop stitching pictures together to come up a shot of all us other than the one in front of the Viking tour. Was a bit of a let down that there weren’t any toilets at the end of the pier like they are on the east pier. No problem; mom and dad apparently don’t need toilets they just need a few seconds of no one walking by and some thing to hide behind and they are covered! Was an excellent day for a walk on the water; not too windy, not raining, and, bonus, sunny, double bonus great company.

Another attempt to snap a family picture

After walking the pier we stopped at a small kids park for the kids to play while mom and Michelle found coffee and toilets. As soon as we left the park where we knew there where toilets the kids who did not need to go suddenly needed to go; Le deep sigh. Next stop, the Sunday farmers market, is not far off, and it has toilets so we are going to keep on going until we get there. Then I can take the kids one at a time because none of them needed to go at the same time – Sigh – DadLife

Having lunch on the dog urinal, I mean grass.

The farmers market has enough food options to please everyone. Michelle and I had some breakfast crepe wraps we had last time, they were amazing. Khaleesi had a wood fire pizza. Maddex had some fish and chips he split with mom and dad and Mila had a crepe with straw berries in it. After lunch, we took the kids to the play area for a bit then walked towards the bus stop home. Only a bit because the play area was stupid crazy packed. We had about 40 minutes before the next bus, and no one had any ice creme today. With time to kill we stopped at McDonald’s for sundaes then back to the bus stop.

When had about 6 minutes wait when we made it to the stop. Across the street was a small charity shop. Mom and Michelle did a speed run and got a few dresses for the girls. They almost missed the bus from the charity shop. I saw it coming and went in to the shop to yell at them to hurry. They were checking out and the guy was flirting with them taking more time. My yell sped things up and they made it just in time. Both girls changed on the bus into their new outfits. Mila has been wearing the dress almost every night since she got it; great buy moms.

Sundaes with fries to dip in them for after lunch snack

From home, we walked to the local grocery store, Dunnes. Mom and dad finally got to experience local shopping where we carry everything home in a backpack. We picked up some potatoes and chicken for dinner. Moma covered the chicken with yogurt, sour cream, and bread crumbs then we baked it. Turned out tasty.

Monday visiting work – Tuesday – Wednesday then home

Monday, after breakfast and playing around the house we walked to Microsoft and toured the building. The kids have been here a few times now and were excited to show off the digital water fall thing in the center of the building. Normally it’s just moving bubbles in blue. This morning it changed colours a few times then a whale started to swim under everyone. The whale was a big hit. Maddex really wanted to play some pool with grandpa, but we skipped that due to noise. Monday is a bank holiday in Ireland, but the building oddly has people in it, and the cantina is open.

Momma and Mila “swimming??” in the digital water

Everyone bugging Derek huddling into my work space

Michelle and I have been stragecily putting off doing any yard work around the house. Mom and dad noticed and took on the task of cleaning up our yard for us. We figured there might be some down time days where dad would need a project. A project, like say, pruning and weeding, and cleaning up the deck. We sure were right with this thinking. When we got back from the office tour Mom and Dad got back to work on the yard clean up.

After the work tour and a bit of yard work we showed mom and dad around the kitchen then walked to a nearby park with the kids and left them. Date night number 2 for Michelle and I. Tonight we have time enough for a nice walk, some shopping, dinner and a movie. John joined is half way through dinner and came to the movie with us. We saw Deadpool 2 in Stillorgon at the Odeon theater. Odeon is not as fancy as the Dundrum theater, but the AC works better, and they have American style butter / heart attack for the popcorn! walking and having a dinner without kids was an odd feeling; it’s been about a year.

Over dinner, we took pictures of Michelle’s “sides” looking for the best one. – things you can do without kids crawling all over you

By the time we made it home the kids were all sleeping in bed. Mom and dad waited up for us. Waited up untill about 8:30 – then they went up to bed all worn out from the day of child minding. Tuesday the kids went back to school. Mom and dad walked with me to drop them off then we walked to Aldi’s looking for some pruners. We found pruners and a swing while we were there that was a huge hit with the kids. Tuesday was a mellow day we did not go out and do much. We hung out, packed, watched a movie, did some yard work and took it easy.

Grandpa on the couch bed with his grandkids

Dinner Tuesday night Maddex is eating then he casually asks for a paper towel to deal with blood in his mouth. Then he mentions one of his tooths fell out. Mom and dad got to expeirience some sites, normal life, a birthday for Roxi and a missing tooth for Maddex. Fun and a few kid milestones; good timing on their visit

Wednesday Michelle, Mom, and Dad walked the kids to school and said good bye, shed a few tears then they walked back home. Only a few hours at home until Michelle sent the parents on the LUAS to the Clayton to meet the air coach bound for the airport. I left work when they boarded the train and met them at the Clayton and waited for a bit saying good-bye. Then hugs and kisses and back to work for me, and off to the airport and a 9 hour flight for them. – Was a great visit.