Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Ireland Trip Part 1
With it being the year of our 10 year anniversary, we decided we needed to take a big time trip to celebrate. When we received word that one of Andrew's friends was getting married in Ireland, we decided to make that our big time trip.
We started off the best way we know how... with a couple drinks because we were really nervous about flying over a really dark ocean in the middle of the night for 7 hours.
So thanks to American Airlines for pointing out on their TV screens that the sinking of the Titanic happened just south of where we were flying. Grrrrrrreattt.
But we smiled through it and had a really great flight!
I made sure to take a picture of the type of plane we flew. It was a 330. 2/4/2 seats, in case you were wondering. HUUUUUGE, Yuuuuuuuge plane. Seriously. Took us forever to deplane. There were like a billion people on board (Morganism).
We flew all through the night and didn't sleep more than a few hours so we were tiiiiiiiirrrreeeddd. But we were able to check into our hotel room early and take a nap and we were ready to take on the world!
What to do first?? How about visit the Guinness Brewery? Brilliant!
We had to get picture from another angle. Because selfies! Plus it was a giant location. So much to see!
This is a model of one of their shipping boats. There were so many things to see and films to watch and much to learn!
But we were most looking forward to learning how to actually drink the Guinness. They gave us wee little Guinness drinks and they had little drink stands while we learned how to do it.
My favorite part was looking at the advertising they have used in the past. Very creative.
A women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. It was a fish pedaling a bicycle. Did that make people want to drink Guinness? It must have!! :-) You'll have to check out Andrew's video for our reaction to seeing this for the first time.
There were 7 floors in the main center of the building that was shaped like an actually pint of Guinness.
There is a full panoramic view at the top where the head of the glass would be. The views were amazing.
The Guinness wasn't bad either! I normally do not like Guinness but it was amazing. I drank a lot of it while we visited.
Here's a group shot. I really hope that the scenic views would show up behind us but oh well.
After our tour, we started walking to the next pub on Duke Street to go on a Literary Pub Crawl. We got out of our Guiness Tour late so we missed the Pub Crawl but we started one of our own. We walked and walked and I took picture after picture.
Each building was so cool.
The signs were fun too!
Hey that's Thomas's street!!
We stopped at a pub on one point. I loved this sign.
Group photo at the first pub!
We also stopped at another pub. This was the mirror in the bathroom.
This was in the corner of our booth. A hot whiskey pot?
This pub was a bit homier. The bartender came to our table and asked where we were from. Like everyone that asked, we told them "The States" even though they already knew. When we told them we were from Indiana and Colorado, they immediately started asking about the legalized pot. Too funny. The super nice bartender told us there was a great restaurant nearby that we would probably like.
He was right! We actually ordered bone marrow. Whaaaaaaaa????
It was delicious! And YUUUUUUUGGGEEEE.
After that, we met the rest of the pub crawl at the last bar and enjoyed the bars until they closed. Then we went to Bruxelles which was a late night bar (meaning open after midnight). Bruxelles, we learned, is a Thin Lizzy bar. So of course we had to get a picture with the Thin Lizzy statue.
After we closed down Bruxelles, we decided to crash a McDonalds. A Mackie D's if you will. There were so many young young people there. Turns out by this time, it was 3 in the morning. So we were definitely the oldest people there. Fantastic!!
Andrew ordered an old fave. A Big N Tasty, which I learned from Wiki was phased out in 2011. RIP Big N Tasty (in the US). Dublin is still running strong with the BnT!!
We had a romantic walk home while complaining about how we felt after eating Mackie D's.
A lovely bridge picture, don't you think? For 4 in the morning especially.
The street by our hotel was eerily silent as we walked home. So strange. But we made it. Dublin felt pretty safe. Our first day was a success!
Rock the Arts Festival
A couple Saturdays ago, we headed up to Rensselaer and went to the Rock the Arts festival. They had art, music, and really good food so I was excited.
They also have crazy things for the kids to do. Like this contraption that was artsy fartsy but also something you could stick your head in and communicate through. Ha! Luckily for me, it wasn't MY kids who knocked it down later that evening. Yikes.
They had a "Selfie Station" I guess you would call it. They had hand painted emojis. You can see my Charlotte's favorite emoji here.
They had a car you could use markers to color all over.
Tommy loved that part the best, as you can tell. There was a little boy who shoved a paint marker in his mouth and he looked like... well he looked like he ate paint with a spoon. His mom was freaking out.
There was a door fountain for the kids to run through. You give kids an inch when it comes to water and all the sudden they are soaked. Who knew, amirite?? ;-)
They enjoyed watching the Iroquois pass by on the new pedestrian bridge.
They also enjoyed playing with a daughter of someone I graduated with. Of course they were playing with the emojis. Charlotte has a microphone (took us a second to figure that out) and Tommy and his new friend were playing with the Pokemons, Pokemen? Pokeballs? Whatever.
Charlotte enjoyed the music very much. Why do kids grab your forehead when on your shoulders? I guess it makes a good handle.
We enjoyed all the bands but especially the last one. I think they were from ATL? Crazy! They even yelled something like, "WHAT'S UP RENSSELAER??" Haha!
It was a very late night so we decided to spend the night at my parents house. The kids LOVED that!
It was hard to get them to leave the next day. But what a fun little quick trip to rock out, eat food and see art.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Keiper Family Getaway
It was down to the two Keiper boys in this pic.
Then we did some more floating and a lot of jumping out of the boat.
Pageant and Cruise Night 2016 annndddd Moving
I was asked if I wanted to be involved in the pageant again this year. This time it was going to be from a different perspective. This time, I was going to be on the radio! They usually have some guy from the radio read the advertisements but they need someone to talk about the dresses and suits. So of course I agreed. I just can't say no. I know the usual routine but this year they threw in something new.
I didn't find out until I arrived that I would also be doing the Little Miss Pageant. Yikes! More dresses to describe. But it was fantastic. The little girls were adorable and easy to talk about. The big girls were harder. I mean really, how would you describe the black dress on the right? Black dress with silver beading in stripes... down the... front?? Seriously, one of the hardest but most fun thing I've tried. If they ever ask me to do it again, I would try to be much more prepared. I hadn't seen any of the dresses before they walked on the stage. Phew! That was rough. When I was struggling, I said things like "that dress is so interesting" and "paired with sensible black pumps". Yikes. But other than that, the timing and information was covered so I think it went pretty well.
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