On Sunday morning, we woke up to rays of sunshine creeping through the windows. I decided to take advantage of this and go for a nice run. The pet lambs came to see me off, and I was on my way. I was able to go towards the the ruins of a stone church that I had seen from a distance before. It was a very uphill road, but it was totally worth it.

Once I got back home, Kian, I mean Batman and I decided to visit the pet lambs.

If you ever get a chance to pet a lamb/sheep, do it and don't hesitate for a second. They are so so soft and wooly :) After our visit, Batman, "glided" down the hill.

Then it was time to say good morning to Sam. I don't believe I mentioned this before, but Sam has two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue!

We also went to visit Blackberry, the hen that is sitting on eggs now, but her bucket was covered and we did not want to bother her.

After all our visits, we headed back inside as daddy also seized the opportunity to go for a run. While lunch, was being prepared, the superheroes and super villain had a battle around the house.

Lunch was served...chicken noodle soup with bread and lots of fruits.

Chicken noodle soup with bread and fruit

After lunch, we all got ready and headed down to Carrownisky Strand for the Louisburgh Horse Race. Yay for sunshine and blue skies!

What a wonderful family event. There were bouncy slides, a face painter, balloon animal makers, food, ice cream, and more. There was also an area for people who bet on the racing horses. We found out later that the horses come from all over Ireland for this race.

There was a small admission fee for adults, but a good number of the children's activities were free.

It seemed that the races were on every 15-30 minutes. It was really neat to see horses race on the beach.

Kian was also able to test out his driving skills on the go-karts. He only crashed a few times and had a blast :)

Back home, we continued enjoying the beautiful day and grilled some burgers for dinner, while trying to get some internet access. The chickens were extremely interested in the laptop and hung about for a bit. This picture would make for a great meme...caption suggestions anyone?

The cheese burgers were served with a side of home-made fries, or chips as they say here.

After dinner, Kian and Daddy played some soccer in honor of the final world cup game, as Mayflower continued her munching on grass.

Kian catching Daddy's attempt at the goal

Then we all watched the final game and cheered for Argentina :( We were bummed out that they lost, but I was glad Kian stayed up and watched the whole game with us, even though Hannah didn't quite make it to the end before asking to go to bed.

Thank you sunshine! We had a lovely Sunday being outside.

You remember that brown irish soda bread? Well apparently the chickens can eat it too. Except it needs to be soaked for 30 minutes in water. We had a bit of left over from an older batch so we decided to soak it up and feed it to our awesome chickens that give us eggs every day.

Kian happily took on the task.

Kian about to feed the soaked up bread to the chickens

Then we visited the hen that is now sitting on some eggs. This chicken was getting "broody", as they say here. She kept trying to sit on the egg(s) in the egg bucket (the chickens have a bucket in their shed where they go to lay their eggs, if there is already a chicken in the bucket they lay the eggs around the shed). So now this chicken has her own bucket with a few eggs that she is sitting on. She started on July 7th and we are hoping to see some baby chicks hatch on the 28th! I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Mommy to be? We'll find out on July 28th.

It was a nice enough day by Irish standards. About 20 C and partly cloudy. Time to go to the beach. This time we headed to Carrownisky Strand. There is a surfing school on this beach and you can rent a wet suit and surf boards. No, we did not go surfing, but we did see many more people than on Silver Strand.

Since Hannah has been watching "Dora saves the mermaids" over and over and over again, we felt like it was our duty to build a mermaid kingdom :)

Carrownisky Strand

Hannah and Daddy building the foundation of the "Mermaid Kingdom"

Carrownisky Strand

Kian building the towers

Carrownisky Strand

Mommy posing with the hard working crew

Carrownisky Strand

The finished Mermaid Kingdom

Then it was time to soak our feet a little bit.

Kian running away from said wave that got his pants almost all wet

Hannah also got brave enough to chase the waves, or was it vice versa?

We had a great time just running around and then of course collecting more seashells. Once we got back home, the kids were allowed some screen time on their iPads, as we cooked dinner. They decided to play together (the same game at the same time on each iPad) and were all sorts of silly.

We had charcoal grilled steak with fried onions and potatoes and a little bit of mushrooms.

Charcoal fried steak with fried potatoes and onions

One of my favorite things about cooking all this homemade food and eating all meals as a family is that the kids have been trying all kinds of different foods that they would usually say no to or make a face at back home. Kian tried fried onions and Hannah tried and LOVED mushrooms.

Hurray for being adventurous :)

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Day 21 - Louisburgh Horse Race

Day 18 - Carrownisky Strand

We Chase Summer