The importance of Vitamin N

My book list this year is getting off to a slow start. First book of the year: Richard Louv's The Nature Principle.  Like This Is Where You Belong, it didn't provide a new cause to take up, but it strengthened my resolve to put a higher priority on doing activities that take us outdoors. My kids are tired of hearing me talk about "Nature Deficit Disorder."

Louv's book takes the ideas behind his first big hit, Last Child in the Woods, and applies them to a wider scope.  Kids aren't the only ones who need to engage with the natural world regularly in order to learn, create, and be well; everyone does.  Louv does the research to show how important time spent outdoors - or even just in the presence of plants and pets - is to mental wellbeing, emotional health, and creativity.  He describes the efforts of health professionals to prescribe "Vitamin N" in order to preserve health and promote healing. He provides lots of examples of people who have made a conscious effort to not just save the environment but to help people interact with it. One of the parts that stuck out to me was his description of the change within the environmental movement.  First generation environmentalists were all about protecting the environment from the encroachment of people. People and nature are at odds in this dialectic.  Then environmentalists began emphasizing personal responsibility: recycle, buy less or buy green.  Now the movement is attempting to reconnect people and the environment. How can we treasure what we have? How do we live with it?

Sometimes I default to thinking that spending time in nature means being immersed in the woods, camping or hiking, a backpacking trek. The title of Louv's last book may have perpetuated that idea. But Louv shows that even time in a garden or yard provides "Vitamin N." A bike ride, a trip to the beach, or a walk around the neighborhood can have a similar restorative power. We don't have to get into extreme sports to engage with nature. Walking the same route often helps us see the changes in the seasons, the amount of growth or decay from month to month. I don't take advantage of our proximity to the beach as much as I should. We met up on the beach with friends the other day for the moms to exercise and the kids to play in the sand. They had a great time, (Although the little toy snow shovel we brought was a source of contention. Why do I even still have this thing? As a sand shovel it doesn't function very well, but it is bigger and more attractive to three-year-olds than small plastic sand shovels.)

Some places make engaging with nature easy. In northern Illinois, we lived close to one of the many forest preserves. I used to walk the paths, often with the older kids in the baby jogger, and feel a million miles from the city. In Indiana, the year of Dan's graduate school, our rental house backed up to a big ravine that separated our neighborhood from a big city park. The boys played soldiers and explorers for hours back there. In Guam we had the jungles. In Mississippi, desserted lots. Both our homes in California have been close to mountain trails that we try to take advantage of.

That said, the younger kids complain everytime I say, "Let's go on a hike!" They hate getting dragged along on a forced march, although during the actual event we have great conversations, and they seem to enjoy being there and doing something. The older kids now want to go hiking on their own, and I hope the younger kids will eventually feel the same way.  But I do need to remember that we don't have to spend two hours on a trail to engage with nature.  Just playing in the park is good enough. And I need to branch out a bit and try new things.  We've never gone skiing. One son went rock climbing and river rafting with scouts and loved it.  Fishing from the pier, paddle boarding, biking down the strand, taking a picnic to a new park are all ways that we could spend time outdoors together.

Just being outside together, not in front of screens, is enough.

Modest resolutions

Why are so many people opposed to resolutions? I know it is trendy to belittle making resolutions because not many people succeed in following them, but some do end up becoming habits. So even though I consistently failing in managing to remember my resolutions much past February, I consistently enjoy the process of doing a yearly examen and deciding what goals to set for the year ahead.

I have felt my age more this year - I rarely have a day that I don't wake up in pain. In between plantar fasciitis, patellar fasciitis, and what is probably arthritis in the upper part of my feet, I haven't run most of the year. And when I do run, it hurts. So I am beginning to reimagine what it means to not be a runner.  Having my husband and/or a number of friends to exercise with makes walking early in the morning much easier to do. I miss the solitary reflection time of running, but while I prefer running alone, I crave companionship while walking. Having someone to talk to while walking makes an hour fly by. And although our motivated "boot camp" workout leader moved to Japan, a couple friends and I are still meeting a couple mornings a week to do some exercises and let the kids play.

So for a fitness goal - met the strength training resolution. Need to continue resolving to stretch more. And eat less sugar again.

My family goal of saying something nice to each of the kids didn't really stick in my brain, unless you count blessing them in the mornings when they leave for class and at night when they go to bed. What has been a nice development over the past year are little outings with single kids and having more grown up conversations with them. It's been a gentle shift to a different type of relationship with our kids as they are getting older.  And they all still like being hugged good night, so even though "physical touch" is not my love language - my brother in law teases me about being an awkward hugger, a family of origin trait...- I resolve to keep hugging them good night and looking for opportunities for one on one time with each kid.

My spiritual goal remains the same - read the Bible more.  I have succeeded in keeping some spiritual reading at hand all year, but going to adoration never happens. At our church it is only from 9-12 on Wednesdays and Thursday. With LK in tow, I never feel comfortable doing more than stopping by to genuflect after Mass on Wednesday mornings. She likes going to church, though, so we are continuing that habit of going to mass on Wednesdays with the two high schoolers who have a late start that morning. I have two new resolutions: 1. Make sure we get to confession once a month, which often happens, but we aren't very intentional about it. 2. Keep up habit I started last year of writing down a little examen in the evenings. I wax and wane on this - just a little list of pluses and minuses for the day. It started out being a little book of things to be grateful for, but perhaps I just have a natural pessimistic streak that makes me want to acknowledge the negative, too -- in an attempt to avoid it in the future, of course.

The fourth aspect of my yearly resolutions, the academic/intellectual goal, I mentioned in the last post - which is to post more.  I keep trying to shift to becoming a morning person and get up at five or six to write and grade, so that I'm not on the computer late in the evenings, which makes it harder to go to bed. But I don't quite have the discipline to turn out the lights by ten, which makes getting up at five something I can do regularly. I can get up early when I have a grading deadline, but then I crash after a couple of mornings, because I am not simultaneously going to bed at a reasonable hour.  I can manage on six hours a night for weeks, but if that goes down to five hours then my body rebels, and I need a few days to sleep in. Consistently getting seven hours would probably help me function better all day, but with teenagers in the house, the rhythm of the day is different - they are always up late.

I also am reconsidering job options.  Enrollment is very low at the Navy College Program. I consistently have only 5-8 students a term. On the one hand, this is very manageable for making my goal last year of using students' names and for balancing family life and other activities, but on the other, with three kids in college next year, a little extra income would help our family budget. I have applied to a few other community colleges, but after I had that interview at the college up in north county, I had to recognize I need to decide how much disruption to the current status quo I am comfortable with making. No job offer came after that interview, and I think I failed it because my hesitancy about driving and committing to more than one class came through. I cringe when I think back to it, but it was a learning experience.  So now on my to do list is to look for other opportunities. But I also want to minimize the impact on family life. Right now our preschool co-op is going really well. We are a small group, but everyone loves it. I would like to keep doing it next year and keep LK home for as long as possible. Ideally I would homeschool through grade school, but it will be a challenge with only one kid. I need to borrow some other kids.

People getting up here. Time to post and be done!

Loving where you live - reading in review

I powered through several books in December, enabled by some lucky library finds, internet recommendations, and a long car trip. I hope to get around to writing about a few here.

The book I keep thinking about is Melody Warnick's This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live. I found it at our library after reading a review on the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog list of "Seven books to download into your brain."  It's a topic that hounds me.

The book's premise is that Warnick feels lonely and out of place in her new home of Blacksburg, VA, a place she thought would fulfill the longing for home she felt while living in Austin, TX. She reflects that she hasn't ever felt rooted to the other places where she has lived since leaving her birth place, Huntington Beach, CA. (Californians really do love their state.) She decides she is going to try to teach herself to love Blacksburg.

So she starts researching "The Lost Art of Staying Put," the title of the first chapter.  In between interviews with people who stay in one place for years and people who actively try to make their homes better, known as "Place Makers," Warnick describes her own attempts to put ten precepts for becoming "place attached" into action. Reading about her efforts is motivating, although it's hard to say whether she does become rooted in Blacksburg. Her husband doesn't love his job (teaching in the English department at Virginia Tech), and at the end the book it is clear she doesn't see herself living in Blacksburg forever, although her experiment has worked in the sense that she is more fond of it and feels attached because she has met her neighbors, has a sense of Blacksburg's history, has participated in community building events, including making up a few of her own, and has walked, hiked, and biked the city and its surrounds.

Having moved 13 times, and having learned to love almost every place we've lived, I think I could have come up with the list of recommendations that Warnick devises to put into action as part of a "Love where you live" experiment, but she does the research and actively and intentionally practices them. They are:

1. Walk more
2. Buy local
3. Get to know my neighbors
4. Do fun stuff
5. Explore nature
6. Volunteer
7. Eat local
8. Become more political
9. Create something new
10. Stay loyal through hard times

I picked up the book because I find myself frequently analyzing why I don't want to stay in this vacation destination where we live. We still have a year and a half left of my husband's current orders, and we're already discussing his next request, which he'll make this spring. I'm ready to move on, but we have a daughter who will be ready to start her senior year in high school in 18 months and at least two other kids who really like it here. There may be a job here that my husband could transition into, but it requires deploying and working long hours. It would be a rewarding job for him, but we keep asking ourselves, is the stress it would put on the family worth the trade-off of the stress of moving?

If it were up to me, I'd say let's pack up and go. But I do recognize the virtues of stability for the kids, and the reality that the next place may not fulfill any of the longings for home in my heart.

Here's the thing: I do most of the 10 things Warnick recommends: 1. I walk everywhere in this town - it's only five miles around the perimeter.
2. I try to shop local and have succeeded in drastically limiting my shopping at big box stores (if you don't include the commissary and exchange and Amazon in this category).
3. I know my neighbors by name, have been to a progressive dinner with them, and actively socialize with my neighbor next door.  I just took cookies to the neighbor diagonal across the street whose husband just died. He was a local who coached the surf teams and everyone's friend, a father of six, who died while surfing this week, probably of a heart attack. A real tragedy.
4.We do the fun stuff - Fourth of July parade, concerts in the park, Christmas parade, parties at the library, sand castle contests.
5. We explore nature in the surrounding area and the beach here (I'm also reading Richard Louv's new book The Nature Principle, and my kids can tell you that I have been on a get outside tirade. Inspired by his book, and my own predilection for being outside in natural spaces, I've been itching to just spend time at a park or beach - a change for me, because usually "time in nature" means a hike, which the kids dread, although once they are moving, they are happy.)
6. We volunteer regularly with church, school, scouts, the community.
7. Although I shop mostly at the commissary, less than a mile from our house, I also try to buy produce and wine from the local market once a week. It's often less expensive, and almost always better quality, than the commissary.
8. Numbers 8 and 9 I haven't committed to: Being political is not in my nature, but I pay attention to the issues in the little local paper. Always entertaining to read the heated arguments about bike lanes and dog parks.
9. I am not particularly creative or as action-oriented as Warnick, but I did start our little co-op and a book club that is going on its third year - does that count?
10. And I am not loyal in my heart. I get swept up in the outpouring of grief in the community when someone dies, like my poor neighbor, whom I knew, or the local SEAL team members who were killed in 2016. But I feel kind of cringy when people talk about how great it is here. I want to leave.

After my husband and I had our most recent conversation about what our options are for the future, I spent some time contemplating whether someplace else might be any better. While the rest of the country is cuddled in blankets surviving the arctic blast, we have had great weather. We can be outside all year round. I love walking everywhere and not relying on big stores. We've made some good friends, and the community events are free fun for families.

But I wish our church had more for teens. The schools are fine, but not spiritually nourishing nor particularly academically challenging.  I miss being a part of Catholic schools.  We pay exorbitant rent and pay a premium for community sports and other activities. There's a sense of entitlement and privilege that pervades the air here. I don't know if there are any houses for sell less than a million dollars. Rents continue to go up higher than what we are paying.  Our friends are mostly military people who will move eventually.  We are far from extended family.  I miss the highs and lows of seasonal change. I feel like someone passing through - and that's mostly because we are.

But I keep reminding myself: Someplace else might have worse schools, lack a good parish, require a car to maneuver through strip malls, and create a sense of isolation. And there's starting over again knowing it would be temporary.

So I'm trying to imagine what it would mean to end up staying here six years altogether, and then my husband retires and we pick where to live. If I continue to think of our high rent as including the premium to live someplace where we don't need an extra car, school tuition, winter gear or heating/cooling bills, or a quick trip to Target for one thing and $100 of other stuff, the financial impact seems less. Our parish has great priests, even if it doesn't have a great teen program. The emotional turmoil of uprooting everyone may cause more spiritual trauma than the lack of catechism at school. Wanting to move reflects my selfishness in craving a little dream house with a big garden and a nice kitchen.  My "This is temporary" attitude is probably the biggest hindrance to loving where we live. If I can change that attitude, I would save some emotional energy and probably soften a sharp edge of resentment that I haul out every so often, usually during hormonal low times. (Is it middle age making the swing between feel good and feel bad hormones more drastic?)

Warnick's book is worth reading even if the theme is one I already know. The anecdotes she shares about other people who are making their places better and promoting where they live are entertaining and motivating. It makes me think more consciously about the adage of changing my attitude when I can't change my situation. And to a certain extent working on that consciousness - and spending more time in one place - is having an effect.

Happy New Year!

As usual, I am a couple days behind the times, but ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2018.

I can't believe how far into this millennium we already are. I remember calculating that I would be 27 in the year 2000. It seemed so old when my elementary school friends and I were first working the math. Now it seems so young...

I have been thinking about posting New Year's Resolutions and a year in review of books, but it is already late tonight. I just wanted to add an update and to work on one resolution, which is to post more frequently.  I found myself searching my own blog a few times over the past year in order to look up when things happened or information about a book I read. My memory is failing! Or, as I prefer to think, so much information is being inputted into my brain that a lot of things have to be outputted. At any rate, I am thankful to have this repository of memories upon which to rely for a somewhat reliable accounting of our lives.

So one of my resolutions is to do a better job of posting at least weekly. These posts may be shorter and less thoughtful, but if I don't worry about writing something thoughtful, maybe I'll at least write something.

Another resolution is to put down the phone more. This should also help with reading and writing more. And listening more to the kids. And remembering more.  I have cut back on media time this year, partly out of necessity, but I still could shrink that time and not miss it. I realized when I was doing Christmas cards that I get a lot of Facebook updates from people I am not really close to- people I didn't send a Christmas card. Some of them are wonderful people with interesting or uplifting things to say, but there is only so much time in the world. And on the other hand, I have some dear friends who aren't on Facebook whom I wish I heard more from - and would, if I took a few minutes to write a letter or even an email - or call on the phone.  So I want to hand write some letters more often - and trim some acquaintances from my Facebook list.

I also need to write some thank you notes. We just returned from our holiday trek through the southwest to Oklahoma City and Dallas, and we have many people to thank for a wonderful visit and generous gifts. The travel required 40+ hours of driving, but it was good for reading, and worth the time to visit with family we haven't seen in a long time. Pictures to come.

We've spent the last few days since we've been home cleaning house and organizing. We had a small party for New Year's Eve the day after we got home - just three families. I was tempted to invite other friends I enjoy spending time with, but we decided to keep the group small so we could visit better with these friends who are longtime friends from previous duty stations who all know each other. And the conversation didn't falter, even though they stayed for 7 hours.

Tomorrow the middle kids go back to school. I will miss having them around. This break seemed short, since they were out before Christmas longer than after Christmas, and we were gone a week. The two college boys are home another week, but one is spending this week with his girlfriend, so his home stay will be even shorter.  This year my husband and I really hesitated to travel. We worry that the kids won't want to come back to our house as they get older because they won't have memories of our own family Christmas - just Christmas with lots of cousins. But they really do enjoy being a part of the big mass of family. All people who know them and love them and really care about what happens to them. With the instability of our rootedness to place, the long drive is worthwhile if it gives the kids a sense of rootedness to their people. I just finished reading a book about how to love the place where you live, and while it didn't really teach me anything new (Why didn't I think about writing a similar book? - aside from the fact I don't do research.) it did make me think more about where we might want to go when my husband retires from the military and confirmed some things that I already believed. That confirmation helps me prioritize activities and make decisions when there are so many activities competing for our time and I am so bad at decision-making.

I want to write more about that book and place, but now it's time to retire for the evening. I pray that 2018 is a year of blessings and adventures for all.

Advent update

O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: 

Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Just four more days until Christmas.  The presents are purchased - as of around midnight last night.  The decorations are up; the lights are on.  The cookies are baked - and almost all consumed or given away (grasshopper bars, coffee cream sandwiches, double chocolate chip, sugar cutouts, and gingerbread men).  And now the bags are getting packed to head to the grandparents' house.  The Advent season is winding down, just as the shortest day of the year and the year itself draw to a close.  It is a time for remembering what we have to be grateful for, as well as a time of anticipation for new gifts, especially the gift of beginning again, a new start with each rising of the morning star.  We are ready for the opportunity to begin again, and welcome the celebration of the Feast of the Nativity as a reminder of the joy and promise of new life, eternal life.

Some critter has been provident and stored many acorns

Trying to harvest mistletoe with an eye to selling kisses

Looking for  November tadpoles

Sisters

One large live oak or several growing in unity?

Fire 

Fire in the sky

St. Nicholas was here

Preschool visit to the retirement home

The oldest son in one of the oldest cities

Punny Santa at the library

One big brother home!

Time to decorate the tree!

Fires and other incendiary topics

While we are in the midst of Christmas decorating and filling our house with stuff, some people are sifting through ashes.  Our hearts are with our friends and family members in Ventura these days. The Thomas Fire, named for Thomas Aquinas College where it was first reported, is still out of control, consuming homes and property in its path. Over 450 homes have been lost, and Thursday a young firefighter lost his life, leaving behind his wife, a two year old and a baby on the way.  Fires are also still burning around LA and northern San Diego County and Tijuana. Our 11-year-old, the disaster specialist, keeps asking if we are at risk, but we live in an area protected by water on three sides.  Air quality is so poor in Ventura that schools have been canceled a second week, and my husband's brother and his family are packing up to head to Grandma's house in Oklahoma a week early.

The four of them and their dog and guinea pigs spent a few days here last week, after just being here several days at Thanksgiving.  They offered to take our two older girls with them to Gram and Pop's, where we all will gather in another week.  Although this would give us a lot more room in our car, I don't want to give up my time with the girls.  The school break started yesterday and goes until January 2nd, so they don't have much time after we get back from the Christmas travels to hang out with us and with friends, but we do have this week before we leave. I have some dental and eye doctor appointments scheduled, and I want to do some holiday fun outing - something to build memories and traditions especially for the youngest.

After Thanksgiving, I was feeling very protective of family time.  Two of my husband's brothers and their families came for the holiday, which was wonderful but also exhausting. We were still recovering from jet lag when the first set of cousins arrived less than a week after we returned from Ireland.  His brother from Ventura arrived Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving, and we had an excellent adult night out dinner. The challenge was that the next couple of days we had competing ideas about how to relax over Thanksgiving, which made the weekend not so relaxing.  We needed more vacation time to recover from vacation.

So the next weekend, just before the first Sunday of Advent, I scheduled a mandatory family fun activity. The weather was beautiful, and we hadn't been camping since the spring, so I thought some time in the woods would do us all some good.  The kids weren't so sure. Although no one had any major events planned for the weekend, no sports or birthday parties or socials, none of the kids was enamored of packing up to sleep on the ground and miss potential fun back at home. And the older kids did have a pile of homework.  So I compromised. I gave up camping - mainly because I myself was still so tired from the week before, but we did go spend a day in the woods.

We headed up to Mount Palomar, explored the amazing observatory and had a fascinating conversation with an employee - better than a guided tour because he gave us an insider's understanding of the work the scientists are doing. It costs around $10,000 a night to operate the telescope, where astronomers are looking for the tiniest changes in the night sky to determine what is happening in the universe now and millennia ago. After expanding our brains with these complex ideas, we stopped for ice cream at a little camp store before taking a medium length hike through the state park. Then we cooked hot dogs and marshmallows around a tiny campfire as we watched the sunset over the hills. It was a beautiful day, and the kids, once they got out into the fresh air, did exactly what I had hoped they would do - they climbed rocks, played with sticks, and had fun with each other gathering mistletoe and making up narratives about the future. Something about being outside together, away from the competing needs at home, helps them reconnect with each other.  Sometimes turning a deaf ear to complaints about doing things together ends up being the best way to create memories and reconnect as a family.  Which is why I declined the invite to send a couple of the kids in the cousins' car for the 2 day drive across the southwest. There will be plenty of complaints in our car, but we'll also have some fun eating at cheap restaurants, listening to books on tape, and having the occasional conversation about something meaningful.

For instance, we have had a couple interesting conversations about issues in the news. At the kids' high school, the varsity soccer team shaved the new team members' heads, somewhat against their wills.  A friend whose son is on the team was furious about this hazing, but because the boys won't say anything about their teammates to the administration, nothing is being done other than requiring the team to write an essay about hazing.

This slap on the wrist has my morning walking friends and me upset.  With all the news about sexual harassment cases, the deaths of students in fraternities after hazing events, and even the recent bullying video that went viral, the school's response to an event of hazing seems to turn a blind eye to an event where the younger boys didn't want to have their heads shaved, but went along because bigger, more powerful people intimidated them.

Granted, this incident isn't on the same level as these other events. And some of the kids who got their heads shaved may even think it does give them a sense of membership and belonging.  But it is an exertion of power and aggression at heart; the younger members of the team didn't choose to have their heads shaved.

Thoughts have been swirling about these events - and the case of the kid whose mom posted the video of him crying online about bullying. Sympathy overflowed from celebrities and a fund was established. $50000 was donated before someone noticed that the mom had posted a photo of herself with a Confederate flag on her facebook account at some point in time. Then someone suggested the kid was bullied because he was a racist.  This is a stretch.  Kids bully for all kinds of reasons, but rarely, I suspect, because they are motivated by social justice.  And are the sins of the mother the sins of the child?  Is it reverse bullying to make this national news? (I heard about it on NPR.)

Evidence of original sin is everywhere, even though everywhere we go Christmas spirit is marketed, and kindness and mindfulness are encouraged by all. Still people persist in sins of the flesh and of the spirit.  All the more reason why we need a God with skin offering mercy and redemption.

The last full day in Ireland - Killarney and Rock of Cashel

After two days of gray skies and drizzling rain, we woke to sunshine on our last full day in Ireland. We had another delicious breakfast at the Orchard House b and b, not quite as big as the day before, but prepared with more care. Loaded up on instant coffee, we were ready to explore Killarney National Park. This was our nature day, after spending the previous days in towns.

The terrain of Killarney is much hillier than the interior of Ireland. When planning this trip, I spent a lot of time trying to decide how to get the most out of our short visit without spending too much time in the car. This area is the home town of our parish priest, and received so many recommendations that even though it was about 3 or 4 hours from Dublin, I thought it was a worth a visit. And Joe had not been to this southwest corner of Ireland on any of his field trips, and probably wouldn't have time in the semester to come back. My husband initially was skeptical of driving this far, but when the sun shone on the beauty of this locale, he, too, was glad we had come. 

We started the day with a stop at Muckross Estate, which is just outside of the town. I thought there would be a fee to walk around, but at least at this time of year and this time of day, it was open to visitors. We parked and walked the grounds with other early morning risers, some of whom seemed to be making this their morning exercise. The carriage drivers, known as jarveys, were out and offering rides to the lake, which we declined, but I'm sure riding in one of their "jaunting cars" would be pleasant. The estate is not especially old, dating to the 19th century, but it is grand, and at one time owned by wealthy Californians, who gifted it to the Irish nation. The gardens are beautiful, and the location on the shores of a small lake is breathtaking.  It was easy to pretend to be on the Irish version of Downtown Abby while walking the grounds.

 

Steps to the Japanese garden

Rhododendrons blooming

 After we'd circled the grounds, we drove a short way to the trail head for a hike up to Torc Falls. The falls were just a short hike up from the parking lot through an autumnal woods, but I had read about extending the hike up to the top of Torc Mountain, an out and back hike of about 5 miles. Again, I had to convince my husband to take the longer walk, and again, the views and the friendly people we passed while walking, including a lively group of young scouts and a dedicated hiker of about 80 some years. Everyone we passed commented on the lovely day.

A field of red deer, difficult to see, but large like elk.

A view of Muckross Lake and Lake Leane, two of three lakes in this area.

Torc Falls

  

Moss covered trees made the wood seem habitable by little people

A different terrain as we headed up the mountain.

The walking path. We really didn't see a lot of people on the way up, and only a few on the way down.

Windy at the top of Torc Mountain.

  

After the hike we talked about eating a hearty lunch, but ended up getting snacks at the grocery store, and loading up on Cadbury chocolate to take home to the kids. Since Irish food isn't the reason people visit Ireland, we skimped on meals to stay in our budget.  The drive back to Dublin was along major roadways so it was not as stressful as some of the other drives, but it still took us past some pastoral views, and right through the town of Cashel, where we stopped to visit one more medieval ruin, the Rock of Cashel, which was another site where some structures originally dated from the 12th century, but others were built in the 15th. This site has nice museum and again the ancient stone cross has been brought inside and a replica put in its place. I wouldn't have known the replica was a fake if I hadn't read it.

The Rock of Cashel

The stone cross here had a unique design with supports for the crossarms.

Ancient carvings still exposed to the air.

The clerks hall for small men.

A sturdy Madonna and child.

Reproduction of the kitchen

St. John

A memento from Queen Elizabeth's visit - a carved wooden pen, an interesting gift

The town of Cashel

On the Rock

We left Cashel just after the sun set on this beautiful day. It had filled us up with fresh air and an appetite. Upon our return to Dublin, we hurried back over to the Newman church for Sunday night mass because the choir was singing a new Mass written by Steve Warner for the renovation of the church. It was a lovely way to end the day.

By this time we were famished, and I was ready for something other than pub food, so we ate a warm and filling meal at an Indian restaurant before stepping over to the pub where the Notre Dame students meet after their evening class at the O'Connell House on Merrion Square for one last pint of Guinness. I actually was full of beer by this time in the trip and just had a half pint. This pub had lots of photos of police and firemen and rugby teams and was designed with "snugs" - little nooks for private conversations, maybe discussions of cases and crimes. We didn't sit in one, but I liked the idea.

Good night, sun.

Our most delicious meal

Another full day drew to a close as we drove our son back to campus where we picked up the hubcap from his friend (perfect fit!) and a few things he wanted to send back with us from his room.  We said goodbye here, before heading back to the Merrion Ballsbridge Townhouse, because we had to leave early for our flight the next morning. I had hoped to meet for one last cup of coffee and pastry, but we knew we had to drive through town during the morning rush and return the car. It was a bittersweet goodbye.  Our son will be home in a couple weeks, but it was such a new and wonderful experience to spend time with him as a grown young man.  We don't often have one on one time with our kids, especially the older ones, and these times are sure to grow rarer as they move out into the world on their own.  Our son's ability to navigate the city gives us confidence in his future adventures, as we look forward to welcoming him home briefly before sending him out again.

Everyone happy at home