More Ireland

The night of the wedding, we stayed at the hotel, and when we woke up the next morning, we met the whole family for a big Irish breakfast in the restaurant.

Adventurous eater Sam was the only one of our kids to try the black pudding, which he immediately spit into his napkin and exclaimed, "EWWW! WHO would eat this?!?" Grandpa Tom, who had probably already eaten four of them, got a big kick out of that!

The kids played a little football,

then we left for Stephen's house,

where we discovered that we were locked out.

Garreth was willing to do some MacGyver moves to get us in, but luckily Stephen and Ciara weren't too far behind us.

That afternoon, Garreth, the kids, and I left for the Ring of Kerry. It was about a three or four hour drive down to Killarney, where we stayed for two nights, and the drive was great. Here are a few pictures taken from the car.

We checked into our hotel, and went to have dinner and explore Killarney.

It is a charming little town, but a very popular place to stay for people visiting the Ring of Kerry, so it was packed and a little touristy. It was fun to walk around at night, and we even got to stand outside a few pubs and listen to some great traditional music.

The next morning we got an early start on the ring. The Ring of Kerry is a drive around a peninsula in the southwest of Ireland, and it's known for having some of the most spectacular views in the country. The day started off rainy for us, but the weather got much better after a few hours. The coolest thing about this drive was not having a plan. We allowed ourselves a whole day to drive the loop so that we could pull off the road whenever we saw something to explore.

Our first stop was this castle, right on the roadside. No sign telling about it, no admission fee, no other people in sight. Old castles are so commonplace in Ireland and so fascinating to the rest of us. It was fun to explore it with the kids and imagine who had lived there.

Another spot where we stopped for the beautiful view. We took lots of photos with Grace and her magazine so she can send them in and maybe get published in the travel section. Watch for her in your next issue of "American Girl" magazine!

We stopped for lunch in the tiny charming village of Sneem.

Checking out a beach.

And finally the sun came out, just in time for the most breath-taking views ever.

It was like stepping into a calendar.

I can't say enough about how happy I am that we got to see this place.

On another little side road we took, we came across some old cottages, probably abandoned during the "famine."