Going home....

It has been a fantastic holiday in Ireland and it's nearly over. Its been great catching up with family and friends and great to see the children have so much fun. It will take me a while now to update this much neglected blog but Ramadan's only around the corner and I will need something to do...

Been meaning to post these pictures of the caravan in Ballybunion for over a week. Ballybunion's a great little spot and the kids loved staying in the caravan. More pictures of Ballybunion to come.

Ballybunion

The following pictures will explain for the lack of posts this week - we have been at the beach! Ballybunion in Co. Kerry is a small seaside town on the west coast of Ireland. We stayed at Donncha's parents caravan and had a lovely Irish seaside holiday - lots of wet sand, rain and sunshine in four days. Donncha used to holiday here as a child so this will always be a special place for us and it helps that it has fantastic beaches and an amazing coastline. I have many more pictures and will post them in the coming weeks.

Fota

No trip to Cork is complete without a visit to Fota and we chose a good day for it - a day with sunshine but note the jumpers! It was good to get there early because by midday the park was getting very busy and the queue to get in had stretched out to the carpark!

A very early start

Despite our fears that we were going to be woken up by jet-lagged children on our first morning in Ireland, a 4:30 start was not too bad. As its Europe and kids tv does not start till 6 (!) we bundled them on into the car for a very early tour of Cork. The kids wanted to look for a shop but obviously nothing was open!

And the tour also included Donncha's old school.

Singapore half-day

With our London flight not till 11:30 on Sunday night we had a good half day in Singapore to kill. We really wanted to avoid crowded areas so shopping was out of the question so we headed to Clarke Quay for a short boat ride before heading out to the Night Safari.

We got to the night zoo at least an hour and a half before opening time so we had PLENTY of tine to wander around, play and eat. I actually tried the fish spa for only 5 mins but that's for a separate post! The zoo actually opened at 7:00 - we forgot that it get's darker later! Once inside we caught a show and wanted to do the tram ride but being sunday it was very busy and we were very tired and sweaty so we decided to head back to the airport. We did catch the tribal show on our way out and saw some very impressive fire eating - I happy to think that had I taken photographs they would have turned out brilliantly - but it was even too tiring and complicated to take the camera out! Think we will need to do this again when the kids are a bit older.

These snakes come on at the entrance just before opening and we all had photographs taken with them - NOT!

Balik Kampong (back to the village)

The McCarthy family are heading back to Cork tomorrow - a brief stop in Singapore to visit the Night Safari and tire the kids out, a rather long trip on the A380 (Ayden's dream) and then a short hop to Cork. Looking forward to long evenings hanging out in the garden - two years since we were all in Cork and some of us have grown quite bit. 

Only painting...

Following on from the messy play day Iman wanted to do something at home with the cousins but I only managed to get the painting stuff and they were happy with that ....

because with Ayden's help it soon got pretty messy anyway!

The messier the better...

We were invited to a messy play date at a friend's house last week and the kids had a blast. The hostess has a special way with the little ones and it was all about the kids having fun!

Ayden's looking very clean at the start of the morning. If anyone's wondering why the kids are wearing white for a messy play session is because they are old school tshirts that are no longer good for school.

Jack here is making a paint from earth and using the mortar and pestle to grind it into a paste.

 

Iman working on a sculpture made from natural clay 

Jack just wants to be blue

Iman with her volcano painting using the earth paints

The potions table!

Jack's first Friday Prayers

Jack reached a big boy milestone today ~ he went to Friday prayers with his grandad. As it's the holidays grandad planned to take the older cousins who in turn invited Jack. Grandad was a little hesitant but Jack was excited with the offer. Apparently he was in awe of the mosque and all the people there and kept quiet and sat still at least until the prayers started!

When they got home I tried to take a picture of the big boy to mark the day but he didn't want to cooperate....

....at all!

But I got him at last!!!