March 2016 - St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day  2016

We couldn’t think of a better place to spend St. Patrick’s Day than the heart of Dublin with all the locals! 

We got up and headed out early, following the expert advice of my co-workers who indicated if you wanted a good spot, you would have to beat the crowds.   The girls were excited to get all dolled up in their Irish gear, complete with a hand-crafted crown Annelyse had made the day before at school.  Once we were covered in green and orange we headed for the city!     

Pre-parade Posing!

"Annelyse, can you smile?"

"No, stop posing, just stand there and smile."

"That's better, now can you not fake smile?"

There we go :) 

We found a nice place right in front of Trinity College and dug in for the 2 hour wait… of course, we passed the time by allowing the purchase of way to many green and orange souvenirs, including whistles (Russ’s idea), flags  with extremely pointed ends that were fit for impaling (Russ’s 2^nd idea) green tutu’s covered in shamrocks (girls idea) and a scarf (for Russ)…

Resting on my feet while waiting for the parade to start... the agony... 

Now we were complete and looked like total tourists!!We also had lots of snacks (but no drinks) for fear of loosing our precious ground.  The parade was great to see, however we headed home shortly after for fear of witnessing too many shenanigans…

St. Patrick himself

Front and center... thought Lo was going to try and join the parade on more than a few occasions! 

Getting tired... and hangry!!

Cheap Entertainment! 

Annelyse competing with Russ to be sillier... she requested I take her picture to show how she was going cross-eyed... Notice Lo who seems totally unimpressed with either of their attempts to be humorous!

Of course, we managed to create our own shenanigans, once back at home...  Annelyse switched into her performance gear and Lo lost her pants.  The boots she has on  were a Christmas present from Grammy Jo that she likes so much she  won't wear them outside the house (because then she couldn't wear them inside).  They are fondly referred to as her "inside boots"... they go with everything, leotards, pajamas, St. Patrick's tutu's, if she is home, she has those boots on!  

 

The next day Russ and the girls met me after work and we planned to go see some Irish dancing, however the girls weren’t feeling it and kept saying they were cold… so we called it a night and headed home.... no pictures from that goat rodeo! 

On Sunday Russ took part in the 5K.  He finished in the top 10% even with 10 lbs on gear on his back.   All in all a great celebration in honor of St. Patrick!