10 Questions About…

Yes, we really did have to come home from Ireland for the Irish Fair. No, that wasn’t my call.

As a special treat, we brought the Irish weather home with us. It rained the first three days we were home – and during most of the Irish Fair. In fact the fair had to close early on Saturday night because of tornado warnings! (Since then the girls have asked every night if it seems humid – which is code for – do you think there will be a tornado?)

On Friday night Patrick and I saw the Dropkick Murphy’s. That was fun. Lots of stage diving. Not by me, but others. Here’s a video from that show.

We also entertained one of the speakers from the Fair – Ruan O’Donnell (no relation). He’s a scholar who speaks about Northern Ireland – both as a history lesson and current affair. He was really interesting. He clearly has talked to a ton of very involved people and had some great stories. Also I think he made the presentation interesting for the audience since he talked a lot about the impact of Irish Americans on the situation.

Also the girls and I spent a lot of time cruising the Fair. We saw a fun kids play done by our friend Sarah. The girls saw some friends who do Irish Dancing. Here are the pics.

Tomorrow we’re hitting the State Fair with the Lynches. We’re doing our second annual scavenger hunt. Some folks had asked me to share the hunt in advance.

We’ve been easing back into life in St Paul. The girls have been seeing friends. I’ve been meeting with clients. Patrick is still writing.

We’ve been trying to keep an eye on what’s happening in our own home ground. Tuesday night we took a drive down to Stillwater – about 45 minutes away from St Paul on the St Croix River right across from Wisconsin.

Stillwater is a great town at nearly anytime – but Tuesday was special since they had a band playing, movie in the park planned and a farmers’ market happening. We didn’t stay long enough for the movie – but we enjoyed the music, food and walk along the river.

On Wednesday they had music and movie in the park at Groveland – our local park. So we could walk down. Enjoy hotdogs for dinner. The girls gulped down tons of free root beer. There were different carnival games and Kate took advantage of the free massages – several times.

Kate and Lily each had a friend over. We all stayed to see Madagascar in the park. It was a fun night!

So we came home just in time for the Irish Fair – on purpose. Patrick’s on the board of the Irish Fair and didn’t want to miss it.

Friday night we went to see the Dropkick Murphy’s. They were fun. They played more traditional songs than I had hoped – but that made sense given the crowd. I made it up to the front/side of the stage for a few songs.

I was very impressed with the security and the crowd surfers. The surfers were all eventually dumped on the “other side” of the security fence – but really not very close to the stage. The security folks just herded them away from the stage and back out to the crowd. It was a good way to handle it. The dancers didn’t mind, it wasn’t much hassle for security and kept everyone having a good time.

During the Fair we had the great fortune of entertaining Ruan O’Donnell (no relation) from University of Limmerick. Ruan gave two talks: one of Robert Emmet, Irish Patriot and one on the IRA from 1948-1968. Ruan was very interesting. He had talked to a whole host of people for his research and it was fun to hear the stories. With any luck we’ll see Ruan again in Ireland – or maybe he’ll come to visit us again in Minnesota.

The weather at the Fair was touch and go. The ground was like a bog – and regular readers will know that we know what a bog is like! Saturday night they had to close early for a tornado warning. Sunday the weather was beautiful.

We saw a cute play for kids, we played games, we watched bands and singers, we walked along the Mississippi, we saw lots of Irish dancers, we had a great time.

A weekend full of festival was a great way to break back into Minnesota.

Kinder Camp is the pre-kindergarten event at Nativity. It happens for 4 days. The pre-kinders get to go to school and check things out.

Aine went (in her hat of course). On her second day she “made up a friend”. I asked about any new friends on her third day but she patiently explained that she had her old friend (from day 2).

Aine is very ready for kindergarten.

At Nativity, each fourth grade class researches a country. Lily’s class researched Spain. We got to go for a night of presentation on different countries. The students work a long time on their projects and they all did an excellent time. Lily got a good speaking part where she told the story of St Caslida.

Also each class prepares treats. This is when it’s super helpful to have an uncle who is a chef. Uncle Billy made 450 profiteroles con chocolate for the event. They were really good.

We took a trip to the Science Museum. We went for the show on water and to see the Omni movie – he Lewis & Clark show. The girls thought it was interesting that while there were whole crews on the voyage that only Lewis & Clark get credit. Also Sacajawea did the whole trip with a baby!

I was feeling a little behind at work – but then I was thinking about what it might be like to lead a group into the wilderness. To have to decide which way to go at every fork in the river and to know that every waterfall you went down, you’d have to go back up to return home. So I was feeling a little bit better about people having to wait for the web site updates.

So we’re trying to fit in a lot of our summer activities into spring since we’ll be in Dublin for most of the summer. Naturally that include a quick trip to Como Zoo. Sadly, the polar bears have been moved to Detroit while their St Paul homes are being refurbished. And then the puffins were asleep. So those are my favorite things at Como – but that was OK.

It was just nice to be outside and we got to see some baby animals. That’s the advantage of going in the spring.

We did not win any awards through the Pioneer Press contest but  today we dropped off our Peeps Dioramas for display at the Artist Mercantile, it’s a cute shop in the Hamm Building in downtown St Paul. We were so excited to have a place for our materpieces!

Plus I overheard another shopper say nice things about our work!