So it begins. I got to work early so that I could leave and make it home before anyone got too crazy on the roads. Turned out it wasn't too crazy, unless you were at the grocery store.

And there's the minivan once the snow really got going.

Poor Saint Francis, buried again.

Our ruler only measured between 16-20 inches, depending on the spot, which I think is less than the December snow. The difference is that this one came mostly overnight, so I had to shovel it all at once, rather than a couple of inches at a time.

That pile at the end of the driveway will be seen again. That's how big it was after clearing just the very end of the driveway, about two shovels width worth of snow. It is as tall as me now.

Eventually the snow drove us back indoors, where we made a cardboard fort.

Scenes from the backyard.

Evan tried to help out a little bit, but ended up throwing the snow on himself more than anything.

At the sledding hill. The sled paths were good, but getting back up was a slog.

One of the cul de sacs near the school had been plowed, and the neighborhood kids made good use of the gigantic mountains of snow.

Where's Brian?

Building this awesome snow fort, that's where! All that snow I piled up from shoveling the driveway was the perfect starting point for tunneling out a huge snow fort. Our whole family could fit in there, but hopefully we won't need to.

Well, that's about all I have for now. The next snowstorm should be here in about two hours. Oh the humanity!

The snow was just beginning.

Ellie, Claire (Ellie's friend) and I waited in the snow (while Evan and Lisa were in a zoo class about monkeys) for the official opening of the farewell celebration. Why?

Giant stuffed panda! Free!

Tai Shan checks out his farewell "cake" and knocks it over trying to reach the apple on top, much to the delight of the onlookers. Alas, due to the snow, the zoo closed early, and we packed the frozen kids back into the van for the traffic-choked hour and a half drive home. Goodbye, Butterstick! We'll miss you!

The striped kids, ready to open presents on Christmas Eve!

Let the carnage begin!

Evan only got a toy motorcycle on Christmas Eve, Santa brought his "real" red motorcycle for Christmas. Ellie was happier than this picture indicates to get Barbies, and also got to bring home Mom's old Barbie clothes collection.

Evan checking out the tires on his motorcycle.

Ellie putting together her Playmobil fairy garden. Oh, the tiny pieces, how I loathe thee!

Up at Greenfield Village for their holiday nights, including a quick spin in the Model T.

Who's the weirdo? The guy with the crazy mask and getup, or the guy with the kid on his shoulders?

We were very glad there were bonfires scattered around the village. It was an extremely cold night!

On the way to the hockey game, Evan clutches to his favorite presents: hockey sticks, and his "trolley truck," a VW bus.

Having fun at the hockey game. Evan got a real hockey puck, and a toy zamboni! And best of all, MSU won 10-1!

Scenes from our annual Chuck E Cheese New Year's party.

Watching the ball come down in New York.

Confirmation, via the clock on the wall in the background, that the kids did in fact stay up until midnight.

Evan enjoyed eating the jam straight with a spoon.

And Ellie had a cookie as big as her head!
It was a bit of an adjustment going from the countryside to a big city, but at least I wasn't driving any more. We had trouble figuring out the bus system, so we ended up walking and taking the tram most places.

The Spire of Dublin, with requisite dudes wearing pint glass ads for a restaurant walking in the foreground.

St. Stephen's Green, which also had a cool playground.

This is who I want to be when I grow up (minus the pipe). The old dude reading his newspaper at the pub with a pint.

Zebras? Of course, at the zoo! (and giraffes, and hippos, and lions, etc)

We learned about the Dublin of the Vikings at Dublinia.

All the modes of transportation that kept Evan's attention: double decker buses, trams, and most importantly, the street sweeper! We seriously had to buy him his own toy street sweeper after this trip.

A few other scenes from Dublin: Bewley's tea shop, MaGuire's master brewers, Leo Burdock's fish and chips, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christchurch Cathedral.

And finally, the great pilgrimage.

I found the memorabilia section fascinating. (The rest of the tour was Disney-fied: mostly TV demonstrations, no views of "real" brewing.) The Guinness harp, various can designs, the Guinness toucan.

The kids admiring the view from the Gravity Bar at the top of the Guinness Storehouse.

The pint at the top of the Gravity Bar. Perfect.
I hope you all enjoyed the recap of our whirlwind tour of Ireland, and sorry it took so long in arriving. Now I just have to get around to those Christmas pictures. I'll have something up by summer, hopefully.

The castle, and its pool, which used to be heated.

Lisa was ready to move in to the master gardener's cottage.

Just a small fraction of the gardens at Glenveagh.
We continued on for our quick one night at the fancy Carlton Redcastle hotel (with indoor pool!), and then took the Foyle ferry over to the North.

The sea was decidedly calmer in this area.

After a quick stop at Mussenden Temple (built right on the cliff's edge, of course), it was on to the Giant's Causeway. We took the little train that ran from Bushmill's to the Causeway, and Evan had a blast, of course.

Shane, the engine. Not Thomas.

The visitor center for the Causeway is at the top of the hill, and of course they have shuttle bus to take you to the big deal. We decided to walk down instead and take in the scenery.

The Giant's Causeway is this crazy formation of volcanic basalt columns. The tops of the columns look like giant steps leading down from the cliffs, and were formed 50-60 million years ago by ancient volcanic eruptions. Crazy.

Climbing up the columns.

For some reason, I thought there would be a way down on this side. Not so much.

I had to leave Ellie at the top and lead them down one at a time. It was steep!

The next day we took a tour of the Bushmills Distillery. They didn't allow pictures inside, so this is all you get. After a side trip to a seaside playground and some ice cream, we headed out to Cushendall, a well known fairy stomping ground.

Ellie wore her fairy shirt at tea time to get in the mood.

This double rainbow was just one of seven we saw that day. Something was definitely afoot.

Near the ruins of Layd Church, Ellie discovered...

the fairies had left her a gift of special fairy dust! She was pretty excited.
We got a little lost in Glenariff Forest Park on the way back to our B&B, but eventually made it back after a long and scenic side trip. Next, it was on to our last stop, Dublin!

Here's the best view from a B&B that we had our whole trip, the beautiful Lough Eske there, complete with sheep noises drifting across from the neighbors (surprisingly little smell though).

Our cozy room.

Ardeevin Guest House, from the outside.
From Donegal, it's a short drive over to Northern Ireland and the home of Belleek Pottery and China. Amazingly enough, we managed to keep both kids from breaking anything, though there were a few close calls. After buying a bunch of china (conveniently packaged and shipped to your home direct from the factory store!), we headed down the road to Enniskillen, stronghold of the Maguires, my mother's side of the family.

Maguire Castle, which we fully expect to inherit one of these days....

The kids particularly enjoyed the Easter themed "duck hunt" the castle ran. They had to find all the ducks hidden in the displays and write down all their names while Lisa and I tried to actually learn something about the ancestors.

One of the many times we stopped for tea, this time at The Sheelin in Ballanaleck. Irish place names are so fun to say. Ballanaleck.

Back in Donegal, we visited the Franciscan Friary ruins. Plenty of "fairy gardening" going on here, much to Ellie's delight.

Killybegs is a real working fishing town up the coast of Donegal Bay.

We were on our way to see Slieve League and took some pictures along the long hike up the road.

The Giant's chair and table at the bottom.

Just show this picture to anyone who thinks Ireland just has hills of green. Slieve League is 3 times higher than the Cliffs of Moher, and truly an amazing sight.

There is no better way to immerse yourself in Ireland than to go to a hurling match. That's hurling, played on grass with a small ball and sticks, not curling, with ice and rocks. Just make sure you bring cash, they don't take credit cards.

Just like the hockey games back home, they had pee wee hurling at halftime.

PJ Flaherty's, such a friendly place. They set me up at the end of the bar with a great view of the basketball game, right next to the loudmouth from New England. Many pints consumed that night.

After some shopping and a few other detours into the countryside, we headed up to Donegal.  Along the way, we had to stop at Westport House, home of Ellie's middle namesake, Grace O'Malley, aka the Pirate Queen.

Another beautiful place.

Grace O'Malley, herself.

Westport is also home to the Pirate Adventure park, featuring a miniature train, and the "Cannonball Run" slides. Those slides were good for a solid hour of entertainment.

Donegal was a bit of a drive from there, but the scenery, including Croagh Patrick was stunning.

After the long flight across the Atlantic, the kids munch on, what else? Chocolate croissants. We still had another quick flight over to Shannon to begin our horseshoe tour of the island, up the west coast, across into Northern Ireland, and finally south to finish in Dublin.

After landing in Shannon, we picked up our manual shift Volvo S60. The interior was plastered with stickers everywhere to remind you to drive on the left, as if the steering wheel being on the opposite side wasn't reminder enough. I'm proud to say that, aside from the minor mirror rub, I did pretty dang well driving on the wrong side of the road. The harder part was using the left hand to shift gears!

A dad and his son. Dad secretly holding son for dear life. Reason? See that little sign in the lower right hand corner?

Beautiful, but don't get too close to the edge of the Cliffs of Moher.

Gus O'Connor's, location of the first of many pints.

The Burren: "place of rocks." Aptly named. The big rock in the second picture is a "giant's football," the first of many references to giants and fairies.

Bunratty castle, again, the first of many to come.

The Poulnabrone Dolmen, a portal tomb in County Clare.

We decided that we should check out the Cliffs of Moher from the water. But that water looks... choppy.

An awesome view!

Do not adjust your monitor, we were in fact pretty green from the chop! The salty captain even gave Lisa a bag, just in case, but luckily it wasn't needed.

That took us to the end of our time in Doolin, County Clare.  Next, it was on to Galway!

When we woke up Saturday morning, there was already a good layer of snow on the ground. In DC, this is about all we usually get from a good snowstorm. This one, however, was just getting underway.

Evan's unique way of "helping": mowing the already plowed path. If only his lawnmower was a snowblower....

Ellie actually did help out with her shovel, for a little while anyway.

You can see how hard it was coming down: once you shoveled one bit, it was quickly covered with more snow.

This was the only depth marking I was able to use the ruler for. We had to move to the yardstick after this.

Yardstick measurement: 17 inches.

Morning measurement: just over 18 inches.

The first of a series of Saint Francis depth photos. You can still see him in this one. (That's called foreshadowing.)

Saint Francis is indeed under there somewhere.

A bit later, we swept the snow away from Saint Francis' face. It was easily over his head.

Here's what our front door looked like at sundown. I didn't shovel that area at all, unlike the driveway, which had already gotten two or three passes.

The house looks so pretty with the Christmas lights and the snow.

Saint Francis is under one of those lumps somewhere the next morning.

How bout that good lookin' driveway? My helpers are ready to play now though.

I keep telling Lisa that I don't let Evan watch pro wrestling, but he must be watching it somewhere.

Dragging the kids to the sledding hill.

Well worn paths make for good sledding.

Ellie sledding.

Evan sledding.

Dad about to go off the jump he made.

Ellie's looking festive.

Ready to get out the door.

Say cheese!

Ellie was obviously ready to go, in spite of the rain. Why does it always have to rain on the first day of school? I guess we shouldn't complain as long as it's nice for outdoor birthday parties.

Evan wasn't too far behind. A little slow, but he'll get used to it.

Crossing the busy street.

The "clique" is ready to terrorize first grade.

She knew right where her seat was, and waved me off after sitting down and immediately started reading her book.

Evan had just said goodbye to Mom when I showed up to take pictures. He was having a tough time. But I brought with me the magic solution: his ever-cheery buddy Abby! He toughened up after seeing her immediately get down to playing with the blocks. Seriously, is she not the cutest? I'd be trying to impress her too!

Obviously he was okay, because when we came to pick him up, this is how we found him: still playing with the toys, no trouble at all.

Walking home after the first day with their ginormous backpacks. Too cute!

Mac and cheese for lunch, post-first day.

A happy reunion at the end of Ellie's first day.