We were at Trinity College in Dublin this morning when J suddenly decided she wanted to start walking. On cobblestones, no less. She normally walks while keeping a death-grip on our finger, but this morning she wanted nothing to do with holding my hand. I'm not sure if she was just fascinated by the cobblestones, or if she just wanted to try out her new legs.

The quality of this video is bad because I tried to combine four clips into one. Didn't work too well, but I figure one poor quality 1-minute video is better than four good quality 15-second videos.

A. was telling me that she couldn't plan our outings in Dublin until after we had passed through the "Great Trial" (otherwise known as the 7 hour plane ride with a teething one year old). It wasn't all that bad. I didn't get a lick of sleep, and A. didn't get much at all either. We took a 3 hour nap once we got to our apartment. I feel pretty good considering that's all the sleep I've had in 48 hours.

Our taxi ride from the airport was, as A. described it, "like something out of an Irish theme park." The elderly driver described the history of everything that we passed ("Dublin's walls were built in 40 A.D", "This graveyard has those towers because they had to keep the medical school students from snatching bodies", etc). He stressed that we should make sure we look to our left when we cross the street, since he lost his brother to a pedestrian accident in Spain because he looked the wrong way. (I've already caught myself doing this once or twice.) We told him that we had read up on Irish history, so he recommended that we visit the Famine Museum near our apartment and see Michael Collins. He didn't seem to think that The Wind That Shakes The Barley counted much for "Irish history."

We walked around Dublin this afternoon, more to get our bearings than to see anything specific. The side streets are very small, as I suppose is true for most European cities. I expected at least one or two skyscrapers, but I saw absolutely none. I wonder if it's from a lack of suitable bedrock, for zoning, or some other reason.

I'm highly annoyed that the US dollar has been dropping against the euro as of late, since that means the trip will cost more. Still, it's worth every penny. I'd much rather spend our money on traveling than cable television, sports paraphernalia, or pretty much anything else save food.

I can't wait to continue exploring Dublin. I'm going to Open Coffee Dublin on Thursday (OC is a discussion group for web-based startups, I am attempting to start one in Nashville).

Brian asked me what I want to see when we get there. I told him I haven't thought about it much. "Why?" Because I can't think much past the 8 hour flight. Case in point:

I'm trying to remind myself this is only one bad night. Just one. It's going to be okay. LET'S DO THIS THING.

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J turned 1 on the 15th! We didn't do much for her birthday the day of, but I did have a party for her the following Friday. We invited a few friends and had a great evening at Centennial Park. We had such a good time that we completely forgot about the camera... Not one photo! I could have saved myself the stress and just lied to her down the road. Ha! Actually, it wasn't stressful at all. We had Korean tacos, sat on blankets, and chatted it up with our "Nashville family." It was a sweet moment knowing that in one year we've been blessed with some great friends and really enjoy living here. Nashville is definitely home now.

Here are a few more photos from the past few weeks:

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Opening her present from Juju and Papaw! ("Wait a minute! Socks?!!? Aw, man!")

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"Whoa, what is that thing, mom?!?!"

Always playing games now.

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Our friend from our NYC days Lydia has been introducing J to the world of Sesame Street. We've never shown her TV so this was totally new and she dug it. For about 5 minutes. But she would still bop along to the music even across the room. Cute.

Lydia is staying with us the until we leave for our trip and then house/dog-sitting for us in October. It's been great having her here. We've gone running together, dumpster-diving, and attending wild estate auctions. Highly amusing. September has been a good month. Next month, Ireland!

Now that the weather has significantly cooled off on most days, we've taken J to the public playgrounds. She loves them and will try anything. She never gets upset but she will have a look  disappointment at how soon the fun on the slides ends. Another life lesson learned early: thrills are quick!

I take her to the park often since a friend and I are regularly running together now in the mornings. And another friend of mine likes to meet up for playdates. J is good friends with this little lady below. I sent this photo to her mom for fun.

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And a few more park photos because I can.

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And back up for more!

I will post some more photos soon from the last month or two. It's been busy around here lately!

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So if you get any strange text messages from me...

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Sitting still with B for about 10 seconds until:

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The lure of the forbidden calls.

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Yes!

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I love these two. I love spending every minute with them. I'm a lucky lady.