October 28th marks my Dad’s birthday, which just so happens to be the day of my blog post!! So, this one goes out to him!
To start off, I have the best dad ever. I know, I know, almost all daughters like to think that they have the best dad’s, but mine is pretty darn hard to beat! I honestly don’t know what my family and I would do without him. He is an unbelievably hard worker, he’s selfless, caring, smart, generous…the list goes on and on! I take after him in a lot of ways, one way being my complete left-handedness (go lefties!). My dad was also an outstanding athlete throughout high school and college in every sport he played – basketball, football, baseball…you name it, he was probably great at it! He was even drafted to play for the NY Yankees back in the day! Unfortunately, he blew his knee out in a game and ended up having multiple surgeries and screws put in place. However, through all of that adversity, he managed to persevere and create a successful life for himself. He served as a firefighter and was a great beer salesman for some time…oh and then he decided to go to Med school, passed his boards, and now works as a nurse in the Veteran’s Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. Sooo I’d say I have a pretty AWESOME Dad! He will go out of his way to do anything for us and always makes sure we are comfortable wherever we are in the world. I definitely wish I was home to celebrate with him and make him his birthday dessert, but I’ll have to leave that up to my Mom and little sister, Leah…(sorry, Dad!).
So, Dad – I hope you have a great, RELAXING birthday with a nice glass of your favourite Bourbon and a good cigar! I miss you (and the rest of the fam, of course) so much and can’t wait till you travel across the pond to visit me!
I can’t believe Halloween is THIS WEEK already…time is flying by! My national team does not have a game until November 9th, so we’ve had some time to ourselves this past weekend. On Saturday, Kaylee and I had the house pretty much all to ourselves since the boys were playing away in Limerick and our French housemates were travelling. So, we took the opportunity to have a nice girls’ day and relax a bit. We had breakfast at the Honey Pot, a little café in town that has AMAZING pancakes! (Okay it wasn’t a complete girls’ day since Andy joined us before heading to Limerick for the game…and Manny was supposed to join but didn’t make it out of bed in time🤦🏻♀️). Anyway, we enjoyed a nice breakfast and then tried to figure out something fun we could do. With Halloween only days away, we decided to head to Lidl (a nice little grocery store by us) and buy some pumpkins to carve (see our results below!)
Now, please keep in mind – I am writing this blog on Saturday so I will fill in the details on this in the following weeks!
The Gaelic 4 Mothers & Others team invited me to travel with them to their match on Sunday and are letting me play, too! I am super excited, but there’s a catch…Eamonn and Brian won’t tell us where we are going! All I know is, it’s going to be great craic! I am really looking forward to it and grateful for the opportunity to join them – the adventure awaits!
Traveler Tip #13
Another grocery store tip for you – for some reason, a zucchini is called a “courgette” and eggplants are called “aubergines” here…don’t ask me why, I have no idea! But I guess that will be my next research task😉
Until next time!
-Dana D.
