Driving North

When planning a trip abroad it is very important to check that your passports and drivers licenses are not expired.  The first part of that I remembered, but the second part not so much.  In the morning we once again dragged kids, car seats, and luggage onto a city bus to head back to the airport and pick up our rental car.  At the counter the woman asked if I had an extension for my license.  I thought she was asking about something to do with taking the car into Northern Ireland.  I then realized that my drivers license would be expiring on my birthday.  I luckily held it together enough that I didn’t throw up or pass out.  I chose the much more respectable option of swearing and crying.  The kind woman at the car rental place said she’d just put Dan on for the days after my birthday, which made me feel not at all better.  I am not a good passenger.  I am a huge control freak and when other people drive it makes me tense at best.  I guess it served me right that I purposefully rented a stick shift so only I could drive.  Between the fiasco with my license and learning to drive on a different side of the road it was sort of a stressful trip north, but we made it. 
Our cottage in the north was rustic.  The whole place was probably the size of my living room, but since we weren’t in Ireland to sit in a rental house that was fine.  We were at the top of a road leading down to Ballintoy Harbor.  We were surrounded by sheep and green hills.  You can’t ask for much more.  The Buschmills factory was just down the hill, but sadly the girls weren’t allowed on that tour so we had to skip it. 

Pesky kids kept us from being able to do the tour of the distillery.  Luckily they didn't prevent us from drinking some Buschmills at home.

These eggs were on the side of every bus in Dublin.  We finally tried some on our trip to the Spar in Buschmills.

A little perspective on the size of our rental.  Later you'll notice jail cells are slightly bigger.

This is how we ate for two weeks.  All the walking in the world won't balance potatoes fried in lovely Irish butter.

Adorable cottage that was slightly smaller than a garage.  We really didn't need more though.

New baby lambs right behind us.