the cliffs of moher.

the cliffs of moher, of course.

against my mother's will, i climbed over the wall so i could
crawl to the edge to get some cool pictures.

at the cliff's edge!

although my mother was totally against me crawling to the
edge, she seemed to document every part of it. i was just so
confused! one second i heard, "get back here bridget!" and the
next i heard, "ok, now smile!" haha.

on the way back to limerick, i spotted this well. so,
clearly this was a photo-op.

"miss houck's parents came to visit!"

not a huge fan of the picture but this is my cooperating
teacher, aine & myself.

michael & cormac.

hugo, jody & luke r.

fionn, robert g., jonathan & robert n.

mj, peter (in the bkgd) & robert g.
**a few of the boys remembered that it was my dad's
birthday earlier in the week, so a few of them made cards.
robert's said, "happy birthday mr. houck. i hope you have a
good birthday. do you like barack obama?" also, all of the cards
had american flags on them.**

patrick, tom & ciaran.

luke d., oscar & freddie.

because of the weather, six boys were absent.
front row: robert, freddie, mj, tom, patrick, hugo,
jody, luke & jonathan.
back row: oscar, fionn, robert, peter, luke, morgan,
ciaran, cormac & michael.

my staff room.

haha, my mom gets a little too camera happy sometimes.
this is me getting ready to take the DART. oh, mom.

a true irish pub experience.

what started off as a normal evening turned out to be one
of the most fun nights i've had here in dublin. my parents
and i went to dinner in the temple bar area. after dinner, we
decided to go to the bar and listen to live irish music (which was
really good!). this is when my dad met his two new best
friends: darrin and derek? well, in true irish fashion, they
bought us all drinks and one of them serenaded me. though, i'm not
sure if you could count it as serenading bc it really was just a
slurring of words to a tune. long story short, my dad made new
friends and we had a true irish pub experience.

a willow wonderland.

now, most of you who are reading this/looking at these pictures
are probably wondering, "why is she dedicating a whole post to a
little bit of snow? we're from buffalo!" well, this was the most snow
that dublin has seen since 1987. my students had never seen snow
like that before and i figured i'd document it. it was so cute how
excited all of them were. one of the pictures is of the vice-principal
having a snowball fight with the fifth form boys. the last picture
is from my walk home from school.

guiness factory!

my parents and i were able to go to the guiness factory when
they came to visit. i had been to the guiness factory before but
this time i was actually able to drink the free glass of guiness.
needless to say, i was thrilled!

trinity college.

deb & don came to visit!

my parents came to visit me in dublin! it was my dad's
59th birthday the day they arrived & we went out to
celebrate that night at milano's.