may day and hayley

Last Monday we celebrated May Day.  We really have no idea what exactly May Day is other than it is a bank holiday which means everyone is off school and work.  We think it is similar to Labor Day.  We loved it.  I think it might be my new favorite holiday.  The weather was amazing!  It actually was incredible for most of last week.  Even the 'not so great' days were great.  The days do warm up over here believe it or not, though we usually still wear jackets on the 'warm' days.  But this week we were all wearing t-shirts and flip flops!  

We celebrated May Day with Hayley and Paul at People's Park, one of our favorite places in Ballymena.  We had a picnic, played frisbee and made daisy chains.  Dwight made his first ever daisy chain after learning several different methods.  Erin and John rescued the frisbee from beyond the fence a couple times.

We also said good-bye to our dearest friend Hayley this week.  Hayley was the first person we met when we moved to Ballymena last summer.  She was our next door neighbor for a while and we quickly became friends after I walked into her house without knocking a few times.  She took us to Belfast to explore caves, to Downpatrick and Newcastle.  She taught us to play scrabble and then we quickly learned a new meaning to the term 'competitive.'  She opened her home to us and became part of our family.  She even let me have a party in her house one night while she was upstairs on the phone.  And no matter how mean the boys were to Kat the cat, she always let us back in.*

She is beginning an adventure...she left Dublin at 12:30 am last night to visit a friend in Estonia for a few weeks.  There is talk of a European road trip as she makes her way to France to find a job teaching English or writing.  I am a little jealous.  I'd never heard of Estonia and kind of want to go there now.  We love her and can not wait to hear about her travels.  I personally think she is going to be the female Bill Bryson. 

Check out her blog:  http://coffeehelps.wordpress.com

* If anyone reading this would like a cat, Kat still needs a home.