Our Ireland Trip

In honor of St. Patrick's Day on Saturday, I am sharing our summer 2002 trip to Ireland.  Our pictures are all from FILM (this was right before we bought a digital camera), and I haven't scanned the pictures yet, so you'll have to forgive the quality of these photos.  Taking a picture of a picture is always interesting.

The summer before our wedding, Ryan's parents took Ryan and I to Ireland with them, and we met up with Ryan's sister, Katie, who was in Europe traveling already.  Over the years, Ryan and I traveled to many countries, but this was our first big trip together and my first trip to Europe!

We left LAX on Aer Lingus--seriously one of the nicest airlines I have ever flown!  Here we go (me in the back, Ryan pretending to read, and Ryan's mom in the front):

We didn't go up north into Belfast.  We went north on the west coast and worked our way down and around the coast, ending in Dublin.  The trip ended with a few days in London, but that is another whole post and set of pictures.

Our first stop was at Bunratty Castle, where we had pub food at Durty Nelly's.  It was the first of hundreds of castles we would see on our trip.

We stayed in Ennis our first night, at the Temple Gate Hotel.  We loved the cute little town, but we were late in arriving and everything was closed.  Our 9:00 pm dinner was forced to be Chinese food, which I've eaten in almost every country we have visited!

Our Hotel in Ennis (Susan, me, Ryan and Katie)

A funny picture in Ennis

We had a nice all day drive up to Clifden (the farthest north we went on the west coast).  We drove past their famous mountains--the Twelve Pins.  We also stopped at Aughnanure Castle and got a Heritage Pass--a great price saver if you are going to see a lot of the tourist attractions.  The weather was just gorgeous!  I wrote in my journal that an Irish man told us at the end of the day, "That was our summer.  Hope you enjoyed it!"

We stayed at Abbeyglenn Castle in Clifden.  They served us tea and scones when we arrived, and then we went on a walk where we stopped to skip rocks into the Atlantic Ocean.

Aughnanure Castle

Our hotel in Clifden--Abbeyglenn Castle

Tea and scones at the castle hotel

Skipping rocks into the Atlantic Ocean in Clifden

Getting ready to leave the hotel in Clifden

We left Clifden the next morning and drove to Connemara National Park.  We saw a bog museum and did a mini-bog hike.  Just so you know folks, bog is like a swamp/peat.  It stinks.  It is important in the history of Ireland, but I am glad we don't survive off bog now.

We also stopped at Kylemore Abbey and took pictures.  We drove to Doolin for the night, which is near the Cliffs of Moher (we say Moor).  We stayed in a working farm B&B.

The Cliffs of Moher took my breath away--I can't explain how amazing they are!  It was one of the most beautiful spots I have seen--so green and filled with the sheer majesty of God's creation. 

Kylemore Abbey

Cliffs of Moher

We then drove toward Kilarney the next day.  Thankfully, we decided to drive around the Dingle Peninsula.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and we stopped in Dingle for ice cream.  We drove to Slea Head and saw sheer drops, narrow roads and sheep everywhere!  If you are a nervous driver, don't go around the Dingle Peninsula or the Ring of Kerry.  There are some CRAZY spots where only one car can go by at a time.  I witnessed tour buses backing up around winding, sheer drop roads.  Yikes!

In Dingle

We went to Killarney where we were staying.  It was the quintassential Irish town.  The narrow streets were lined with flowers and colorful buildings.  We stayed at the Caraglea B&B, which was really nice.  It was right next to the National Park, which was gorgeous.  While in Killarney, we took a jaunting car around the national park (a horse and carriage is a jaunting car).  We saw the Abbey, the laakes, the Torc Waterfall and Muck Ross House.

We also drove the Ring of Kerry while we were in Killarney.  Like the Dingle Peninsula, their were many ruins of the old huts people owned during the Potato Famine.  They dotted many of the hillsides.  Jim really wanted to go visit a Bog Museum in Glenbeigh called the Kerry Bog Village.  I have already shared my love of bog in this post (ahem).  The highlight of the museum was the huge pile of dung/bog in the middle of the village.  That night we enjoyed going to a touristy shop and trying on silly hats.

The Jaunting Car in Killarney's National Park

The Bog Museum--Ryan is pretending to eat it, and Katie is holding the bog cat we saw.

We had to take this picture, because I am known for stopping at any available restroom when I travel.  You never know when you'll find the next available restroom, right? 

The Kerry Bog Village

We had our first day of rain when we drove away from Killarney.  We were heading to Kinsale--a darling, seaside town.  This was where I discovered that they like malt vinegar on their fries.  I picked up what I thought was a ketchup packet, only to pour malt vinegar all over my fries.  Ummm--not a fan.

We walked to Fort St. Charles from Kinsale.  It was a great fort in the shape of a star.  The walk was beautiful--the path looked like heaven to me.

Cute Irish storefronts

The infamous lunch where I poured malt vinegar all over my fries

Hydrangeas were EVERYWHERE in Ireland.  They are thick and huge there--I had to take a picture of this person's driveway filled with hydrangeas.

We left Kinsale for Dublin.  It was a little over 4 hours to get there, and it was finally really raining on our trip.  We were staying in a hotel near Temple Bar.  We had Boxtys for dinner--little potato crepe like wraps.  They were filled with things like filet mignon, irish stew, or corned beef. 

The next day we toured Dublin Castle.  The word Dublin comes from the Viking word Duv Lin--Dark Pool.  We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and took a hop on/off bus tour of Dublin.  We stopped in Grafton street and shopped.  We also went to Trinity College where we promptly got kicked off the steps where we were sitting and eating lunch.  People don't like you to sit on steps in Europe--I got kicked off similar steps in Italy. 

The BEST part of Dublin was seeing the Books of Kells, the gospel artifacts from the Bible, dating back to the 8th century.

The nicest meal I ever ate was in Dublin.  The last night, we met one of Jim's business friends, who was from Dublin, who treated us to dinner at Shanahan's.  I can't begin to explain the generosity of this man I didn't know.  It was an amazing meal and experience!

Now I look like I'm in Ireland!

A break in the rain and a stop at Trinity College

JP and his wife, from Dublin, took us all out to the nicest dinner I've ever had.  Scrumptious!

So, that is Ireland in a nutshell.  If you ever have thought you'd like to visit there, you should go!  It is such a friendly, beautiful country.  We traveled all over Europe before we had kids, and Ireland was one of my favorite spots.  I hope this little tour of our Ireland trip got you ready for St. Patrick's Day!

Airplane Party

Micah's airplane party was so much fun!  We had about 50 people over for lunch, a glider throwing contest, bounce house time, and cupcakes.  God gave us a day of sunshine--78 degrees in early March! 

As usual, I didn't take the best pictures.  I don't know how people prep, decorate, hostess the party, interact with guests and take fabulous pictures--I haven't discovered how to do that!  You can get the gist of the party, though.  Enjoy!

Dessert table--almost EVERY pictures has our patio cover lines all over them.  Sorry, folks.  I made a backdrop with blue fleece and "clouds".  I made the center cloud into a 3 for the birthday boy.

I made 60 cupcakes and designed a plane cupcake topper on my Silhouette to stick in about half of the cupcakes.

Forget cupcakes next time.  All the kids swarmed the marshmallow lollipops, which were the easiest thing to make EVER.  I used white chocolate to dip onto the end and added sprinkles.

I made 50 boxed airplane lunches.  The cute boxes are from Polka Dot Market.

I picked up croissant sandwiches from Costco and individually wrapped them in wax paper.  I also added a bag of apple slices and a bag of chips.  This required some prep, but serving lunch and cleaning up was SO easy!

Picnic lunches all around the yard

I made a "pin the propellor on the plane" backboard for a game, which also served as a photo op background.

My mom being a good sport

My five year old posing with the pilot's hat we had as a prop.

Around the yard I hung "cloud" bunches of white balloons with cutouts of planes flying under them.

I had a beverage table labeled "jet fuel."  The straws were from Polka Dot Market.  I designed water bottle wrappers that said Micah is 3!  Nearby we also had a blue bucket full of sodas and juice boxes for the kids.

This is a HORRID picture (but at least you can see my large patio cover which slotted all my pictures), but I had traditional paper airplanes folded in orange hanging all over the patio on clear thread.  We had a fun breeze that kept them blowing around throughout the day.

Of course I made a banner in the party colors.  It welcomed people onto the lawn area with the bounce house, swingset and small toddler climber/slide.

I've mentioned this fact on my blog before, but find some friends you trust and go in together for a bounce house.  We went in with two other couples and got this bounce house and have used it too many times to count.  We found ours at Costco.com.

We had a glider throwing contest.  There is the birthday boy in front.  The kids loved this.  I picked up a pack of 75 gliders from Oriental Trading Company, and it was a HIT!

A lot of the dads got in on the fun!

The birthday boy!

The same candle we used for Carter's 3rd birthday.  Aw!

Blowing out his candle . . .

We had some fun balloons from Polka Dot Market.

Entryway right as guests walked in the door.

Goodie bags--2 lollipops, a glider, and a chocolate covered Twinkie.

Chocolate covered Twinkies! 

What a great "flight" we had!  Thanks for sharing our adventures!

I linked up to:

Winner of the Scripture on Canvas Encouragement Giveaway!

Thank you to everyone who joined in sharing someone who has encouraged them.  I was blown away by how detailed and heart felt your comments were.  I PRAY you forward your comment to the person whom you mentioned so they are REALLY encouraged in their Labor for the Lord!

Using random.com, our winner is comment . . . .

TWENTY FIVE!

Not counting a removed comment, this means Alicia won!  Alicia is my crafting, cooking, creative friend from church.  Those of you who know her will smile because Alicia is constantly doing fun giveaways of her scrumptious cupcakes--one each month this year.  Last month she had everyone share their testimony and picked a random winner from the comments on Facebook.  She doesn't have a blog, but she should.  There might be an Etsy shop soon for her . . . yay for us if she does!

Congrats, Alicia!  Congrats, Christa and Beth, her two encouragers who are getting the signs!

Encouragement

    
It is so funny how God encourages us when we encourage others.  Here I had a plan to use my blog and Etsy shop opening to bring attention to those encouragers in our lives, and God heaped a big 'o dollop of grace and blessing into my own day.  Within hours of posting my first Etsy sign, it sold!  It wasn't bought by friends or family either--my first thought when I saw that it had sold--hee, hee.  God is so good!

I love that some of you have written some great notes about encouragers in your life.  If you haven't entered the giveaway and told me about an encourager you admire, go to this post and comment! 

I had a hard time narrowing down an encourager to highlight.  My husband is my number one encourager--always taking time to listen to me "blah, blah, blah" about things I know he would never purposely choose to discuss if it weren't for me in his life.  He is so patient with me.  My mom and dad and in-laws are great encouragers.  They do so much for me through prayer, spending time with my kids, helping us do house projects and loving us in innumerable ways.  Our church family is a tremendous encouragement.  I truly feel that my close friends at church are like family to me--they are my brothers and sisters in Christ! 

However, I have one couple whose story I want to share with my readers specifically.  Michelle (above pic) and her husband are leaders in the marriage ministry we co-lead at our church.  Michelle just had a baby in January.  She has two boys, and this time she had a GIRL!  Yay!

At the end of her pregnancy and right after giving birth, Michelle was having problems with her memory and motor skills.  She couldn't type easily, forgot simple skills, etc.  She chalked a lot of it up to mommy brain, fatigue with her newborn and the craziness of three young kids. 

Finally, Michelle went to the ER with her husband when her headaches started.  They were terrible.  Something wasn't right.  Michelle found out on a Sunday night last month, about a month after having her little girl, that she had a tumor in her brain the size of a baseball.  She had brain surgery that Thursday, where they removed half of the tumor.
                                     
This is a picture of the tumor (the white mass).

She found out that the tumor isn't cancerous just in the last 2 weeks, but she is still suffering from some confusion and her right leg isn't back to normal motor skill.  She will need a second surgery to try and get the rest of the tumor.

This trial has brought out her light to shine for others even more.  Everyone who talks to her says the same thing, "You are such an example to me in this trial!  You have encouraged me with your trust in God and patience with your circumstances." 

Michelle's example has given me an eternal perspective and encouraged me in my walk.  I have realized how much I can impact others for God's glory when I respond to circumstances, and I have been motivated anew to follow the example of Paul  (and Michelle) and be content in all circumstances. 

Thank you, Michelle!  I love you, friend, and I cherish your example and encouragement to be a proper ambassador for Christ!

If you want to read about Michelle's journey and laugh at her CRAZY, AMAZING sense of humor, her blog is Ain't No Supermom.

Don't forget to tell me about your encourager here.  You could win a handpainted scripture sign for yourself and your encourager!

First Etsy Shop Listing and First Giveaway!

Well, I have just listed my first Etsy shop listing!  It is in the picture above, and you can get details here.

In order to celebrate my first listing, I am going to host a giveaway of TWO Bible verse canvas pieces.  My pastor has been teaching us about encouragement from Romans, and I was pondering how I could better encourage others through this crafting I like to do.  I often give crafts away as gifts, but I wanted to specifically tie this giveaway into a way to both recognize and give encouragement.

SO, leave a comment below and let me know about someone you know who is a great encourager.  Share with us all how that person encourages you or others and the impact they have had on others.  IF your comment is randomly selected, you and the person you are sharing as an encourager will each receive a handmade scripture canvas. 

For you, an 8 by 10 inch canvas of I Peter 5:7 in saddle brown with black lettering:

For the encourager you mention, an 8 by 10 canvas of I Corinthians 13:13 in classic gray with white lettering:

Rules:

1.  You don't have to follow me on my blog or Facebook.  If you like the blog and want to do so, that is great, but it isn't required.

2.  You and your encourager example must live in the United States in order to qualify for the giveaways (shipping reasons).  You must know your encourager's address info if you win so I can ship to them too!

3.  The contest will last through Wed., March 7th at noon, PST.

4.  Only one entry per person.

5.  The winner will be randomly selected by number.

6.  If you win, you will be contacted for shipping information.  If you anonymously comment or are a "no-reply" blogger, make sure I have your name and e-mail!  If I have no way to contact you, I will have to pick another winner.  Super sad!

7.  Be encouraged in the body of Christ and how we can show practical love to one another by all the examples you can read in the comments!  Enjoy!