All my bags are packed I'm ready to go...

Well, I'm leaving on a jet plane in the morning and am very excited to be heading back to the states. I'm very excited but it seems a bit strange that I'll be "home" (Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville, & Greeley) so soon. I hadn't planned on going home at all, but when Rob Reeve gets married-well, I have to be there for that. So, you can thank or blame him for my coming back stateside for a whirlwind trip. So looking forward to seeing everyone there! Yeah!

I just had a lovely week with Christina here. Here we are having a pint in Dolans on a Saturday night (that's Charlene next to me). We went back to Dolans on Sunday for more music since on Saturday night the tunes were lovely you just couldn't hear anything. It's a lovely low key place every night of the week then Friday and Saturday you can hardly get into the door. It's a lovely pub. We're actually just home from there. Blayne plays in the Tuesday night session there.



Christina and I headed all over the south of this island and saw some amazing old abbeys-at least 4 of them dating from the 1100s to the 1300s. These two shots are from Jerpoint Abbey in County Killkenny. It is such a beautfiul place and the carving that I have the closeup shot of is on the base of a tomb in the main cathedral ruin. It is so incredible to ponder the history of these places. The church often had buildings on the land dating back as far as 600-pre-viking, pre-norse, pre-acendency. It boogles my mind how much has transpired in human history on this little island.

Had to stick this photo in. When Blayne was in the states I drove my friend Becky and her sister up to county Mayo and Sligo and Donegal. Blayne had the camera with him, so I had to wait for pics from her. This is the sunset over the sea in Westport. It was a stunning evening. Hopefully Blayne and I will get up there at some point. We have a friend who lives on one of the islands in the distance who we're hoping to stay with.

I really should be getting to bed sometime in the near future. There's a long day ahead for me tomorrow. And I have the joy of an extra hour time difference right now since Europe changed their clocks this past Sunday. Then I have the joy of losing that hour AGAIN while in the states. I know, poor, poor me. Enough rambling. See some of you very soon!! To the rest of you, much love from Ireland.

Sneaky, Sneaky

Well, this is a few days late in coming. Christina is here now and we celebrated her birthday by going to Blarney Castle (she kissed the stone) and Cahir Castle, by having dinner at some of our friends' house and to Kilfenora for a lovely session. We're off tomorrow to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher.

I have to tell the tale of last weeks visitors. Jen was here for about 10 days and her boyfriend Eric conspired with us to surprise her while she was here. That had been in the works since December. Well, 4 days before Jen arrived I get an email that says he wants to propose as soon as he sees her here and asks for some help on this end. So, I set off on a quest for a castle to be the setting of this romantic moment. I settle on the ruin of Rossmanagher castle in the hills of county Clare only 10 minutes from the airport and fully in the middle of nowhere.


So Jen arrives and we are having a lovely time for 4 days. We talk a good deal about her & Eric and I censor every word out of my mouth so that I don't accidently let on that he's coming or that he has every intention of "committing" to this relationship. So, Tuesday rolls around and Eric's flight is due that afternoon. After a nice hike in the Burren and a scenic day, Jen is exhausted but I drag her to just "one more place... a cool castle ruin" before we "meet Blayne and Lori for dinner". We pull up the road and Jen says "I guess we have to go inside". I'm skipping down the road to the castle and being silly. Jen had NO idea what awaited, which is just glorious because she's so hard to surprise.

I walked inside first and said she should come check this out... it's really pretty... someone lit candles. She walks in and sees some guy in the corner and thinks we're interrupting a proposal and keeps on walking. Eric finally gets her to stop as he talks to her and it slowly dawns on her that its him, not just "some guy". So I take a picture of the sunset outside while Jen is freaking out, crying and saying yes inside. The next few days were spent with many moments where Jen would recall our conversations before he got here and exclaim, "you knew!! and you didn't let on!" She pretended to be mad at me, but I'm pretty sure she'll forgive me.

So, its in the works. JenEric are gonna tie the knot. It's pretty exciting stuff I must say. I'm pretty happy for my friends and glad I could play a part in what is about the most romantic proposal I've ever heard of. Well, I'm off to the doctor now-I've been sick for over a month now, so I'm guessing that I need some meds to get rid of it. I'm going to be home next week and I can't be sick for all that! Looking forward to seeing lots of you very very soon. I'll be in Nashville Thursday night through Sunday morning and then Greeley Sunday to Tuesday. Yipee! Very excited to be back on that side of the pond for a bit.

Worst Blogger EVER

Hi everyone! We are actually still alive here in Ireland. My computer had some major issues, though they are finally sorted! Now my only excuse has been that we've had so many visitors one right after another. I haven't been able to get all of the Europe pics on my computer yet, so I'll hold off on the update from our trip and just give updates from life since we got back.

Well, first off my brother, David and his wife, Red were here for a week in February. We had a lovely time tromping all over the southwest corner of Ireland. Cork, Kinsale, and the Breara, Iveragh and Dingle Peninsulas. All the pictures I took with them I had my camera in some wacky format (I know, how typical can you get?), so i have no pics of their time here. It was fun to have them here just kicking around Limerick too.

Blayne was in Colorado for a week tying up some loose ends with our building there and getting things set up for some big improvements on Whistle and Drum. While he was away I hosted a party at our place for our friend Pat. It was a night of great hilarity. Pat wanted Mexican food, so we did tacos and Dee was kind enough to give me her AMAZING salsa recipe which I made (it was only a shadow of the real thing, but was still pretty good). We had a pinata (which is what's pictured on pat's head and also a wig, of course) and all sorts of silliness before heading out for a night of dancing on the town. These are the folks we're hanging out with lots these days (from left to right, Norah, Pat, Sarah, Ailie, Becky & Adrain from Spain on the top row). Very fun stuff.

Next Melody came for a week. Here we are in Dublin in a pub listening to some lovely tunes. The publican entertained us with tales of his travels. We went to Guinness, Grafton Street, Trinity College, the Jameson Distillery, St. Stephen's Green, & St. Patrick's cathedral (which you could put about 6 of our st. pats in). We were out and about listening to tunes almost every night. After Dublin we headed south to Killiney and that gate I'm stading in front of is a place that I would probably never have gone except that Melody inspired me to be a geeky fan...yep, that's the gate to Bono's house. We listened to U2 all day long and had such fun. It was brilliant! The next shot is us at the base of Blarney Castle, Mel kissed the Blarney stone, and I'd done that a couple of years ago and figured I already talk enough as it is.

Jen is in town now and she needed to catch up on Darcy's blog (there's a new update-you should check it out), so I had to break the pattern and finally put something down. Sorry I've been such a terrible blogger, I will try to be better, but the guests will just keep coming from now own. I think we have only about 3 weeks here alone in the next 3 months. We're making up for a quiet autumn.