Kurt's here!

A couple of days after Stacey left Kurt came to visit for two weeks! It was sooooo good to see him after 4 months of not!! He was here over Christmas and New Years too. We spent Christmas in Dublin and then rented a car and drove around Ireland...lots of things were closed to the whole weekend so we picked the scenic drives of the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry. We also toured a few castles and stopped by some historic sites as we passed them. It was really nice to have him here. We lucked out and had some sunny days, but the pictures are deceiving...it was FREEZING! Finally we took a one hour flight to Edinburgh Scotland for their Hogmanay New Years festival! My friend Anna came and met us from France too. More on that on a later entry. Here are some pics from when Kurt was here:


Some Christmas decorations on the pubs in Temple Bar in Dublin. They went all out. The whole city was really beautiful for the season.

Kurt's first Guiness in Ireland...only took us 4 days or something to get him one :)

We found some reindeer in Phoenix park!

Spanish santa band in Dublin

King John's Castle in Limerick. We spent Christmas night in Limerick at a hotel. The lady there hooked us up with a superior suite for no extra cost!

Random castle on the way to Kilarney from Limerick

We happened upon a parade in the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula! Turns out that on the day after Christmas (St. Stephen's Day) they celebrate "Wren's Day" here...get all dressed up and harrass people for money (we figured for beer since they were all pretty wasted!) It was pretty funny. We had lunch in a pub and they would come through all the pubs and collect money from the people in there.

On the scenic drive around Dingle Peninsula. It was beautiful! This place must be mad busy in the summer!

Dingle Peninsula

On our drive we got to witness a sheep dog rounding up the flock! It was so well trained...it rounded up the flock then laid down in the distance (you can see it in the pic).

After taking the drive around the peninsula we decided to stay the night in Dingle. It is such a cute little town. Everyone speaks Irish there too!

The next day we took off for another sightseeing drive. This time around the Ring of Kerry. It was soooo pretty! This pic is probably my favorite from all of them!

Self timer set in the grass. Turned out pretty cool!

Just a shot of the Irish countryside! Love the quilt :)

the lakes of Kilarney

Ross Castle near Kilarney at sunset!

We stayed the night in Cork. This is a cathedral in Cork that Kurt really loved.

Kurt wanted to go to Blarney...so here we are!

I thought this was a neat shot of the shadow of Blarney. One thing that was cool that I got to do on my second visit was check out the tunnels underneath the castle! There supposedly were tunnels for quick escape and whatnot that you can crawl around in. Creepy!

More from when my friends were here

These pics are from when Lizard and Stacey were here a few weeks ago...found some time to do some updating!


This is the girls at the Cliffs of Moher. I hopped the fence and hiked down to the side for this one!

On the way back from the cliffs we stopped by the Bunratty Castle and folk village. It was super cute. There was a santa's village set up too, but I'm planning on putting together a Christmas in Ireland section so those pics will come later!

Lizard found this sick hat at the gift shop at the castle. Two asses here?

Here's the Bunratty Castle. It was all decorated inside with authentic furniture and such from hundreds o years ago! Unfortunately no photography was allowed inside. We all picked a house to be "ours" at the village, and naturally I chose this one!

The Cliffs of Moher

me and Lizard peeking over the cliff. It was pretty freaky. We crawled on all fours to get out there. These pics really do no justice to show how incredibly high up the cliffs are!

Some helpful signs at the cliffs....

We stopped at the beach, Old Head, north of Galway. It was really beautiful with the snow capped mountains in the background. Stacey made her mark there in the sand!