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!