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Halfway through our eight-day trip, John and I were laying on the bed in our tiny apartment on the Aran Islands.  I was cuddled up to him with my arm around his waist, and I asked him, "John, how do be the people we are now when we get home? How do we keep the magic alive?" One of the reasons I love attending the temple regularly is because I've discovered who my "real" self is there.  When I get away from the stresses of life and the temptations and fallacies of the Devil, I discover that I really like myself ;-)  I'm a happy, smiley, service-oriented person.  And for John and me, we had a lot of those same feelings in Ireland.   The night before we hopped back on the plane to return home, we were a mess.  We were so depressed about what awaited us at home--work, church callings, the animals, money issues, practicing for music gigs, John leaving for Pennsylvania just two days later. But more than that, there was a sadness about leaving the idyllic life beh...

So, one place I really wanted to visit in Ireland while we were here is a place called Newgrange Monument.  The name does not do it justice.  It is actually a 5200 year old passage tomb in an area of Ireland with several large passage tombs called Brù na Boínne.  We visited here once in the past and I have always had a special place in my heart for this place.  Why you might ask?  Well I will tell you.   A passage tomb is a giant mound of earth covering a giant mound of smaller irregular stones covering a passage that leads from the outside of the mound into the center where there is a chamber.  In the case of New Grange, the mound is 85 meters wide, 15 meters high and there are two passages into the mound.  One is a cruciform shaped passage and the inner chamber is a cross shaped chamber with a ceiling that is about 15 feet high.  I don't know what it is about this place that gets me, but for some reason I feel the spirit when I am here. ...

 Hello All, We have been in Ireland now for 6 days and it has been a wonderful trip.  Mommy asked that I write a post about some of the things I did on my runs through the countryside, and since she planned this trip with me in mind and since I have been wanting to go to Ireland for years, especially since I went through my terrible time, I am glad to do it. Literally, since my terrible time, I have wanted to go on a trip to Ireland.   Going there has been on the top of my list of things I would like to do to feel peace and see some natural and ancient beauty and this trip we have taken has been exactly what I was hoping for.   What have we done you might ask...what have we not done?  We got off the plane in Dublin and since it was an all night flight we went to our hotel, called the Ariel House Hotel.  it was right down the street from a rugby stadium that had a match at 3:30 pm and we were arriving at around 12.  Since I had had a pretty good rest on...

We spent four days and three nights in the Aran Islands.  I had always wanted to visit the islands as a thing to "do", but I really had no idea what to expect.  The more I read about them, the more I figured John would love them.  I looked for a hotel, but the ones that still had availability looked pretty sad, so I decided to check for rentals.  I found one that said it was "away" from the craziness of the town. We grabbed a ferry Tuesday morning and quickly fell asleep for the 90 minute ride.  Our AirBnB host had told me that I didn't really need to do anything but just get a bike once we arrived on island.  However, we had luggage.  She then said (using "ye" anytime she wrote anything to me ;-)) that I could hop on a tour bus, have them drop me off at the cottage and then have our bikes delivered.  Sounded complicated, but we're pretty good at doing complicated ;-) However, once we landed, a bike guy, standing at the end of the dock, told us th...

Continuing our "cool" vacation, we woke up Monday morning, still in Trim.  Our breakfast was lackluster, but John didn't care--he was eager to get outside and RUN!  Seven miles later.... We checked out by noon.  I wanted a magnet of the castle, and we ended up in a really great visitor center for the castle.  I'm not at all sure how I missed it the first day, because it was right next to the entrance and it was a winner!  I found my magnet soon enough, but John found an entire room FULL of medieval costumes.  I imagine they are for children and youth, but since John is that at heart, they fit him perfectly ;-)  We also found an illustrated map (the kind that you rip off of a pad of them) and after giving it a look, discovered that there were other things that we wanted to see besides what I had planned, the first being the "Kells High Crosses". We couldn't find it on the GPS, but I figured if we headed to the village of Kells, we would find it.  I...

I can hardly believe that seven years ago, John and I brought everyone  to Ireland for our week of Harry Potter and coincidentally, Mother's Day <3 It's just John and I this time, and we wonder how we ever afforded that trip! ;-) I wasn't sure if it would be Mother's Day in Ireland, so we set off for church in hopes of hearing Irish lads and lassies singing "I Often Go Walking".  But before that, unbeknownst to our BnB and our server, I was given a delicious Mother's Day breakfast which is wonderful in a strange kind of way.  I mean, at home we don't go out on Mother's Day, so it was fun to have a real excuse to be served beautiful food in the morning before church.  The beauty of our BnB extended into the "conservatory" where not only was there a lovely buffet of any kind of bread/scone/muffin you can imagine, but also a full menu.  We were dressed for church so it really felt like a lovely event.  Look at the menu and see what you wo...