St Mary Sunshine

HOME SWEET HOME

2009-05-21T13:40:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! were safely back at home now. We had a great time and are totally blessed we were able to do this trip. were glad to be home now. we missed friends and family. thanks for everyone who read my blog. now that im at home and have no where cool to go and blog about im not sure if ill still blog or not.
who knows.. i probably will every now and then. i just dont feel like i have anything very interesting to blog about...

love you all

GUINNESS BREWERY IN DUBLIN

2009-05-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

so we flew back to dublin from edinburgh. were here in dublin for a couple of days. we fly back home tomorrow. we've had a really good time and have seen and done things we'll remember for the rest of our lives but i must say i think we are ready to go home now. we miss all of you! and we miss samson!!
yesterday we went to the guinness brewery. i dont like beer but its interesting to see how they make it. you even get to taste barley after they roast it. kinda taste like coffee.
in part of the brewery they had a bunch of guinness memorabilia mostly from the 50's but also much earlier.
ANOTHER thing that was really interesting that we learned is that guinness beer and the guinness book of wrld records are connected. a long time ago, the owner of guinness was out hunting game bird with some friends and they were argueing which was the fastest game bird. then they thought there are people sitting around pubs having these kind of debates all the time and thought it would be great if all the "fastest, biggest, etc" stuff was in one book. and so he created the guinness book of world records.

barley

those white things are where the beer matures

on of the guinness slogans was "a guinness a day" and it actually came about because doctors were actually prescribing it to people.

they had some bottles from the 1800's

ok so its really late at night and i wrote this blog from our hotel room in dublin. were flying out tomorrow morning. please be praying for us. ill be blogging more about our trip home. im finally caught up on blogs so sorry i had to post so many at one time.

love you all

THE CASTLE OF EDINBURGH

2009-05-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

We visited the castle while we were there. it was pretty well preserved. it was not only a castle but the church and other royal rooms and buildings that were around it. we also got to see the crown jewels of scotland and the sceptor and sword that is awarded to whoever is king or queen. it was pretty interesting. the castle is up on a hill so the view of the city is pretty good too.

these were the castle gates adams standing in front of

view from the castle of the city

love you all

A BEAUTIFUL CITY

2009-05-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

we spent a couple days in edinburgh, scotland. it was amazing! edinburgh is just such a cool looking city. its a big city except all of the building are super old and it has a gothic, medieval feel about it. the skyline of the city is like nothing else weve seen on our trip. its actually not really like any other city ive ever seen. its like the opitamy of a european city. its just the kind of thing an american wants to see when they think of europe. i wish we could have spent more time in scotland. we would have liked to have gone up into the highlands and i would have gotten a kick out of seeing loch ness :)
heres a funny thing about europe.. we witnessed this in edinburgh.. but those people love pizza hut! its like a fancy restaurant to them! theyre really big inside and you wait to be seated and theres waiters and waitresses and menus! you sit down and order and theres a full bar in them! so people are just sitting down drinking glasses of wine in pizza huts! they would be sadly dissappointed with american pizza huts. but most of the food is so bad here that pizza huts sounds really good to us!

we took so many pics.. these are only a fraction of them

they sell kilts everywhere

bagpipers play on the street for money all the time

i just looked at these pictures i posted and i dont feel like it does the city justice.

love you all

OUR DRIVE NORTH TO SCOTLAND

2009-05-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

After york, we drove up to scotland. it only took us like 3 or 3and a half hours. it was a very pretty drive. lots of country and green fields. AND did you know that there is a such thing as nottingham and the sherwood forest like in robin hood! ya we passed through the forest. it was in northern england. driving and navigating in england and scotland was much easier than in ireland. more street signs and stuff.
when we got to the scotland/england border we decided to get out and take some pics.

all of the country sides in scotland, england, and ireland are seperated by stone walls or giant hedges. lots of sheeps and cows too

love you all

YORK, ENGLAND

2009-05-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

On our way from london to edinburgh, scotland, we stopped and stayed the night in york. we didnt really know what to expect with this town. it was a really cool medieval/viking-ish town. it has a lot of history to it. a long time ago the town used to be surrounded by stone wall. Today, a lot of the wall is still intact. you can even go walk up on top of the wall. a lot of buildings just look cool! very old and the roads are really small.
and at our hostel we got a room that was just the 2 of us in it :)

through that archway is the city inside of the stone wall. today not all of the city is inside the wall. its expanded a lot.

the wall

hes super excited..

ok love you all

THE WONDERFUL LONDON!!!!

2009-05-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

There are some places that weve gone to on this trip where we just cannot stop taking pictures. London was definetly one of those places! so this blog post is going to have A LOT more pictures than usual.
We really wished we could have had more time in london. you could seriously just sped a week there and be fine with it. there was a lot to see but we saw a lot of it in a couple days.
we used the underground subway to get around which is really convenient.

and this was like the only city where you could eat at a restaurant and it be good food! we were so happy to be eating good food for a change.

and o my goodness! people in london have such good style too! it makes you really jealous. but adam did let me buy a dress that was on sale for 10 pounds. thats like 15 american dollars.

we also went to a lot of museums and galleries while we were there. we went to museums where there were mummies and old ancient things from roman times and egyptian times. we even saw the rosetta stone. We saw things that were sooo old. And in the galleries we saw art from artists like rembrandt, monet, van gough, picasso, and many more i cant think of at the moment. their art in person is so much more interesting in real life rather than a text book. we werent able to take pictures though because there are no cameras allowed inside.

in london there is a very diverse crowd. not everyone is a white english person. theres a huge mix. it was a great city and i would love to go back!

these red phone booths are everywhere

the gates next to buckingham palace that lead into green park. everything is just so pretty.

fountain in front of buckingham palace

buckingham palace

the changing of the guards. we couldnt see where we were at.

london underground..

adam in front of the english parliment building

big ben

english parliament as well. theyre buildings are so dang cool

london bridge

these are pictures of a protest that is happening in london. its for people in sri lanka. we dont know too much about it. there were 100's maybe even thousands of people protesting with signs and chanting things. there were tons of police and police cars everywhere.

i know that was a big post but there is so much to say and show about london.

love you all

OUR HOSTEL IN LONDON

2009-05-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

so we made it to london and LOVE it! its really incredible city! before we came here, someone from ireland told me london was like new york city except with history and its so true!
it took us a very long time and a lot of aimless walking to find our hostel but it was definetly the best hostel we stayed in. It was some sort of a house that was turned into a hostel but it looked like it was once a mansion. it was very beautiful in side! lots of solid wood, high ceilings, pretty molding, and detailed wood work. and it was the only hostel that offered a bed that was a double sized bed.
this entire trip we have been going and going on VERY little sleep. its seriously the adrenaline of being in a new city that keeps us going. at this hostel was one of our first chances to sleep in. and it was sooo nice!

the outside of our hostel

the entrance way where reception was.

our bed. they had a whole room of double beds that were bunk beds all the way to the ceiling and curtains that went around each one.

the ceiling of the "hang out" lounge area. i was obsessed with this ceiling

love you all

the little engine that could.. NOT

2009-05-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

so after Dublin we were flying to London which we thought was going to be easy compared to all the other crazy flight mishaps we've had on this trip. WRONG! we've decided that this is just what happens to us. we are destined to just have flight issues.
ok so this is what happened.. we got on our flight as planned and they started up the plane and started to go ut onto the runway. i guess it was when they were doing the engine tests, the plane started smoking. o they sent out mechanics on the runway to see if they could fix it but they couldnt figure it out so they alled out the firemen and 2 firemen came into our plane to check if the back inside of the plane was on fire(it wasnt). then they evacuatd everyone on the plane right there and when we walked down the stairs out on to the ground there were 6 fireengines surrounding the plane with giant water jets facing the planein case it were to blow up in flames i guess. there were also tons of police and other airport people around. so we all sat ina terminal staring out the window at our poor plane. we all thought the flight would be delayed because we'd have to switch planes... wrong again!
heres the crazy part... after about 30 minutes they had us all load back on the very same plane and we flew off in it all the way to london! needless to say it was a terrifying flight. every little noise or bump or anything made you think "o my gosh were going down!"
they later came on the speakers and announces what had happened (which by the way i dont think in america with an american airline they would tell u in detail what happened).
they said there was an oil leak and it was dripping on something that was causing it to smoke so they patched up the tube.

well we made it safely of course thank God!

i wish i would have got my camera out sooner when we walked down the steps so i could have gotten better close up pictures.

love you all

DUBLIN

2009-05-16T11:46:00.000-07:00

So were in Dublin before we fly out to London. Ya know, im not gona lie.. i was sadly dissapointed with Dublin. I mean its definetly a cool city but not my favorite by any means. i think its kinda scary too.. like sketchy especially at night. weve been in about 3 major cities since we've been here (i guess 4 if you count new york) and its my least favorite of them. we didnt really do much while here. we went to the dublin castle which sounds like it would be a really good castle because its in the capitol of ireland but nope! its totally not! its like part of whats left of the castle and stuff built around it. we went inside of an old church too and it was cool. well heres some pics we took from the day.

ok ok ok so maybe im being a little harsh on Dublin. i really shouldnt be.

our set of bunk beds.

a lot of the pubs have cool little buildings. by the way we dontknow that girl but it looks like we wer taking a picture of her.

a cathedral with a pretty little park

this is the castle. this is pretty much all thats left of it. it looks like they built some sort of government building onto it

us in the courtyard of the castle

adam just had to take a picture of this. if you know just how weird he is or how much he loves weird words or names then maybe this makes sense.
everything in europe has weird names

alrite love you all!

JUST AN FYI

2009-05-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

hey just to let you, i posted more than one blog so check them out

GARDENS AT POWERSCOURT= AMAZING

2009-05-13T12:47:00.000-07:00

This place was just about 12 miles south of Dublin and is one of the most beautiful places. Its a huge castle with the craziest, biggest gardens ever! i say garden-s because there ae multiple gardens. the property its on is huge. everything is very beautiful. the only let down is the inside of the castle. you can only go in 2 rooms and theyre not that cool at all. another place we could have taken a ton of pics at. the reason we were so into going to this place in the beginning is because in the movie, the count of monte cristo, there's a house he buys after hes rich and this is the house he bought and they filmed at!

main garden

front of building

there was a lake with a fountain at the end of the steps

looking out from the front

it had many levels of steps in the front

there were lots of pretty gates

these were stones all hand laid

a fort/tower. we think he just made it for fun.. its not anywhere where it would be used to protect

cannons on top of the tower

there was a second statue he was going to imitate but it was very... permiscuous..

the japanese gardens

i made adam take a pic of me here cuz it reminded me of a scene in the movie twilight where theyre int he forest and they leaning against a rock.. ya know the part where he gets ridiculous and starts throwing branches..

neither cheese nor soda?

ok love you all

KILKENNY NIGHT LIFE

2009-05-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

ya still new at blogger and this pic up here ended up here and i couldnt get it to move :)

For being a smaller town, kilkenny is quite popular for bachelor and bachelorette parties and going out. it has like the highest amount of pubs for the size of the area. you seriously walk like five steps and your at a new pub! its the craziest thing ever! i have no idea how they all stay in business but they do. we met 3 super irish guys in our hostel that took us out. we had a lot of fun with them. they took us to a cool pub that had traditional folk music. it was fun cause everyone gets into it and you cant help but do it yourself.

dont worry mom and dad and everyone else reading... we had fun but were very responsible :)

our beds. weve been just sharing one and sleeping together on one

the kitchen in our hostel

its waaay cheaper to make food at the hostel. the food is crap though. even if you make it. the noodles were made out of corn.. weird. tasted like tortillas. and the sauce was very weird. you just cant win.

the band from the pub

ok love you all

KILKENNY CASTLE

2009-05-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

We were in the town of Kilkenny. It was a cool little town and had a lot of history in it. There was a giant castle we took a tour of. It was owned by a family named the Butlers. They lived in the house for 600 years. The house inside was beautiful. we werent aloud to take pictures but we tried to when we could. the castle was HUGE and had hundreds of rooms. it had a huge lawn as well that was i dont how many acres huge. and in the inside each room was decorated as a different era in which the family lived in. this house made me want to live in a fancy castle/mansion :).

we also went to the church that was in the town as well. the butlers are buried there in the old church.

we found a papa johns pizza place in the city and it was one of the best meals i had eaten on this trip so far!

the front of the castle

the lawn the castle faces

the "backyard" of the castle

front gates

view from the castle. the castle is right on a river

a ballroom in the castle that has a ton of family portraits throughout the 600 years

we are breaking 2 rules in this picture: 1. no coffee allowed and 2. no cameras

the church

ok thats all for kilkenny castle!

love you all

AN ALMOST CRISIS

2009-05-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

Last night our camera batteries died and we realized we forgot the battery chargers in a different city.. nay.. a different country! we were freaking out that we wouldnt be able to take anymore pictures the rest of the trip but we went downtown and found one and bought one. so its all good now!
were in london right now even tho the blog posts dont match up with that. im still delayed on them but hoping to be caught up soon. having some issues with our computer right now. im currently on a hostel computer. so soon everyone.

love you all

STICK A CORK IN IT!

2009-05-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Next we stayed in a town called Cork. We didnt take too many pictures because honestly there wasnt really much to take pictures of. it wasnt really scenic or pretty. not to mention it seemed like in a lot of areas it was kinda sketchy at night accept the street we were on. It was bigger than other towns weve been to. they were definetly trying to lean towards a modern newer kind of irish town. it kind of reminded of a mixed between downtown san luis and san francisco with lots of irish pubs! it was kind of a young party town. We stayed in a hostel that was half hostel and half bar... atually it was more bar probably. We met some young irish people and had a lot of fun hanging out with them. They took us to a new club in town. it was weird. we also roomed with a couple from from who were me and adams age. we met a lot of people in this town. everyone in the hostel just hangs out at the bar and gets to know one another.

ok randomly heres a couple weird things about eastern europe i've noticed:

1. they dont have toilet seat covers ever.. anywhere

2. people get married at like 30 and up so everyone is blown away me and adam are married and think were crazy.

so heres some pics and a video. o wait scratch the video i cant get it to load. maybe later

the place we stayed at.

bar inside of our hostel

this was really creepy! it was an old gypsy woman(far left) and these weird dalls she rigged somehow to move electronically and play music and dance. one of them was like a giant troll doll(2nd on the left) and the other three were giant barbies. so scary! and she played a cassette player so it was like they were playing. we couldnt resist oursleves.

there was a river that ran through the city

us at a super weird club in a theatre.

love you all

JAMESON WHISKY DISTILLERY

2009-05-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

first off let me just say i posted about 4 new blogs in a row so i could get caught up so make sure you read the others below as well :)

On the 10th, on our way down to the city of Cork, we stopped in a town called Midleton. It had one of the 3 whiskey distilleries that give tours. It was actually a lot of fun. And at the end they take you to their jameson bar and give you a glass of whiskey. Adam volunteered at the end to do a whiskey vs scotch taste test and got this certificate saying he was an official whiskey taster lol.

Jameson and Guinness are no joke to these people! You wonder if guinness and jameson are irish cliches in america but these irish really are obsessed with it. There are signs for those brands all over in every city.

back way in the day they used this water wheel to power the whole distillery

whiskey aging. they really do still use wooden barrels. they said it gets its taste and color from the wood. Different varieties of whiskey uses different woods for different flavors.

one of the worlds large distilling pots. The other was inside. it holds like 30 or 31,000 gallons

jameson bar

his little certificate

this bottle of whiskey was in the gift shop and costs 5,000 euros!! Its a special anniversary bottle that was aged for 25 years.

i surprisingly know a lot about whiskey now. weird.

ok love you all

ROCK OF CASHEL

2009-05-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

in cashel there is a castle thats pretty much one of the oldest castles in ireland. a lot of it is falling apart but it was still very cool! we could have taken a million photos of it. it had a really crazy graveyard too. this castle is where saint patrick baptized a king.

one of the cool things about ireland is that these castles and old ruins are everywhere! towns are built around them. the irish seemed really unphased by them.

love you all

blog issues

2009-05-10T14:19:00.001-07:00

sorry everyone i've been trying to get a new blog up for the last hour or so. its not uploading pictures.

ill try and get it figured out

and happy mothers day to all the mom's reading!!!

love you all

THE QUAINT LITTLE TOWN OF CASHEL

2009-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

For one, let me just apologize again for the delay in blogs. and a lot of these happen a couple days before i am able to post them. anywho...

ok Cashel was the first town we stayed at in ireland. A small little town with nice people. actually people from ireland are just nice in general. Really sweet and welcoming. and weve been meeting people from other countries as well. We ate at a pizza place in this town and it was horrible! this is where my hate for irish food was born. and all the shops and places closed up pretty early. BUT i did go to my very first pub and have my very first legal drink. it was fun. it was an old irish man bar! ha!

our bunk beds. it was only the two of us in this room

looking lovely as always

our driving experience in europe has been crazy! adam is actually doing really really well but ireland is weird to drive in. not only is everything opposite but youd think they didnt believe in street signs of any type! so hard to figure out where the heck you are. and theyre sped limit signs are like posted at the very highest you can drive but no one would ever want to go that fast ever. opposite of america. adam has had some very stressful times

heres our sweet ride. its at least 3 feet long and 2 feet tall..

most beautiful country sides

love you all

THE CLIFFS OF MOHER

2009-05-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

yesterday on the 7th, we went to the cliffs of moher on the west coast of ireland. Its these amazing cliffs that are like over 800 feet tall and the ocean is at the bottom of it. theres three very important points about this blog.. 1. the cliffs were amazing and beautiful! 2. ireland is very very cold. and 3. my husband is AMAZING AND THE SWEETEST! allow me to brag for a while with these pictures...

ok so adam had a surprise for and i never would have guessed it but he got me an identical band to go on the other side of my ring! it was so sweet! he slipped it on my finger on the top of one of the cliffs. on the inside of it is inscribed "moher 5-7-09" how dang thoughtful!

now im straight blingin!

luckiest girl in the world

"hmm.. whats that on my finger? o wait its my ring!"

it was right on the edge of this cliff on the stone look out of the observatory

very very cold

love you all

DISASTER TURNS TO BLESSING

2009-05-08T12:49:00.001-07:00

ok everyone sorry for the delay on blogs. were safe. just havent had the time or energy.

Ok so we went to Manhattan since we were layed over. It turned into an awesome day! We saw sooo much in a short time. i loved it and central park was UH-mazing! we only went for a day and i'd love to go back again sometime. Needless to say we were soo tired after the day and finally got some sleep that night.
we took a ton of pictures so here are some of them. ill have to explain as i go..

Any fans of 30rock would appreciate this building. Its the rockafeller building

Another 30rock thing. these flags are in the beginning

that naked singing cowboy

a horse i made friends with in central park

us in battery park takin a look at the statue of liberty

ok these ones are of central park which was awesome!!

i was obsossed with this bridge

ok ok ok! this is randy finoli! its ok if you dont know who he is.. majority doesnt. Hes on that show say yes to the dress (a tv show about a big bridal store in manhattan). Anywho me and my mom love that show. We even go to the extent of tivo-ing it. i saw him in the subways and had to have a pic with him. i was all weird and nervous and sweating... really dorky.

this is a door on the side of the st. patricks cathedral

st patricks cathedral

this church was really huge and beautiful inside. Weird cause they just have mass while tourist walk around and take pictures

ok thats its for new york

love you all

PART 2: OFF TO A HORRIBLE START...

2009-05-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

ok so this horrible day has come to an end!! such rotten people that work at that airport. i cannot even begin to get into how awful it was! so i won't..
were in our hotel now, which was comped by the way. and its pretty awesome! huge tv and bed.
we got put on a different flight that is gonna leave on may 6th at 9:45pm. So were losing a lot of time in ireland so we got the airline to extend our trip and change our return date for free. So now were coming back on May 18th instead of the 16th. We just stuck here in New Jersey so we are gona try and take a train to Manhattan tomorrow before our we have to be at the airport. Which would be pretty awesome since i've never been there.

it was really sad for a while..

and we had to get a ride to our hotel

but our room was pretty dang cool

love you all!

OFF TO A HORRIBLE START...

2009-05-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

so me and adam are sitting in Newark, new jersey's airport praying and hoping we get on a plane to dublin tonight. our first flight was delayed big time and in turn we missed our connecting flight. Now were sitting and waiting at a gate hoping that someone doesnt show up and we can take their place on the plane. things are not looking so good. This day has been hell-ish and we're super frustrated!

woah.... ok i was sitting here super bitter and this irish man just came up to us and was so sweet and gave us these gold clover pins. he heard our story and felt bad for us. suuuper sweet guy.

ok so i feel a smidge better i guess. anywho keep up prayers for us.

love you all

FROM OUR HOTEL IN LA

2009-05-05T00:14:00.000-07:00

ok so we're currently down in LA in our hotel and flying out at 8:30 in the morning. My parents were nice enough to drive us down and drop us off at the airport in the morning. So we decided to make a trip out of it and go to disneyland. We had a good time at disneyland and got some good food at PF Changs! I'm really really really retardly sore from a horse show on sunday and just waddling around. Hopefully I'm not too sore for too long. We're really excited for our flight tomorrow. We have a layover in Newark, New Jersey for a couple hours and then we'll arrive in Dublin at 7am on may 6th. It all starts from there!
here's a couple pictures from disneyland today..

This lady had hidious shoes and it was quite the ordeal to get a pic of them. you cant tell how horrible they are in this pic either.

OUR TRIP

2009-05-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

hey everyone! ok so i wanted to blog when we went to Europe so family and friends at home could see what we were up to. I'm not too sure how it'll all go or how often we'll even have internet access.
Adam and I are going to Ireland, England, and Scotland for about 2 weeks or so. We'll be flying out Tuesday morning and in LA on monday. I'll be posting pictures as we go.
So please check it out and be praying for our safety.

love you all