Ireland

Ben and I and my mom went to Ireland.  I've wanted to go for a long time.  I'm glad I saw it.  It truly is beautiful and the Irish people so gracious.  The first two days were spent in Dublin.  A great majority of the first day was trying to stumble around with jet lag.  The second day we took a bus tour around the city and stopped off at St. Stephen's Green and took a look around.  It was a beautiful park. 

Like how they mind the "keep off the grass" notice?

This was a scene from the town of Killarney.  It was my favorite of the towns we visited.  I think you can see why.

This is a chapel at Kylemoore Abbey that we saw.  It was beautiful and holy.  This chapel was built by a grieving husband for his wife who died of dysentery when she was 45 years old.  They had 9 kids.  You can imagine that this was a real labor of love.

The Kylemoore residence

us on the flight going to Ireland

When we were in Dublin I had planned for us to go to church there.  This is us in church.

This is a favorite picture of mom on our trip.  We saw lots and lots of sheep over there.

If I look carefree, that's because I was at the time.

They had green pastures, but also lots of wooded areas.

We saw lots of enormous trees like this one.  Oh the stories these trees could tell.

In Killarney we went by Muckrosse house.

You don't go to Ireland for the food.  That's for sure, but it was interesting.  We didn't eat much meat over there and not much dairy.  We had a lot of soup and Irish soda bread though.  When it's raining, a good bowl of soup sounds good.  Here is leek and potato soup.