Recently, we went to Ireland

Our anniversary was in early January.  This year we decided to go to Ireland.  Dave and I love to travel and have been wanting to get to Ireland for some time now.  There is no better excuse to travel than to celebrate an anniversary...in our heads anyway.  There always needs to be some sort of a justification.  This was no sit down and relax type of vacation.  It was a get in the car and figure out where we're going vacation.  There are pros and cons to this variety of vacationing.  Like I said, there's less time for relaxation.  When you take on a majority of a whole country within a week, there's a good amount of room for things like stress, frustration, and wondering why on earth you decided to take this on.  Nothing's as perfect as it seems.  I love inviting these little challenges into my life, mostly because the outcomes end up being really positive.  And luckily, Dave and I travel pretty well together.

Traveling together like this really allows a couple to get some things off your chest.  Some of our conversations went like this.  Dave to Julia: "You overbook yourself and thereby overbook us and then we don't have enough time to spend just with each other".  Julia:  "That makes sense.  A lot of sense.  I'll try better to not plan so much for us."  Dave to Julia:  "Sometimes you are a freight train coming through".  This is reminiscent of our life at home.  And then, Dave continues on with a sound effect...of a train coming through and then continuing on into the distance.  Just imagine it.  This was a mainstay throughout our trip.  You'll see the picture of 'Beware of Trains' below taken on our Guinness tour.  We laughed so hard about this and will probably laugh about this for a very long time.  It's a reminder to me that Dave knows me very well and we can laugh at what pisses us off about each other.

A ridiculously large part of our trip was eating and drinking. This may come as a shock to everyone...but the food in Ireland was some of the best I've ever had.  And I've been places.  We're talking the bread, the soup, the sandwiches, the tea, the sugar, the lamb stew, the butter, the eggs, the blood pudding, the oysters (that you will see in a below picture), and please don't forget the Guinness and the Jameson.  Do others go on a purely food and drink centered vacation?  Is this normal?  I think it is.  I had worked really hard to lose weight over the holidays (which I was able to do, fortunately) only to gorge myself on foreign fare.  So worth it.  Every pound I gained, and did I gain.  But now I'm able to come home to the US and shatter Irish food stereotypes, which is very important to me.  But now I am back in full force with my WW. 

Oh, I should mention that my mom's side is from Ireland.  My great grandmother and her sisters left from Cobh, Ireland from the very spot where Dave and I stood less than a month ago.  A real disappointment was that the Heritage Center was closed that day (obviously) and I wasn't able to look up Katherine Lavin.  That was the ultimate bummer because it was a huge part of why I was so excited to get to Cobh.  Se la vie. 

So, below are some pictures of our trip, in no particular order.  And some are just pure random, but I love them.  I probably have a lot more to say, but I have a life you know.