Scrapbooking... Ireland

On Saturday, I'm off for a full day of scrapbooking - literally, from 9AM-midnight. I've decided to use this day to prepare for my upcoming scrapbook weekend (in April) since whenever I try to get ready while at home I end up doing other things. 

I already know that I'll use this time in April to make my honeymoon album so I've been looking through my pictures from our honeymoon to find some pictures to order. Well, I couldn't decide on some and just decided to order all of them -- all 1,100. Yes, we took lots of pictures.

I ordered them through clarkcolor.com for .04 cents each. I got all my pictures for about $45.

Now, comes the really hard part of organizing and choosing which ones go in the album.

We enjoyed Ireland so much and cannot wait to go back... someday!

Honeymoon - day seven.

On the last day of our honeymoon, we woke up pretty early and headed straight to the airport. Apparently, when they tell you "to arrive 3.5 hours before your flight" they don't mean it because we did -- and they told us it was too early to check our luggage. 

The good part about having a good amount of time sitting at the airport bar is that we had plenty of time to make a slideshow of all our pictures from our entire trip! That way we weeded out all the moving fences while trying to capture scenic views and choosing only one (okay, a few) pictures of the same sheep rather than all fifteen. Our slideshow, which was a hit upon landing, was about 400 pictures out of our THOUSANDS. So, it wasn't all a waste of time. :)

 

Our flight was uneventful, which is exactly the kind of flight I enjoy. And we landed around 4PM Boston time.

And that was our honeymoon!

Honeymoon - day six.

On the sixth day of our honeymoon, which was actually the last real day we were in Ireland -- we spent time back in Dublin at THE ZOO. :)

We love the zoo and try to go whenever we're in a city with one. We were going to go to the one in Belfast also, but I told you we wanted to leave that area.... so we decided on the Dublin zoo.

It was so much fun! I'm not going to post pictures of all the animals - trust me, there's lots. But this photo is one of my favorites:


I didn't realize giraffes sat like that? But this little guy was learning how to stand/walk :)

After, we drove along the coast and stopped for a drink here:




And scoped out a nearby castle:



And finally had dinner at a restaurant right by the water:



:)

Honeymoon - day five.

On Friday, we woke up to this view:

And we drove toward Northern Ireland.

The views of the ocean and the land were amazing and worth seeing.

We really wanted to see the Giant's Causeway:

And after, we continued driving along the coast.

Unfortunately, we didn't enjoy our stay in Belfast. We thought it was very different than the other places we had stayed and we weren't prepared for how much of a city it actually was. Dublin is a city but people were still friendly -- in Belfast, not so much :(

Of course, we were only there for about 24 hours and I'm sure we missed a lot because of the short time frame and there's probably things there that we would have enjoyed. But in the morning when we woke up -- we were very excited [& relieved!] to drive back to Ireland and be back in Dublin :)

Honeymoon - day four.

On Thursday (which happened to be my favorite day!) we started out by driving north to our B&B in Donegal.

In the lobby of the Ashford Castle, I saw a brochure for a place that shows you how they teach dogs how to herd sheep. So clearly, I had to see this. On the way, we entered sheep county:

They were everywhere! And they come right up to the car!

When we got to the farm we were greeted by puppies!

After, we heard all about how the dogs learn to listen and herd the sheep (and we were assured these sheep aren't for eating... just sheering). At this farm the dogs aren't supposed to EVER touch the sheep so that keeps all the animals safe. It was pretty amazing & the farm had the most beautiful view!

We had also been wondering why all the sheep we had seen had paint on their backs and apparently it's a marking system so that farmers know whose sheep is whose.

The farm and one of his dogs was also in the movie, Marley & Me, so he had pictures with Jennifer Anniston around the house. It was neat and a great way to spend the morning!

Next, we drove further north to Westport to buy our wedding bands (that will be a whole other post!)

And finally got to our B&B which was my favorite one of the trip!

It was a perfect day!

Honeymoon - day three.

On Wednesday, we started to drive south to Doolin for a 1-hour cruise to see the Cliffs of Moher.


Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating and the water was a little okay, VERY MUCH dangerous. So our cruise was canceled :(


We still saw the Cliffs from the land though, and the whole thing was pretty amazing. Definitely a must see.

And, even though the water looked like that and it was raining and I looked like this:


Sean looked like this:


Apparently, he wasn't cold? :)

In the afternoon, we drove back north to Galway.


It was beautiful! I never got tired to seeing cows or sheep. We saw lots of sheep! Especially on Thursday!

More on that later!

Honeymoon - day two.

On Tuesday, we woke up and after breakfast began to drive west to the Ashford Castle. Driving in Ireland is amazing because of all the scenic views.


It's neat because you see things that you just know are really old -- probably.


It's pretty cool to be able to see your NEW last name all over the place:


But... driving in Ireland is scary because a road like this:


...is considered a TWO-WAY street. Whhhatt? And when someone comes and you meet head-on -- one of you has to back up (usually pretty far) to find a pull-off and let the other car pass. Scary. Oh, and the speed limit is fast.

When we got to the castle, we took lots of pictures:



We found out that we could go anywhere inside the castle that we wanted! So after dinner we looked all over the place:


Until I got creeped out because it was so old... :)

The castle was beautiful and so neat and had so much to do. We didn't actually do much since we were only there for a night but if we ever got a chance to go back we both think we'd take up more of the amenities. They have things like falconry, and horseback riding and lots more. They also had tons of restaurants and something called The Dungeon Bar. Pretty neat!