Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Cliffs of Moher!!!

This weekend Tori and I got to go on a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher!! It was amazing. The student union at the school arranged the trip, so we got to go at half price. The tour goes by the Poulnabrone Dolmen burial monument. Poulnabrone means "the hole of the sorrows." It was built around 2500 BC. Some other fun things we saw include: Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey, and the Burren. The Cliffs were the highlight of the day. The weather was great, and the view was breathtaking. It was so cool to stand on the edge and look so far into the ocean. For those of you Priness Bride lovers, this is where the Cliffs of Insanity are located.

























































"Uh we don't go to pubs!"




This was the yummy pub that we had lunch at, but don't tell Kim :-)












This is our group.



Declan our tour guide/bus driver. He had a squeaky leprechaun voice. He was fun, and even did a little dancing for us.








Climbing up the Burren.












Corcomroe Abbey.













This is a fairy fort. Leprechauns are a type of fairy for those of you like me who didn't know. It is an old farming circle, and the Irish are very superstitious about them. If you go near one at night you will have very bad luck. There is a huge fine for damaging them, huge as in you could buy a house with the fine.






Poulnabrone Dolmen Burial Monument
















Dunguaire Castle

















This is me breaking the rules along with everyone else. It was pretty muddy once you got off the paved path, but so worth the view.



You could walk all along the cliff edges.






We had a great time!!!

Friday, February 13, 2009

HaPpY VaLEnTiNe'S dAy!!!!

Handy Chat-up lines!!
  • If you were words on a page, you would be what they call FINE PRINT.
  • Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?
  • You must be a heck of a thief becase you stole my heart from across the room.
  • Are you OK? Because heaven is a long fall from here.
  • Do you have a map? I just keep getting lost in your eyes.
  • If I could rearrange the alphabet, I would put U and I together.
  • If you were a tear in my eye, I would not cry for fear of losing you.
  • Wouldn't we look cute on a wedding cake together?
  • Was your father an alien? Because there is nothing else like you on earth.

Courtesy of Supermacs!!

Have a great Valentine's Day!!!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Stupid Fire Alarm!!!

So I am not completely sure about the blogging rules, but it is more than 30 minutes since my last post. Kelsey will have to let me know if it is ok, but I forgot to tell about some things.

So I was walking home from school in the rain on Friday, when all of the sudden a car goes through a huge puddle and sends a tidal wave in my direction. You know in the movies when you see that happen, the person just standing there unsuspecting and they get hit with a wall of water, and they just stand there looking shocked for a second, and you think that it never really happens like that real life. Well let me tell you, it was EXACTLY like that. I was soaked, and it was a very wet walk home.

And now for our crazy saturday morning. So I got up to make bumpy pancakes. I am really weird, and I actually like to cook. So I go in and after using some interesting things for mixing bowls, and having to have Tori come in to actually figure out how to get the oven to preheat, I get everything ready and in the oven. So a few minutes later I check on the creation, which is doing nothing, but I can smell smoke. I send Tori in to find out what is wrong, and a few minutes later the fire alarms are going off. Me and my roommate run in to see what she is doing. The alarms soon shut off, but we don't know what to do about goopy eggy mixture in the oven. We leave it in for a few more minutes, but the oven is still smoking. I go in and turn the oven completely off, and hope the smoke will just settle slowly. No such luck. Soon the alarms are going off again, and this time it takes us much longer to air out the detector and get them to stop beeping. I am sure that everyone in the apartment complex wanted to wake up to the fire alarms on saturday morning. When we did get breakfast out of the oven, it looked a little funny. It didn't rise or get bumpy like it was supposed to, it just stayed flat, but they still tasted ok. Anyway I am sad that the oven is mean and does not like to be used. After all of this, my roommate informed us that she has never gotten the oven to work. Sure wish I had known that before.
Too bad I am reminded that I like to cook only when I am stuck in an unstocked kitchen, that is cold and lonely to cook in, where nothing works properly. Oh well. Maybe I will cook up a storm when I get back to Moab. That will probably make my mother happy.

What a coincidence!!!

Wow!!! Tori and I had a great weekend. I started school this week, and it really is crazy. It is perfectly normal for the teachers to not show up at all the first week or two. I still have not had all of my classes. As crazy as the schedule already is, they change and move the classes a lot. I guess it will just keep life interesting.
But now the weekend is here and life is going great. Yesterday Tori and I headed out for some exploring. We actually found a small grocery store that is not too far from where we live. YAY!! Earlier in the week we carried a very heavy load of groceries across town because we had finally found a larger store. (next time we are not getting anything heavy like apples and oranges ;-) Anyway then we headed to the city center to wander through some of the shops. We also went to the Saturday Market, and that is lots of fun. They had all kinds of food stands, and craft stands selling funny hats and jewlery and stuff. We are going to go again some other weekend because we got there when they were starting to shut down. After our little outing we had a movie night with pizza. They have lots of great coupons here so we splurged on some pizza.

Today we got to go to church!!! YAY AGAIN! After two weeks of unsuccessfully finding where the branch meets for church we were finally able to get a hold of the Bishop in Limrick, and he gave us a new number to get a hold of our branch president. After calling him, we found out that church is held at the Days Inn Hotel, and we have been walking right past it every week. It was so great to get to go today. Our branch is very small, but very international. There are members from Nigeria, Brazil, the US... The opening prayer was said in Portuguese. Everyone was really nice. Now for the coincidence. So after Sunday School, we were going across the hall to the relief society room and one of the 4 missionaries stopped to talk to us. He is from Nephi Utah so he wanted to ask us about where we were from. We told him we were from Moab and he said, "Oh yeah I know someone from Moab, big guy... oh what was his name... oh yeah Zane Taylor." We smiled and said, "oh yeah we know Zane, he's my age, great guy..." So we kept talking and then the Elder says, "there was one other kid, do you know CARSON DALTON?" What!!!! Tori and I just looked at each other, then I managed to say,"Uh, yeah I know Carson." In my head I am thinking that I sound like an idiot, ...sure I know Carson a little, no wait I know him a lot, he is my best friend, we write each other every week... By now we are laughing, and the Elder made fun of me later because he said my face turned bright red when he asked. I was in such shock, what are the odds I would come to Ireland and meet someone who knows Carson. They met in wrestling, and he was also at SUU at the same time as Carson. We were still laughing when we went in for relief society where Tori made a love connection. There were some visitors from Oregon, a mother and her daughter, and Tori and I sat by them. The mom turned to Tori and asked if she had a boyfriend. When Tori told her, "No." She was instantly the perfect girl for this guy that she knows back home. After church she talked to us a bit more, and exchanged information with Tori so they can be facebook friends. She seemed pretty set that Tori was the perfect one for this guy, and her daughter vouched for the success of her matchmaking skills. They told us some more stories about him and he does sound great ;-) He is from Utah and he is currently in Provo. They were dissappointed that Tori will not be back to the states until June though. I wonder if she will try to set him up with anyone else between now and then. Tori is laughing though because she came all of the way to Ireland to get set up with a boy from Utah.
And now good news for Lindsay!!! We were in the hall after the meetings talking to the mother and her daughter, and getting made fun of by the missionaries when the branch president asked me if either of us play the piano. I told him that I can play a little bit, and he asked if I would accept a calling to play sometime. Now for the good news!!! The Branch President said that they have extra keyboards and he would bring one over for me to borrow while I am here so I can practice. YAY!! I was so excited, I didn't know what I was going to do without my piano for over 4 months, or how rusty I was going to be when I get home. I am not too excited to play in front of the ward, I get really nervous and sound like I have never played before. But if I get to borrow a keyboard, I will endure!! At church we also found out that there is institute on tuesdays, and we even got a ride arranged for it. There is also a single adult activity this weekend in Limrick, and though we have not gotten a ride to it yet, it sounds like lots of fun. It was a great day at church!!! We are so blessed to be members!!!