Summer Update

This summer has been tons of fun, but it went by way too fast. I had to get 2 skin grafts done in my mouth 2 weeks ago, that was a fun bloody mess, but it is healing nicely now, and I am happy because I can eat pretty much whatever I want again. The sad thing is that I might have to get 2-3 more grafts done after Christmas, what fun!! I spent a weekend in Cedar City with Megan and Andrew in their new townhouse, and we had tons of fun. I already know from past experience that I am going to miss Megan most when I leave. My job out at the Potash plant was tons of fun. The people in the crew that I worked with were great, and I even got to work with my Dad some. I learned lots of cool things like how to drive a loader, and I had a good time. I am now done working at both the plant, and the store and I leave for China tomorrow!!! I should start packing huh?I have spent the last week or so hanging out with my friends as much as possible, I am going to miss them. It was a great summer.

Eddie's angels!!

Random, but this is my retard moment where I fell while running behind my house this morning.

Summer Fun!!!

So I have been a slacking blogger lately. I am now back in the states for a very busy summer. I work about 62 hours a week between my two jobs, but I still manage to find time to play with my family and friends, who needs sleep anyway?

Last weekend Megan and Andrew came to visit and they brought Parker and Payton along for a fun fun weekend. We started off Saturday with a slip n slide in the front yard. Even Mom joined in, and we had a few great laughs. Andrew is definitely the biggest daredevil of the bunch. Mom kept assuring us that her body just does not slide. She was so funny, she would take off running, then she would just sit down when she got to the tarp and use her hands to push her along.If you got going too fast down the hill you ended up in the flower bed with scratches and mud all over you, (though the picture of this occurrence is Megan, most of us experienced it first hand). Well as if we had not had enough water fun, we headed to Left Hand for the afternoon with some friends. The water was pretty high, so there was great jumping, we even got Parker to jump off the rocks as long as he was between Andrew and I. Stacy and Jer joined us as we were hiking back. We discovered that Andrew is not the best babysitter as he let Payton get carried away with some stranger. It turned out to be Jeremy, but I think Payton was sure scared for a second.
We finished off the night with a birthday party for Geneava and a movie. The next day we attended Brennan's homecoming. It is so fun to have my good friend back. He is such an entertaining person. I hope Andrew enjoyed his little glimpse of Moab. The whole weekend was full of family, fun, great food, and of course some heated rounds of Settlers.

Exciting Weekend!!!

So after a rigorous week of studying and preparing a talk for church, I am happy to say that I am done with all of my finals. I have one more tiny presentation for my event class, but that should be no big deal. For any of you that were wondering, a 2 hour essay final where you have to write four 3-4 page essays on law cases is really not fun, in fact it is actually quite painful. We were pressed for time and it was really funny to see everyone in the row stop every now and then to shake out their hand before continuing on with the painful writing. But I am now done!!!! Tori and I are headed to Dublin today for a funfilled weekend. Then even more exciting is the big news that Mom will be here on Sunday!!!! We however have really bad timing, so Tori and I are scheduled to speak in church the very morning that she will be arriving so we will not be able to meet her in Shannon. (Sorry Mom) She will be on her own to get to Galway, and then to meet us at the church. I am soooo excited to see her, and to spend the next two weeks traveling around before we had back home to the states.

My best Friend!!

I love all of my sisters, but there is a very strong bond between Megan and I. She is my best friend and I am so glad that I have her in my life. It is so fun to grow up with a twin, I always had a friend to do things with, someone to stay up late and talk to, someone to help me with my clothes and hair. And even though we are apart more now, the time that we get to spend together is still just as special. I remember many times when I had to say goodbye to Carson as I went off to school with Megan. I would try to control my tears so we could leave just to get in the car to find Megan there crying even harder because she was sad for me. She is the best friend anyone could ask for. I love you Megan.

My Tender Mercy for the Day!!!

So I am sad to report that the charger cord to Tori's laptop has shorted out, so until further notice we do not have access to any of the pics or documents on it. Sorry to all of you who are waiting for pics of the fun spring break that we had traveling around Europe. Sad for me because my Event Management portfolio that I have been working on all sememster is now locked in the dead laptop. I now have the happy task of redoing it by Monday morning, just the way that I wanted to spend my weekend, NOT. Anyway needless to say I have been quite busy with school work and projects this last week, and I was starting to get quite stressed out. So that makes what happened today such a great boost for me. I was in my Irish studies class and we have just started the section on music. I was sitting there thinking how fun it would be for me to get a book of sheet music of traditional Irish tunes. Then of course reality hits that I have no money, and I would also have no idea what to look for. As class is ending though, our teacher says that he has actually had a book published of a compilement that he has made of some traditional Irish tunes, then he pulls three copies out of his bag and says he is going to give these copies to the first three people that were in class today. Luckily the Irish ways have not completely rubbed off on me and I am still running on my Utah time schedule, so of course I was one of the first three people in class. So I am now the proud owner of my own copy of Pale Rainbow: Gaelic Folksongs with English Translations by Brian O'Rourke. YAY for me. I am so excited to go play the tunes. I know it is really lame that this made me so happy, but seriously it could not have happened at a better time.
Aside from all approaching deadlines for school projects, life here in Ireland is great. I am having great fun. I really like my school and I love the people, they are soooo nice. The weather is even warming up, so maybe I can hit the beach soon. The Irish are a lot tougher than me, and they have already hit the beach. I however cannot get myself to get in the water with the others when you see people walking along the trails completely bundled up in pants and a big coat. I see something wrong with that picture.




The pics are from our little day trip to Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. Enjoy!

The "Quiet Man" cottage.

King and Fools Day!!!

For my Event Management class we had to form a team and plan and organize an event. We became the A-Team, and our event was a King and Fools sports day. The goal of the event was to raise as much money as possible for the Alan Kerins Foundation. Alan Kerins is a hurling player here in Ireland, and he organized the African project where they go down to Africa and build schools and such that the people need. I volunteered to be the assistant chairperson because no one else wanted the job. Well I never thought that the chair would get sick and end up in the hospital the week of the event. I had to quickly step up to the challenge of assuming the head chair position, kind of scary, but all in all everything worked out great. We started off the event with HUG WEEK to get the word around. Alan came and we wore bright orange aprons around the college and gave hugs for 2 euro. At first it was a bit intimidating going around to people I didn't know and asking them to pay me 2 euro for a hug, but it turned out to be great fun. The actual event took place on March 31st, and it was a huge success. The weather was perfect, and we had a fair turnout. The main event of the day was a five a side soccer tournament that 13 teams participated in. Some of the other highlights include a tug of war with the lecturers vs the students, a penalty shoot out, novelty races, and a puc fada tournament. Papa Johns provided pizza and it was a great day. The biggest job of the day was the clean up (some of the team members took off right after the games ended). We had 6 goal posts that we had borrowed from a soccer club that had to be returned by 6:00. Boy was that a big job. We had to get two people to carry the goals about a fifteen minute walk down the street. I ended up making 3 trips, and boy did we get some funny stares from all the people in their cars that we passed. I guess it would look funny if you saw a goal post walking down the sidewalk toward you. The guys that I was carrying the goals with were sure impressed with how tough I am, and they even said they owed me a pint at the afterparty that night. My shoulders and legs were sure sore the next day though. Cleanup finally finished a little after six and I hurried back to my apt. to shower and eat before heading to the city center to decorate for the after party. At the after party we awarded the winners of the day with their prizes, and we also had a big raffle of all of the sponsorship items that we collected. After the raffle we presented our lecturer with flowers. We ended up making over 3000 euros, and it was a great day. I am sad that the event is over, I had so much fun getting to know all of the team members and it was a great experience. GO A-TEAM!!!

St. Paddy's Day!!!

This is for you Stacy. St. Paddy's Day as the students call it here in Ireland was tons of fun. The parade was grand, but a bit long. They actually kept stopping it to make it last longer, and boy did it work as it was close to two hours long. The Irish do not wear green though, or do the pinching thing like we do in the states. Tori and I however, got shamrocks painted on our faces, and wore our green in true American fashion. There are people dressed up in crazy hats and beards so they were really fun to see. The parade went down Shop Street which is a little walking street near the city center, and it was packed. The man in the air had a trampoline, and he did flips and twists in the air, he was probably my favorite part of the parade. There were also a few branch members that were in the parade, so they were fun to see, and we even got to watch the parade with some of the missionaries here. The weather was perfect, it seriously was the nicest day since we got here. The sun was shining and it was warm, who could ask for better. After the parade we had a nice sunny walk home. Once home, I made a lovely shamrock cake for the Relief Society Birthday party that we went to. It was a potluck, and there was a ton of great food. There was traditional Irish shepherds pie, mmmm and some great breads and soups. There were also many great desserts. We had a great time eating and laughing with the sisters from the branch. It was a great day. I hope everyone else had a great St. Patrick's Day!!!

Castles, Castles Everywhere!!

The view of Blarney from Blarney Castle.

Cork

The Gardens at Bir Castle

The Telescope at Birr Castle. It was the largest one in the world for 70 years, from 1840-1910.

Birr Castle

Blackrock Castle

Redwood Castle

Our Limerick Friend!! He was soooo cute!!!

King John's Castle in Limerick

Bunratty Castle

Kissing the Blarney Stone!!

In the Dungeon at Blarney Castle.

Last weekend Tori and I rented a car and headed out for an adventure. Tori did a great job driving, but I was terrified nonetheless. The roads are super narrow here. There is barely enough room for two small cars, and I cannot even describe the fear when a bus or large truck comes around the bend towards you. There are even some roads that you would never guess were two way. They are so narrow that one driver has to pull clear off to the side (which is not very far since most of the roads are lined with stone fences, they do not have shoulders at all) and stop while the other car goes past. The funny thing is that none of this effects the Irish at all, they just fly past you at terrifying speeds even though they are only inches from your car. Anyway we headed southward for our adventure towards Limerick for our first stop. Limerick has been one of my favorite places that we have seen so far, it was beautiful. It is called the city on the river, and it was so fun to walk down the little tourist path towards King John's castle next to the river. We only spent a few hours there, and then it was off to Cork. Cork was actually not very fun since we spent a lot of the time lost and driving down scary roads. We have noticed that the signs here are more like teasers. They point you where to go till you are close to your destination, then there are no signs to be found. It is rather frustrating because you are so close, but cannot actually find what you are looking for. We did happen across Black rock Castle though. Inside they had a virtual astronomy and evolution tour, and you even got to play a game at the end to save the world. I beat Tori by over 200 points :-)

After that we did manage to find a few fun things to see in Cork. We walked through a park, and stopped at the Cork City Gaol. It is an old prison, and there we got to do an audio tour. There were mocks of people and things that would have been in the jail centuries ago, and they told you all about them, it was very interesting. After that it was off to Blarney. The Blarney Castle was fun to tour, but of course the real highlight is kissing the Blarney Stone to recieve the gift of eloquence, which of course we did!! The view of Blarney from the top of the castle was breathtaking, and it was a fun place to stop. After that we started back towards Galway with a quick stop to take pictures at Bunratty Castle. There are castles all over here, as you drive around, you see signs every 10-15 minutes pointing you towards one.

The next day we decided to go to Birr Castle since it is pretty close to Galway, and we had to be back at 4:00 for a branch open house. Birr Castle is one of the prettiest that I have ever seen. Unfortunately it is privately owned so you can't tour the inside. There was museum though telling about telescopes, photography, and the turbine engine because major inventors from each field came from Birr Castle. Talk about a smart family. There was also a lake and gardens to walk through. They were pretty, but I bet they are really fun to see in the summer when everthing has bloomed. This time on our way home we stopped at Redwood Castle for pictures, and then it was off to the open house. The members here were so excited to have a new meeting house just for them. It is just a small excercise gym that was redone to become their church. There are not pianos, or a baptismal font, and there are just a few rooms, but they are thrilled nonetheless. It really made me realize how much I take that for granted in the states where you can find church buildings everywhere.

That night we went to see "Confessions of a Shopaholic" with some girls from our branch. It was silly but had its funny moments. If anyone gets any grief from their husbands about spending too much money, they should take them to see it. Then they would see that we could be so much worse.

It was a great weekend!!!