Got a Few Minutes?

That's all it takes to make these yummy cheese muffins! I made them last night and it literally took no time at all and they are sooo good. Here is the recipe.

She Saw Sugar

Kelly decided to sell some of her photos on etsy and she let me hop on board and is featuring some of my photos in her store! Fun! Kelly's photography site is thingsshesaw and my photo blog is sugar hill so we thought "she saw sugar" was a good combo for this little venture. :) So anyway, check it out!

Here is the link: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6782326

Thanks for sharing your shop Kel, and I promise not to be bitter if people only want your pics. :)

(This photo has nothing to do w/ anything, I just think blog posts w/ pictures are much more fun. Every time I walk by this I think of the movie Notting Hill where the guy says he's from "Horse and Hound" to interview Julia Roberts character...funny.)

Props for the Hus

I'm gonna take a little time here to brag about my husband, and really, this post is long over due! After SEVEN LONG years of graduate school (aka: blood, sweat, and tears....tears mostly by me :)) Adam graduated with his Phd and has this book to show for it:

The thing that I'm really bragging about here is that Adam's dissertation got published! I'm so so proud that after all his hard work his book is "out there" and anyone can get it! You can officially buy Adam's book on amazon! How stinkin' cool is that?! (and no, I'm not encouraging any one to go buy it, its ridiculously expensive and probably only interesting to a small percentage of people -no offense Ad) Anyway, just wanted to give Adam a shout out and say how truly proud I am, way to go bear!!

Cork

Adam and I decided that when we got back to Ireland after Christmas break we were going to be much more intentional about using our weekends to really explore Ireland. We had talked about taking a trip last weekend and as it turned out Adam's friend from college and his wife were in town on vacation! Nate and Mandy stopped by to see us in Limerick before heading to Cork for several days. Anyway, we had mentioned wanting to check Cork out as well and they said they were staying in a 2 bedroom apartment and we were welcome to join them, so we did! Adam, B and I hopped on the bus (that proceeded to catch on fire or something and then we had to switch buses mid way there) to Cork for the weekend!
Before heading to Blarney Castle we stopped by to drop our stuff off at their place, they had this cute balcony that was over the water -cool! As you can see, B thought it was pretty neat too.

One of the main "attractions" in Cork is Blarney Castle, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!

As always, some pics are duplicative but when I can't decide I just post 'em all!

Mandy snapping away

Right as we walked thru the gates to the castle Brennan grabbed this ball out of the bin outside the store, I hate buying this stuff (crap) but she was w/out a nap and on the edge and as it turned out, it was probably the best 3 euros we could've spent! Occupied her quite a bit that day! Whew!

The windy stairwells in these castles are SO narrow and claustrophobic, here are Nate and Mandy walking up behind us to the top to get to the blarney stone!

This picture just says "Ireland" to me...

These 2 men had the lovely job of standing out in the rain to help hold onto you while you risk your life to kiss the blarney stone -ugh.

Okay, this picture does not really show how treacherous this was, it was raining and very slippery and not at all an ideal place to have a 2 year old (or us for that matter!).

Thank goodness for this stuff! I don't even want to know how many people kiss the blarney stone each day!

This is the only picture I have of either of us kissing the stone, Brennan was FREAKING out watching us do this and it was raining pretty hard at this point. You have to lay backwards and hold onto these bars and stick your head super far down to kiss the blarney stone. Ay yi yi... I guess I'm glad I can say I did it? When in Ireland...

Here is a pic I got off the internet which shows it a little better:

(Here is the link to this photo and the reasoning behind kissing the blarney stone for all interested parties. :))

Thanks Nate and Mandy for sharing your vacation with us, so fun meeting you guys!!!