Category Archives: Ireland

Child #1: Micah, Family, Family Life, Ireland, Landscape, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

I like to look for rainbows

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It’s 50 degrees f (10 c) outside and the sun finally came out! I can definitely understand why Ireland is famous for their rainbows. It’s because it rains so much here! It rains pretty much everyday.

This is the most magnificent and brilliant rainbow we have ever seen! It reminds me of the primary song When I am Baptized.

I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain
And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.

I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away,
And I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.
I want to be the best I can and live with God again.

My husband came home from work busting through the door. He told us to go outside quick! Micah was going to the potty. We ran outside and Micah had no pants on but at least I remember to grab my camera. 🙂

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Family, Family Life, Ireland, Landscape, Photography, Travel

Glendalough

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Lough (pronounced lock) in Irish means “lake”.  This is such a pretty tourist site.  We picked the perfect day to go see this area.  It was partly cloudy and around 45 degrees f (~8 degrees c) that day.  We toured the cemetery and the old watch tower.  I was surprised to see real mountains in Ireland! It reminded me a lot like Utah.  The hike is easy half mile to the first lake and then one mile to the second lake.  Glen in Irish means the number two so Glendalough means “of the two lakes”.

I’m not much of a landscape photographer but Dallin really likes scenic photography so I decided to give it a try.

Here are pictures of the cemetery:

Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Irish Mormon

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I thought this was really cool when this video popped up on my Facebook feed. This guy was at my branch a couple of weeks ago and his son spoke at our church that week. This video really highlights what Ireland looks light. You can see how green it is here! It also has some clips of the Dublin city. His wife is also in the movie and she is not a Mormon. I feel connected to this movie since I’m here in Ireland right now! 🙂 Enjoy.

Ireland, Travel

Things I wish were in Utah

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European Chocolate – Chocolate is better here.

Fresh Baguettes  – These things dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar are sooo good!

Irish Cows – Milk, Cheese & Yogurt… I wish I could take a cow home with me. The cows here have a lot of grass to eat while the cows in the US are fed corn. So that’s why I think cows make better dairy products here.

Tea Time – Since we don’t drink tea or coffee, we need to implement hot chocolate time when we get home. We can even have hot coco with biscuits aka cookies.

European Pastries – There’s a pastry shop just down the street!

UK Fish and Chips – They are famous and now I know why. They serve everything with chips here… even Chinese food!

Irish Pork Sausage – Nothing like I’ve ever tasted 🙂

Metric System – It makes more sense to me now.

More Irish People – They are the most friendly people I’ve ever met.

Irish B&B with Full Irish Breakfast – The bed and breakfasts here are way fun! They always serve you a full Irish breakfast…. just don’t ask what pudding is made out of.

Ireland, Travel

Things I wish were in Ireland

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Hidden Valley Ranch – One of my good friends spend over $20 sending me some ranch packets.  I’ve been savoring them. I don’t think they’ll last me much longer.

Cafe Rio – Enough said… They don’t even sell fresh tomatillos in Ireland!

Mexican Food – The Mexican food isle at the store is small and I haven’t seen a Mexican restaurant in town.

Scott Jarvie – I wish I had my favorite photographer to take professional pictures of us in Ireland. 🙂

Gym with Childcare – No such thing as Gold’s Gym or 24 Hour Fitness here.

Distribution Center or Deseret Book – It was so convient to pick up gospel material when I needed it. We still need a picture of Jesus and the Temple at our apartment. I just need to order it online. Those blue copies of the Book of Mormon are precious in Ireland.

Costco or Sam’s Club – Since when is buying in bulk MORE expensive? It’s cheaper to by the 1 kg rice verse the 2 kg rice here. 😦

My Kitchen Aid – Cooking just hasn’t been the same without it.

Sun – Oh Mister sun, sun Mister golden sun please shine down on me!

Egg Nog (Dallin’s Request) – We celebrated our new years without Egg Nog this year.

Temple – Haven’t been to the temple since we left Utah! I miss just seeing the temple.

Family, Family Life, Ireland, Landscape, Photography, Travel

Bray Ireland Pictures

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Here’s some random pictures on our weekend adventures to the city Bray outside the border of Dublin. It was a really really cold day! In fact, it snowed right after we took these pictures. That’s why we all look like eskimos because we wore four layers of clothes that day. We actually starting walking from Dun Laoghaire to Dalkey. Then took the train called the Dart to Bray.

     

There are a bunch of Catholic churches here so we stopped by when they were having their mass on Saturday.

I thought these washing basins are similar to the ones in King Soloman’s Tabernacle. Way cool!

The architecture of the churches are so neat! I can’t believe how old they are.

Ireland, Travel

New Grange and Four Knocks Tombs

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This post is more about New Grange. New Grange is a very old tomb. It was predicted to be build back in 3200 BC! I won’t go into much detail about New Grange because you can just read the wiki on New Grange.

Now for the adventure to Four Knocks… you have to go ask Mrs. White who lives in a white house next to the tiny village of Four Knocks. Her number is +353 (0) 1 8354722. This is Mrs. White’s House:

You give her some money for the key. The money is only a deposit. You’ll get it back if you return the key to her before 6 pm.

She’ll give you the instructions on how to get to Four Knocks Tomb.

Here’s the Four Knocks Tomb on the left:

Here’s the door of the tomb:

Here’s some facts about the Four Knocks Tomb:

Here’s inside the tomb:

If you want to see more you’re just going to have to go for yourself cause we didn’t get very many pictures. We were a little creeped out and we didn’t bring a flash light!

Here’s some fun pictures we took outside the tomb:

Happy tomb finding! 🙂

Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Dallin’s First Post

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Dear World…. This is my first blog post!  Hooray.   I wanted to write to my family and friends and tell them about my experience in Ireland.  It is amazing and fun, as well as trying. The castles, greenery, ancient cathedrals, and accents are neat. It’s much more expensive, and learning how to do things in another country can be a challenge. I can’t count how many times we’ve been lost already. But we’ve been able to get where we were planning to go thanks to broadband cellular internet and May Bo’s faithful navigating with a laptop and google maps  It has been a blessing in a lot of ways to come here. May Bo and I have a lot more time with each other. She doesn’t have school, callings or social outing to go too anymore. It’s been nice to be able to spend evenings together again. I feel like this part of Ireland has been a “best” (See Elder Oak’s talk on “Good Better, Best“)

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This week May Bo and I went to see Newgrange. It is a 5000 year old mound of rock built about 3200-2800 B.C. (older than the pyramids) that has a long narrow passage leading to the center of the mound. In the center there is a cross shaped area with 3 stone washrooms and a bunch of ancient carvings. Every Dec 18-23 during the winter solstice the rising sun shines directly through the entranceway down the long narrow passage and into the center chamber and illuminates the entire room! It is supposedly a spectacular event. You have to win a lottery to see it (100 slots/30,000 applicants). It is an amazing mound, estimated to have used 200,000 tonnes of rock just for the center chamber alone! There must have been some amazing engineering going on to make this monument. There is no consensus among experts about why this monument was built, but I can’t help but notice the similarities between such a monument and the LDS temples of today. The Salt Lake Temple must weigh a lot too. I’m sure it took a lot of work to build, similar to this ancient monument.  It would not surprise me that such edifices were raised for the same purpose the Saints raise temples today: to unify families and to worship the “God of the whole earth,” even Jesus Christ.

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Ireland, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Taxi Ride and 35 Euros Pooer

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We had an exciting adventure on Sunday. We woke up a little late. I was trying to get Micah ready for Church. Dallin was still sleeping at 10:00 am. Our train was going to leave at 10:25 am to get to 11:00 am church at the Bray Branch. We planned this perfectly to get to church right on time. We leave our apartment sprinting to the train station. I was standing in line buying a round trip ticket for 5.50 Euro. Dallin already scanned his transportation card which keeps track of how many stops you go and then deducts money from the account. The train went by right before our face.

Great! The next one doesn’t come for 30 minutes. We would miss sacrament meeting. We hesitated for a few minutes then Dallin thought we could go catch the bus. There was no way the bus was going to get us to church on time. We left the train station looking for the bus. Dallin forgot to scan off his transportation card so it automatically deducts the maximum of 8 euros.

Hmm ok 13.50 Euros down the drain. Now what? The bus doesn’t come for another 15 minutes and it’ll take another 30 minutes to get there. That won’t work.

Can we call anyone? No everyone is already heading or headed to church! What are we going to do?! Taxi!

There were about 10 taxis lined up in the taxi line.

“Can you take us to Bray? Do you take a credit card?! We don’t have a car seat!!” we asked.

“Yes. No cash only. We can buckle the tad in.” said the driver.

We needed to find cash! So we sprint to the ATM to get out cash and it charged us 2 euros for ATM fees.

15.50 euros gone!

We got in the taxi and he took us to Bray. Surprisingly the taxi driver knew all about the Mormons since he lived in Utah for a few years. We invited him to church but he kindly said no. He was nice. The taxi ticker when up and up. It reached 21.65 euros by the time we got to the Bray Branch. The driver was kind to cut it down to 20 euros.

35.50 euros later… we made it to church at 10:59 am.

*Sigh of relief*

All I wanted was to make it to church to partake of the sacrament. We didn’t do a very good job of keeping the sabbath day holy that morning and I needed to be forgiven of my mistakes. I’m so grateful that we can go to church each week to take the sacrament. By taking the sacrament we can renew our baptismal covenants, be cleansed again from our sins and have a fresh start. The Savior administered the first sacrament the night before he was crucified. The sacrament is to remind us each week of  the great sacrifice He made for us.

35.50 euros equals to $47.94; however the blessings of the atonement and taking the sacrament are priceless. It was definitely worth it. We were even blessed because someone offered us a ride home.

We learned our lesson to wake up earlier next Sunday!