Halloween...Scooby Style.

HI there!

Happy Halloween!

I thought I would share our Halloween pictures ON the day this year instead of after. Unlike last year. *ahem*

Dad's little Jack O' Lantern.

Monster Eye Cookies! Found the recipe for these on Pinterest here.

My table set up for my Halloween party! There are a couple of clues that might help you guess who we dressed up as :D

If you ever watched Scooby Doo growing up, you'll know who we are! Daphne and Shaggy, equipped with Scooby Snax and a Mystery Machine lunch pack :D I'm also quite pleased that I found most of our costume pieces at Goodwill. I love being thrifty!

"Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"

My bear even decided to get into the spirit of Halloween :)

My ghostie in my cocoa.

I found this idea on Pinterest too. Find it here.

Unfortunately, heating crayons with a hair dryer takes FOREVER. I'm a third of the way done, but I think I'm going to borrow my Dad's heat gun to finish the job! I'll post a pic when it's finished.

This guy is all done! I may put a spider above his mouth....idk.

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween! I can believe it has come and gone already O_O

P.S. I am currently reading 'Dracula' and am ignoring 'The Two Towers'. I just can't get into it! I keep thinking "I could be watching the movie. Why am I not watching the movie? The movie was a whole lot more interesting!" *sobs* I completely understand Cait's phobia towards thick books. I'm feeling it right now with that huge thing staring at me all the time :P


 

Dublin, Ireland - October 7th, 2011 - Day 1

I'm going to start out with our first day in Dublin, Oct. 7th. Oct. 6th was spent traveling so not a lot to tell about that day.

We had a pretty long flight to get to Ireland. Two, actually. Ten and a half hours in all, I think. The overnight flight was so dreadfully long. I could barely sleep, I think I got about two hours and the rest of the time I watched movies. Thankfully no one sat next to me on one side (our row was three seats across) so I was able to curl up and at least try to sleep.

I did have to sit next to four entirely different people on three of the flights.

On flight number one I was sandwiched between a man in his late forties/early fifties and a guy in his late teens/early twenties. That was a tense flight. No sleeping on that one. Or picking your nose. Toward the end of the flight I struck up a small-talk conversation with the young guy next to me. It was better than utter silence. He had a southern accent which made it worth it. The older guy didn't talk to me at all. I guess I didn't look that interesting. Plus he slept most of the way. (and HE got the window seat!)

Flight number two I sat next to Robert's mom and no one else claimed the seat next to me. That was a great flight except for the barely sleeping part.

Flight  number three (on the way home) Robert's mom was on my one side and there was a girl about my age on my other side. Again, toward the end of the flight we started talking to her. I don't know why but I just assume people don't want to talk on planes. *shrugs* She was really nice and told us all about her trip to Ireland (apparently her dad lives there and she visits frequently). I kind of got the impression that she had a wild streak in her after she showed me her matching shamrock tattoos and told me she had gone on a spontaneous motorcycle ride with a boy she didn't know. I just thought it was funny how she was sharing all this with me, a complete stranger, as if she and I had known each other forever! People tend to bare their souls around me, for some reason.

Flight number four I sat next to this big, gruff-looking, motorcycle-riding dude in maybe his fifties. He turned out to be the nicest person of all the strangers I sat next to on the trip! We spent the whole flight talking about insanely random subjects like King Henry VIII and what kind of pets we had. He was awesome :)

It just amazes me. You never know who your going to meet, when, where, how and most of the time your first impression will always be wrong.

 

The first thing we had to drink in Ireland. Sparking water. It was my first time having it, too. We actually meant to get regular water but Robert's mom accidentally got this instead.

I missed this face!

This was taken in the our hotel's restaurant/bar.



I love chalkboard menus! Robert and his mom got the Thai Style Chicken Curry. I was actually not feeling very well (I think I got food poisoning from the plane food that was cooked in plastic) so I didn't get anything.

This was in the courtyard of Trinity College. I think it was a bell tower.

"And on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of spinning wheel, and DIE!"

 

We were told to kiss. I bet that guy was embarrassed. I know we were!

Oh look, Careers Week!

I was not feeling good at all at this point. I was plagued with stomach cramps. We had to cut our evening short :P

I'm not sure what this statue was supposed to be....

So yeah, we got to see the Book of Kells in the College museum and some other cool stuff that we couldn't take pictures of, but we had to cut it short because I really needed to go lay down. We went to bed early that night and tried to recover from jet lag.

And that was Day 1!

Engagement Day! - Gougane Barra, Ireland - October 10th, 2011

*waves* I'm back! Did you miss me?

So maybe the weekly posting thing isn't going to work out....? YA THINK?! It's been a MONTH and a WEEK since I last posted, guys. That's terrible. And if I think that's terrible than you must think it's horrid. Unforgiveable. Unbelievably sad.

I'm so sorry. This year has had far too much busyness for my taste. And not enough alone time. Or simply just being home time.Trying to fit in the things I've been wanting to do lately has been ridiculously challenging. We're almost half-way through October, people! I still haven't even posted what happened in July, August and September. *facepalms* Where does my time go? Seriously.

Anyway, I hope you missed me a little bit, but not so much that you're dying of deprivation. That wouldn't be good! I love you guys, I really, really do. I just don't think my life is going to slow down...and that makes it hard to make time to blog :P *sigh*

Okay, so awhile back, I promised Treskie that I would share pictures from my Ireland trip and seeing that the trip happend Oct. 6-16 of 2011, I thought this month would be a good time to post them! Today (Oct. 10) is actually the third anniversary of my engagement to Robert. He proposed to me in IRELAND, people! IRELAND. It's still hard to believe. He's just so awesome. I couldn't have planned it better myself :) So I will be sharing those pictures today even though that was our fourth day in Ireland.


October 10, 2011 - Gougane Barra in Ireland

Gougane Barra was in-between the drive from Kinsale to Killarney.



This was my first glimpse of Gougane Barra. I was in the backseat taking pictures on the way to Killarney, when I saw it. I then commenced to excitedly hyperventilate because I had seen it before. Four days ago. On the computer screen at my parent's house!!!! It was just a random picture of Ireland that we had found online and just happened to set that one for our desktop background. We had no idea where it was located or what it was called. AND I FREAKIN' GOT TO GO THERE!!!!!

The wallpaper background back home. Significantly better than mine. *sniffs*

The sign.

The no camping or picnics part just ruined that whole sign.

It was VERY windy.

The Loch. Gougane Barra is almost like an island, but not. It feels like one with all the water surrounding it.

The stone building turned out to be a small chapel! Which was awesome, since I'm Catholic. I love these kinds of places :) The walls were also painted in my favorite colors of course I loved it!

The altar was BEAUTIFUL! I have never seen anything like it. I'm a big fan of Celtic knot work and this was just breathtaking. I tried to convince Robert to agree that this was the church we should get married in, but he didn't go for it. I wonder why? ;) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO AWESOME.

I forget what this was called, but apparently monks used to live in stone caves like these way back when. These were not the original caves, but similar to what they would have lived in.

The 14th and last Station in the Stations of the Cross. "Jesus was laid in the Sepulcher".

 See how windy it was?

I'm not sure what this was supposed to be, but it looked cool.

This is where I was standing shortly before he proposed.

I took this picture right before I turned around to find Robert on his knee with a ring in is hand! :) If I hadn't been so dumbfounded, it might have occurred to me to take a picture of him like that :P He couldn't have picked a better place or a better time because at that moment there were no people around and his Mom had gone back to the chapel (she knew he was going to propose in Ireland, and so did everyone at home because he had e-mailed my parents to ask their permission. That may sound weird, but it was kind of spur of the moment so he couldn't ask them in person.) I was sixteen at the time, and we waited about 2 years to get married.

My ring! It's a white gold ring with an oval natural sapphire in the middle, with two little diamonds on the sides. I love it :) It felt weird to have a ring on that finger and I was so afraid that one of the gems would somehow fall out and get lost in Ireland and I'd never see it again. I'm ridiculous, I know.

And here were are, a few minutes after the proposal. He was 19 and I was 16. That day will always be one of the most happiest days of my life :)

A Month of Minions

Hey there, peoples!

This is going to be a catch up post since I've been horrible at posting this summer. So, you saw what happened at the beginning of June (my super awesome India party), but I neglected to share the rest of the month with you. I know. I'm smacking myself for you right now. *SMACK*

Here's the story guys:

I have tons of beautiful flowers this year! They were the prettiest in June, I think.

There was a rainbow.

We acquired stones to make a campfire ring in our backyard from my sister and brother-in-law. Now we have something fun in our backyard! It's basically been empty until this summer. None of our trees can hold swings so we've been trying to think up other fun things to add back there. We now have a place for a campfire AND a badminton/volleyball net. I love badminton.

I did a project for my craft room! *dances* I didn't like my bland cork board. So I raided my fabric stash.

All I did was measure the cork board (the cork part, not the frame) and add 1/2 inch to all sides before cutting. You will be tucking the edges of the fabric underneath the frame of the cork board, so you'll want the extra 1/2 inch for that. I had to trim mine a bit more to get an exact fit.

After tucking in the edges, space out thumb tacks evenly across the edge. This will keep the fabric secure. And that's it!

One of my Sunday outfits that month.

Showing off my shoes :D

A little minion helped me draw these minions. Can you tell?

We drew a purple minion too!

We had a minion themed birthday for my brother-in-law!  A number 1 for another year older :D
And cheesecake. Yummy cheesecake.

We wore our minion shirts. You can't see mine but you can kinda see Robert's. Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Nana :D

June was just a totally minion month! We went to one of our local-ish amusement parks and won a minion!!!!!! The bear was from our first attempt to get a minion, but he's cute so not a total loss. We usually never play games at fairs or other similar amusement places, but they usually don't have minions. I love my minion. The games at this park were surprisingly fair compared to the ones at our small town's crappy fair.

Rainbow sugar.

*giggles*

I read this lovely book while on a camping trip. It is my favorite of the trilogy. It also made the camping trip bearable. I'm not overly fond of camping. Especially when one's tent gets rained on while one is trying to sleep. Yeah. Not doing that again!

That pretty much sums up what happened in June....India party, improving the yard, amusement park with the fam, MINION PARTY, lots of reading, and damp camping. A good month, I think :) I hope it was good for you too!

Ta-ta for now,

~Mary