Sean and Kelly's Wedding

This was a great Christmas, and our first and only as an engaged couple.  Thanks to Kelly our apartment was nicely decorated with stockings and wreathes, and we had a nice little tree that we cut down on our own at Jones Tree Farm in Shelton earlier in December, which we filled with a bunch of cool ornaments that had plenty of memories and meaning in them.

The weekend of Christmas we both had an extra day off from work, so there was plenty of time to spend with family and friends. We exchanged gifts on the night of the 23rd since we had parties to attend and a very busy schedule on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Kelly gave me a great new flash for my Canon DSLR along with some super-cool Beatles art for my cubicle along with some clothes and other nic-nacs.  I gave her some jewelry, clothes and other small things she could use for her new job.  Gracie made out pretty well too – she got some new toys and massive raw-hide bone to chew on.  Such a great Christmas!

Oh yeah, did I mention Gracie saw Santa?

Kelly and I found a really cool vintage print from a travel book printed in 1933 featuring Dun Aengus – the place where I proposed to Kelly on one of the Aran Islands off the coast Ireland.

The Strange Forts of Aran

We hope to have it framed soon. We found it on an eBay store called Simple Gifts, which features a ton of vintage magazine and book prints. Check it out!

Sean and I spent the most amazing ten days in IRELAND. I’ve never been so speechless in my life – the views, scenery, amazing people, and constant smell of peat is all breathtaking. I finally understand why Sean has a slight obsession with this country . We started in Shannon, drove to Dublin, then drove through Kilkenny, the Wicklow Mountains, Waterford, Killarney National Park, the Ring of Kerry, the Skellig Islands, Dingle Peninsula, Limerick, and finally the Aran Islands and Galway. Whirlwind trip of a lifetime.

At the Guinness Storehouse

Oh, and did I mention he proposed?!

I think by now everyone has seen pictures and heard a zillion stories from our trip, but I’ll include a few anyway.

Gendalough

Ross Castle

Ladies View

Skellig Michael

Sheep!

"Hi, I have an engagement ring in my pocket"

Dun Aengus

The ring

Galway Bay

Just went on the trip of a lifetime – a ten day long tour of Ireland with the love of my life…  and came back engaged!

It was on the second to last full day of our trip when I proposed.  We had taken a boat out Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway, and biked our way out to the “Man of Aran Cottage” where we stayed for the night. Man of Aran is modeled after the old fashioned thatched roof cottages that were once common in Ireland, but was actually built in the 1930’s for the documentary “Man of Aran“.

Man of Aran Cottage

Our view from the cottage

Enjoying some wine at the cottage

Dinner at Joe Watty's Pub

After dinner we started walking up to Dun Aengus, an ancient fort built around 900BC alongside 300 foot high cliffs... and where I proposed.

Kelly at the 300ft high cliffs at Dun Aengus

Scaring the living sh*t out of me

Just before proposing

An areal view of Dun Aengus

After we got back I did some reading about the place and learned that the name Dun Aengus translates to Fort of Aengus.  Aeungus was the pre-Christian god of love, youth and poetic inspiration.  The myth says he had four birds flying about his head, which supposedly is where the xxxx’s symbolizing kisses at the end of love letters come from. Cool!

Couldn’t be happier!