ireland, part one

once upon a summer with two craic head siblings were blessed to accomplish a lifelong dream of experiencing Ireland together.

(I don’t want to overwhelm either of us with how beautiful it was / how many pictures I take, so I’ll post about it in parts.)

we started out by getting bounced around every possible airport (Dulles, taxi to Reagan, flew to La Guardia, taxi to JFK, sat around till 1am) but eventually landed in the land of a thousand greens.

and it was awesome.

…as was our house!

Josh and I have never been fans of touring, so instead of taking a bus ride through the country with all the other fanny packs, we rented a gorgeous house just outside the small coastal village of Doolin (known for it’s exceptional live music and views of the sea) and spent all our time there. we felt more like we lived there instead of just visiting, and even made a few friends in the village.

our backyard was incredible.

I’ve always dreamed of taking a true holiday at the sea, and this fulfilled every bit of soul nostalgia.

the view from my kitchen!

my office : )

one of the biggest perk of having our own house was getting to go grocery shopping so we could cook / eat all the time. our house was SO much prettier than I even hoped for, and with all the window light I was happy to just sit and do nothing…glancing up occasionally to double check I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.

the first few days I didn’t touch my cameras (all 3 of them! Holga film coming soon) and instead took walks and prayed and picked flowers and talked and read and was. it was a beautiful time of rest.

…because it was just that awesome.

if only I’d stuck around a few more weeks!

the village of Doolin was a couple miles away, so we’d putz around during the day and go down to the pubs at night. (I loved how all the signs were in Gaelic first, then English.)

Josh has played the Irish tin whistle for as long as my ringing ears can remember, but he’s actually quite stellar and was approved by even the craggiest of locals.

Jess and Chris, some awesome folks from Vermont we hung out with a few nights

took a bike ride with Jess for a few hours which seemed like a good idea… until I remembered she’s a fulltime running coach haha. the hills slayed me! but I made it through, and even stopped at my first smidge of a castle.

biking was definitely the best way to explore the area, and I spent a couple days doing that on my own.

sure God, might as well throw in an extra waterfall.

Doolin!

le sigh.