Honeymoon Series: Ireland Part 1

I still haven't finished my series on our 3 week trip to Europe for our honeymoon, so I thought I would continue on with the last country we visited: Ireland. I never really thought much of Ireland as a potential  travel destination when growing up to be honest. But then, "PS I Love You" the movie came out and I (and 10 million other 20-30 year old women) was immediately obsessed. Ireland became top priority. So Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler, thanks. We stayed in Dublin 1 night, then headed over to the west, and lastly ended up on the coast.

If you missed out on the first posts of the series here is London 1, The Olympics, London 3, Salzburg, Obertraun, and Vienna. 

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The Book of Kells is stored in the Old Library at Trinity College. I was utterly speechless when I walked into that room.

Temple Bar

What happens when you're sick of European food? You find a Moes/Chipolte knockoff restaurant and 

go to town on a burrito and coke. 

This is Mike and Jackie, a couple who go to our church back home in Wisconsin!  They stay every summer at home in Ireland in the tiny town of Cong where they grew up and when they heard we were coming to Ireland, they were so excited. We decided to make their adorable hometown on the shores of Lough Corrib part of our trip. Mike is definitely as Irish as you can get. I am pretty sure he is half leprechaun with his feisty and clever personality, and his wife Jackie is a sweetheart. We drove over to see their adorable trailer and they took us to tea at the local castle...Can you say Irish Downton Abbey?

 Next up in the series: Galway and western Ireland. Undoubtedly one of my favorite places on earth. 

-Lauren

Nashville

My husband and I rarely get the same 3 days in a row off, and when we realized we both had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with no work (A MIRACLE!) we took that opportunity in stride and decided to go visit my grandma in Nashville on a whim! My aunt also lives there, and my dad was able to drive up from Georgia to hang out too! I'm using a lot of exclamation points! It ended up being a fantastic and relaxing weekend of just enjoying company.

You take your family for granted until they are a 9-12 hour drive away...let me tell ya. The weekend was good for catching up, but also consisted on some amazing food all cooked by my Auntie Lynne, who buys her butter in Paris and her Parmesan cheese in Italy. Literally. Need I say more. Dad brought Mom's dog Annie (I don't think he claims her as his own most days), who Lily is sadly and pitifully obsessed with because they used to be best friends when I lived there. Now Annie is a princess and pretends she doesn't remember Lily. By the end of the visit though, they were doing laps around the yard like it was the Daytona 500 and Annie jumped in the car with her as we were leaving.

We had breakfast at an amazing little Amish restaurant/antique store combo that was fantastic!

Best cinnamon roll I think I've ever had. Ever.

  

My sweet but sassy grandmother,Othermother. She's gonna kill me for telling you all this, but she's 70- hard to believe right? Now that I mention it, I haven't actually seen a birth certificate to prove this. She might actually be a 50 year old spy who pretends to be old or something.

 Oh man. These three.

 I'm still drooling over that chicken. 

Adam and me, Dad (with Annie creepin in at his shoulder), Othermother, and Auntie Lynne. My cousin Landon and Lynne's boyfriend Ken didn't make it into the photo :( 

Does your family live nearby or far away? How do you manage the distance? We are fortunate to live near Adam's family, so we really only have to travel half of the time. I don't know how people do it with family scattered all over the world!

-Lauren

Snow day

This winter in Wisconsin has been somewhat boring as far as snow goes. Last year I think it snowed a cumulative 6 or so inches the whole season-a pathetic attempt MOTHER NATURE, just pathetic I tell ya. But it started snowing yesterday and kept going for about 24 hours. I woke up this morning in that hazy half-dreaming, half-awake place where you are wondering things like "where did my left sock go?!" and thinking "I can't believe I finally learned out to fly--oh. wait. nevermind. dream." and "UGH that is some seriously bright sunlight coming in the window."

Once I was actually awake, however, my brain immediately was like "OK. don't get the hopes up but just peek outside and check.....YUS! SO MUCH SNOW!!!" I then looked at my phone to a text saying that I had the day off of work, and so this day just kept getting better and better and I wasn't even out of bed yet. 

Adam, Lily and I decided to go out to a rural area of town where we could break the law (AKA let lily run on the trails unleashed) without having a cop driving by, blaring his megaphone at us and threatening a $200 ticket. That is a true story from 8 am last week when we were walking in the woods near a street. Ree-diculous I tell ya. I really have issues with dog leash laws, but that is another story for another day. So we settled on Bristol Woods, which has an adorable nature center and rents out snowshoes. 

The snow was about a foot deep which=mayjah workout! 

Adam's snowshoes were a brand called ATLAS! For anyone who doesn't know, this blog is called everyday ATLAS because our initials are AT and LA, and our last name is S. So we call ourselves atlas. I know, the cheesiness is palpable. 

And I fell. Yep that's awkward. 

Lily had this really strange thing happen today while frolicking in the snow where she collects huge balls of snow on the sides of her legs. I called them her saddlebags. 

And the print below is now in the shop in 8x10 size! "Winter Song"

I really could get used to this snow day thing. Honestly, winter up here isn't that bad! I think midwesterners just enjoy moaning and groaning about shoveling. What is your favorite season? Mine is fall, but winter is certainly growing on me. 

xoxo, Lauren 

An announcement! And V-Day

Well since I last wrote Christmas has come and gone, along with the New Year. I started my masters degree in Applied Behavioral Analysis last month, which is a fancy word for autism behavioral therapy.  SO, things have been veerrrrryyyy busy. I also decided back in November to open an Etsy shop selling my photographs. But why stop there? I like designing things and drawing things, so it kind of became a big 'ol pot of random. On January 1st I decided to officially open and kick the year off right.  So without further ado, may I introduce you to:

Besides selling the items in the shop, I am totally up to any custom design project you may have. Spread the word, or like the facebook page to get specials and promotion updates :)

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Vday:

Valentines day for Adam and me doesn't really have a particular feel to it yet. When we were dating, we never spent a Valentines day together in 4 years, so this is only our 2nd one. Last year I went all fancy, even making fondue in that pot that every single engaged couple registers for but never uses. You know the one. 

WELL GUESS WHAT? I USED IT. ONCE 

This year, however, we are full to the brim with work and other obligations, so I wanted to keep it more low key. We definitely didn't want to fight the crowds for a night out, so I decided on a classic-breakfast for dinner. For a delicious BFD (yes, it is that awesome to warrant an abbreviation) on Valentine's Day, you will need the following:

So there you  have it. A simple but delish Valentine's Day!

Hope yours was lovely :)

Our sweet southern Thanksgiving

When you move several times over the course of 10 years, it is hard to figure out where home is after a while. In the end there's always that one place where your roots still lie. For me, home is Shreveport, Louisiana where I grew up until the age of 14. About 75% of my family on both sides live there and have attended the same church for decades. My parents grew up together in the same church as babies. It took them around 20 years to figure out they liked each other but when they married they basically destined me to be related to everyone in that place. And I love it. 

We took the 14 hour haul down to Louisiana and packed as many people in 2 days as possible. After church Sunday night, we went out to eat and my friend Colten got this sweet panorama of our group of friends.

We saw so many wonderful faces Sunday and Monday but let's be real for a second people. One of the other best parts about going home is the FOOD. The food you can't get anywhere but your hometown because it is local. The food that has you drooling no matter how many trans fats you know it contains.

I had some blackened alligator at a popular Cajun restaurant in town, which was good, despite the fact that it looked like little turds.

 

There is a donut shop in the Louisiana/Arkansas area called Southern Maid donuts. There isn't a single food in the entire world that is better than a SM donut. None. It's not really up for discussion. They are hot at 4 pm everyday I'm pretty sure when the guy took the trough of icing and poured the glaze on I cried a little.

My mom's side owns a few hundred acres up in Southern Arkansas where we go to deer hunt throughout the year and meet for huge holiday get-togethers that induce temporary diabetes. It is one of the few remaining quiet places of the world where time stands still or just doesn't matter, and the nearest grocery store is a 30 minute drive.  

Everything takes place at the house my great grandparents built with their own hands back in the 1950's, which officially sleeps like 7. So naturally, we end up with about 35 people cramped into this tiny house telling loud and hilarious stories that we've all heard 20 times. My Mamaw, that sweet sweet soul, cooks about 6-7 hours nonstop each day for everyone--even when we try to help. I asked her if she ever gets sick of it. 

Her reply was "As long as people want to eat, never. I love it."

 My sweet papaw cracking pecans

 Mini dirt bike parking lot

 Papaw and Adam probably talking about hunting.

 Annie sunbathing. This is Lily's best friend! They grew up together for a year while I lived with my parents and played the whole week.

 My brother with the ducks he hunted

Cleaning the ducks

My aunt's boyfriend on my dad's side is a pilot for United Airlines and owns a plane, so he flew my Auntie Lynne and Othermother (what I call my super hip grandma) to Arkansas for a short visit before going on to see my dad's side in Shreveport! See, it pays to have both sides of your family know each other so well :) This woman is turning 70 in a week. Whatever her secret is, I want some.

 

 Most of the Thanksgiving crowd... still somehow missing about 15 people who were either hiding or inside gorging themselves with more food.  

A bunch of the girls ended up going "Black Friday" shopping but only made it to one boutique because we loved the clothes so much! Downtown El Dorado was lit up by the time we left and such a cute little town.

Adam ended up shooting a deer (with a bow) our very last night in Arkansas. We tried to track it but found no arrow, speck of blood, or anything. It was really sad that it probably died and the meat was just wasted. But sometimes, that just happens. 

It was an incredibly blessed week with so many things to be thankful for not just on turkey Thursday, but every single day of the year. 

So there it is, a week's worth of activity packed into one oversized blog post! 

Hope you had a marvelous week too!