GregMarone, a user of this site from the Chicagoland area is hoping to start one! Check out his post in the forums! I hope that he is able to accomplish this, as more great Catholic bands are something that I'm looking forward to hearing from!

Looking to Start a Catholic punk band!

Last weekend, I went to a Youth Ministry conference on "Prayer and Praise."

It was a really cool way to learn about prayer and creating prayer sessions for meetings and retreats. We also learned how to plan for things based on specific topics. It's crazy how much we learned in just two days. The facilitator, Stan Cordero, was awesome and had everything well laid out.

This was the first of an 8 session course that I would LOVE to be able to finish up. We'll see!

It's been a busy year since the trip to Ireland. Lots has happened, and lots more is still to come, I am sure.

I hope to have a chance to start really hammering out the changes to this website to make it a hopping place to be, but we'll see. Hopefully, 2008 will be the year that this site starts moving in a direction to take off.

If you've read the previous entry about our absolutely incredible Hotel stay, you have some idea of what I'm talking about. Each day, when entering the bathroom, I would notice that the tissue was a bit disheveled. It looked like someone had accidentally taken a few too many tissues out of the box and tried shoving the rest back in.

This is a phrase that I coined early on in our trip when we really discovered how wonderful our hotel in Ireland was....

Granted, any hotel with a name like The Great Southern Dublin AIRPORT Hotel, is not going to be the most expensive or best accommodation. In fact, it was the cheapest to be found rated at three and a half stars, so we took our chances....

Well, we're back from Ireland. Tired. And in need of a good rest. We've a retreat to help run this weekend and much sleep is required.

Today was indeed our last day to see the hustle and bustle of Dublin, ride the wonderful and long public transportation, and see the rolling green hills. But, we did all of these! It was a long day, full of fun which taught me a few things...

1. Don't rely on public transportation to make a fast and speedy trip

2. Check times of the attractions you want to see (again, refer to number one)

3. Try different Irish foods when you are here, it will be worth it whether you like it or not

Alas, our last full day in Ireland was today, but it was a great day. We spent a few hours of the morning in and around downtown Dublin before our bus departed for Glendalough, home of the Wicklow Mountains National Park. The ride to the park was beautiful as we saw the rolling hills and grassy plains of the Irish countryside, full of sheep, horses, and cows. The scenery we saw today was much more accurate to the images that come to my mind when I think of Ireland and was a nice escape from the bustling city of Dublin.

Today was the last day in Ireland. How sad... we will be returning though, at some point in the future. That I know. Ireland is too beautiful a country to not see more of it.

We started the day going to Trinity College again to buy sweatshirts. Mission: Accomplished. We also looked for a square Old Library Key chain for Courtney, but NOT A SINGLE ONE REMAINED! I cannot believe it! How ridiculous. I hope they have it online..Otherwise, I'll just request it via e-mail.

We spent the day today hanging out around Dublin seeing the various attractions. Trinity College was the highlight of the day as we saw the Illuminated Manuscript from around 800 AD known as the Book of Kells. This rendition of the four Gospels is a colorful, handwritten, art-filled book and the original is located right at the college. We also saw the old Trinity College library, which was an amazing sight.