Top O' the Mornin' to ya!

I have arrived! I am in Ireland, the Emerald Isle, after being awake for over 24 hours, and I sit here at the computer weaving from exhaustion, feeling like my head is floating away from the rest of me. Woo hoo! But no, I can't sleep, or else the jetlag will be prolonged. Ugh.
Yes. Ireland. Gorgeous, old, bricks and walls and people driving on the wrong side of their car down the wrong side of the street. Tiny little cosy adorable houses, tiny little adorable cars. Lots of pasture and greenery outside the city. Ireland! Discovering that the North American world is not too far away; movies, advertisements, products followed us here, or were here waiting for us.
Ireland is a land to be discovered, over and over again! Can't wait to walk down the cobblestone streets (where there is cobblestone), dip into a pub for some fish and chips to wait out the transitory rainfall, chat up the locals and learn the stories behind the words, the customs, the very stones and earth and people that make up the beautiful country that now plays host to me.

Hm. More to come later.
Snafu.

Here's to you, Bro!

It just hit me that in less than a week, I am going to be overseas, in Ireland, getting ready for my big brother's wedding. My brother is getting married. Married! My brother, with whom I made tree forts, went tramping through the woods with, played GI Joe's, Lego, video games...haha I remember playing duck hunt with him, and we'd sit real close to the tv and try to shoot the annoying dog. I can remember in one of the houses we lived at, he had the top loft for his room, and one night as the sun was going down, we crawled out the window and out onto the shingle roof. It was such a cool sight to see all the surrounding pastures and the other houses silhouetted against the setting sun.
And I remember listening to him as he learned how to play guitar. He was the one who talked to me about Jesus and about persevering when my life was off track, and he stayed at home after he graduated to look after me even though situations weren't that great.
lol we still play video games together..and Carcasson.

I was blessed with him as a brother. He's not just my brother, he's one of my best friends.

Flyball

I went to a flyball tournament with my mom this weekend. We didn't compete, as our dogs are not ready yet, but we did help out, seeing as our club was hosting the event. It was super fun...there were tons of dogs, all ball-crazy and barking thier heads off, and the masters hollering and getting them wound up and psychotic. It was awesome. There were so many different types of dogs there, and some of them were SO FAST!!!! Others were slow and lumpy and just kinda galumped along....but others flew. They were seriously blurs of fur and leg.
Got to meet lots of different people too. One guy in our club is a Mormon. I would like to have further conversations with him, that's for sure.
The competition ended on a bit of a tragic note. There were about 12 races to go, when we suddenly heard people yelling for a cell phone and a doctor. I heard someone say that someone had collapsed at the top of the bleachers. Everyone that had first aid rushed up there, and after a few moments Mom and another lady ran outside to wait for the ambulance that had been called. Within a couple minutes the ambulance arrived, and came into the arena through which a pathway had been cleared. Nobody really knew what had happened, but we saw the people doing compressions on the person. I thought the worst, but Mom told me that the practice in first aid nowadays is in certain circumstances to do thirty compressions and one breath on the person, even if they have a pulse.
After about a half hour, the ambulance guys loaded up the person. I gathered later that the woman that collapsed had some sort of a health condition--when the ambulance guys were there, she was trying to breathe on her own and couldn't really, and her pulse was sporadic and irregular. So Anna, the coordinator of the flyball club, told us that if anyone of us were into praying then the woman would need our prayers.
Needless to say, we all decided to end the tournament then. Everyone was really good about helping cleanup and stuff. But it was pretty scary, anyways.

Apparently the next tournament is going to be in early June. Mom and I are probably going to be in Ireland then though....Ireland, which is only 20 days away!!

SNaFu