Jersey Shore, PA

Am and I headed for the Keystone State for a roadtrip this weekend to visit friends and family.  We left Friday morning and headed 6 hours north to Jersey Shore, PA to visit the Ulmer clan.  Rebecca Ulmer was Am's roommate at New Tribes Bible Institute, is my grandmother's sister's granddaughter, was one of Am's bridesmaids in our wedding, and, most importantly, is responsible for Am and I ending up together.  Needless to say, I am one of Becca's biggest fans.  She has been down to visit us multiple times in the past few months and we felt it was time to return the favor.

The Ulmers live on an amazing farm in central PA.  The Ulmer family has been on this land since the mid-1800s and I could quickly see why they didn't want to leave.  It was absolutely beautiful and brought back many fond memories of my years living in that area of PA.  I actually lived with Becca's grandmother (my Great Aunt Jo) on her farm 5 minutes away when I was in the 5th grade.  I learned to love the smell of cow manure and there was plenty of that on the Ulmer farm so I was in heaven.

We had a great visit Friday evening and then headed to my Great Aunt Jo's for Pudgie's Pizza.  Am had been building up how great Pudgie's was so I was looking forward it!  We picked up our huge sheet of pizza on the way and I was definitely not disappointed.  While I would still argue that Pizza Express in Richmond is the best pizza on earth, Pudgie's was definitely good!  We talked until late and then hit the sack.

Saturday morning we headed to visit my sister, Gina, and her family who live just 30 minutes from Jersey Shore in Muncy.  Am and I had the chance to meet Liam, my nephew Bill's baby for the first time!  That was a pure delight.  Liam was adorable and we had a blast playing with him.  We also had a great time catching up with Gina, Gaby, & Tessa.  They moved back to their hometown of Muncy from Richmond a few months back and we really miss them!  Here is Gina, Gaby, & Tessa with Liam sitting on their front porch and a picture of Am with Liam:

We stayed through noon and then headed back to Jersey Shore.  We hooked up with Rebecca and went out to drive around and enjoy the fall foliage throughout the countryside.  Unfortunately the sun that the weatherman promised never showed but the leaves were still magnificent.  We stopped to get a picture of a neat old firetruck that Am loved.  Right as Am and Becca hopped up on the truck for a picture, we heard a tractor coming down the dirt road.  Sure enough, it was the farmer coming to see what we were doing on his land!  What are the chances?  Luckily he was very nice and let us take all the pictures we wanted.  Here is a pic of Am and Rebecca on the truck:

Once we finally gave up on the sun, we picked up some groceries and headed back to the house.  We spent the evening visiting some more and eating some absolutely delicious shrimp alfredo that Becca's mom, Susan, made.  It was awesome!

We slept at Aunt Jo's again Saturday night and had a chance Sunday morning to talk to my Uncle Ron who just returned from a missions trip to Russia.  We headed back to the Ulmer farm and ate the most amazing cinnamon rolls that I have ever had.  Yep, Becca's cinnamon rolls are way better than Cinnabon's or Cinna Monster's!  I have now eaten four of them!  Before the Ulmer's headed for church, we captured a family picture.  Here we are with the Ulmers on the Ulmer Homestead:

We spent our last two hours at the Ulmer's up on "The Hill" above their farm.  The Ulmer farm consists of 130 acres on a hillside.  From the top of that hill, you can see miles and miles of countryside.  This is obviously a favorite spot for the Ulmer's and for Am.  It quickly became one for me too.  We finally had some sun show up and it started to burn off the fog.  Here are some pictures from "The Hill".

Our time had finally come and we had to hit the road to head back for Richmond.  We made one more pit stop just outside of Harrisburg, PA to have lunch with my brother and sister-in-law, Dave & Shelley, at Applebees.  We chatted for an hour and half, snapped a picture, and hit the road again for the final leg back to Richmond.  This was definitely a fantastic roadtrip!  Here we are with Dave and Shelley:

India - Days 1, 2, & 3

Our adventure began on Thursday, June 16th.  To save on our airfare, our tickets were out of Dulles so our travel began with a drive up to Fredericksburg to bum a ride to the airport from Am's parents.  They dropped us at Dulles and we hopped on our first flight from D.C. to London.  In London we met up with a lot of our team members who were coming from Florida, Texas, & California.  We then flew to Bangalore in southern India.

Our original plan was to hop in a van and drive 6 hours southwest to Wayanad just over the border into Kerala State, however, we found out 3 days before heading for India that our plans were going to need to change.  A group of missionaries in Kerala had run into some opposition from an extreme Hindu group.  They ended up being run out of the country.  The pastors we were to work with in Kerala felt it was not a good time to have more missionaries in the region.

Our team leaders did a fantastic job of rallying and completely rearranging the plans in such a short window of time.  We were now headed 1,100 kilometers north of Wayanad to the city of Aurangabad in the Maharashtra State.  What made this extremely cool was that a group of pastors in Aurangabad had been getting together for some time to pray that missionaries would come to the area to work in the villages around the city.  Even though this change of plans was news to us, God was not caught unprepared!

If all were to go completely perfect, a drive from the Bangalore airport to Aurangabad would take 15 hours.  And driving in India generally doesn't go perfectly.  So we opted for more flights.  We were to fly from Bangalore to Mumbai and then from Mumbai to Aurangabad but we had a 6 hour wait in Bangalore so we spent the time getting to know our team members better and learning more about the work that we were going to be doing.  Here we are in the Bangalore Airport:

The airport had a hop scotch area taped on the floor right in the middle of the ticketing area as part of a campaign for active kids.  Our team found the hop scotch irresistable and quickly partook.  I don't think people in the airport quite knew what to think of us.  We had a huge audience gathered around us and even people standing at the windows to the airport staring in enthralled by the crazy people jumping around in the middle of an airport.  We eventually lured some Indian kids over and got them to play as well.  It was a ton of fun!  Here is Am playing hop scotch (look at those ups!):



Our flights from Bangalore to Mumbai to Aurangabad were fairly uneventful but we were getting pretty tired by this point.  When we arrived in Aurangabad, we were picked up by the local pastors that we were going to be working with.  We took a short bus ride to the hotel that would be our home base for the trip.  From the time we left Richmond to the time we arrived at the hotel was a whopping 44 hours!  And Am and I can't sleep on airplanes so this was one LONG day!  Here are Am and I right around the 44 hour mark in the bus en route to the hotel (still looking pretty chipper if you ask me):

We received our first introduction to real Indian food at the hotel before crashing for the night.  We had some amazing tomato soup that quickly became my favorite meal over there!  Before leaving Mumbia, one of our team leaders mentioned to me that we were not going to be going to as many churches as we thought the following morning so I needed to keep my message to 15 minutes.  I must have looked like a deer caught in headlights!  Somehow the email mentioning that I was supposed to preach at church didn't make it to my inbox so I hadn't prepared anything!  This meant a pretty late night (after 44 hours of travel) as I came up with something to speak on.  Eventually I did get to sleep and despite being in a foreign country, I slept like a baby!

The following morning we split into three teams and hit three different churches.  We had the opportunity to witness an awesome worship service.  The worship in particular was fantastic (the drummer in the praise band turned out to be one of our incredible translators).  The service was actually in English so we could understand everything that was said.  Each team member had the opportunity to talk about why they were excited to be in India and I had my opportunity to do a very quick sermon on how God used Gideon.  Here I am preaching at the church:

After the church service we met up with the other two groups and headed out for a nice lunch at a local hotel.  The food was excellent and the hotel was extremelly fancy.  I think we ate up a pretty massive chunk of our food budget all in one lunch!  Here we are outside the hotel:

After lunch we headed for a local tourist attraction, the Ellora Caves, which were dug starting around 500 AD.  They were absolutely massive with extremely intricate stone work.  We had a blast exploring.  We were slightly limited in time by the number of teenage boys wanting to have their picture taken with Annmarie (and all of the other American girls).  I even had a line wanting to have their picture taken with me.  We had to actually be kind of rude to finally get to leave.

One of the real experiences at the caves were dealing with the hawkers.  A young man met me immediately after getting off the bus and started to show me all he had to offer while we were walking toward the caves.  He had rocks for sale as well as postcards and books about the caves.  I explained that I would think about it while we were inside.  I expected that he would go back and search for another customer but instead he waited for me right outside the entrance!  We were in there for a solid hour so this was quite the commitment.  He explained as we walked back to the bus that we were visiting outside of the tourist season and they end up quite desperate for money during this season.  I admired his dedication and walked away with several books and two cool rocks that now adorn my office.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Here are Am and I at the caves:

The evening was spent preparing the team for going out to the villages the following day to begin our work.  We had the opportunity to meet with the local pastors who were coordinating our efforts as well as some of the translators.  We learned more about the area and some of the cultural considerations that we would need to keep in mind as we interacted with the villagers.  After a good meeting, we were off to bed for some beauty rest before our first real day of ministry.  We were extremely tired but excited to see what God had in store.

India - The Background

I know this is extremely late but many of you have been asking for the stories behind the pictures of our India missions trip and I figured a couple of blog posts would be the best way to tell them.  Since it has been 4 extremely eventful months since the trip, my memory is like swiss cheese which should keep the stories nice and short.

I will start by answering the "why?" (you will have to wait for the next posts for the pictures).  Last November I headed up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park.  I picked a cool cabin just off Skyline Drive with a fantastic view of the mountains.  I took no computer and made sure I had no television.  My goal was to get away from all of the distractions of life so I could focus on spending time alone with God.  I sought after His will for my life and spent a lot of time reading some great studies and journaling.  It was an amazingly refreshing time.

I came away from this trip with a list of action steps that I felt God was leading me to take.  One of those steps was to go on a short term missions trip the following year.  I specifically felt the pull toward India which I can't quite explain.  I waited until WEAG (my church) released their list of missions trips for the following year and was excited to see that India was on the list.  But as I read the focus of the trip, I really felt it was not the type of work that God had been leading me toward.  I felt very conflicted. 

I knew my friends, the Sjogrens, were going to be leading a trip in 2012 through e3 Partners that was more in line with where I felt God was calling.  So I felt this inner turmoil as I fought with whether to go "where" I felt God was leading me (India) or go elsewhere with the Sjogrens and "do" what I felt God was leading me to do (evangelism).  At this point I had no idea where the Sjogrens were planning to go so I would have to wait to see where their location was so I could ask God if He was instead leading me there.  Not even a week later I received an email from the Sjogrens asking if I wanted to go with them...to India!  Here I was stressing over something that God so clearly had under His control.

I forwarded the email from the Sjogrens to Annmarie to see if she was interested.  She was most definitely in.  It was one of those somewhat weird situations because we had only been dating for two months at this point and we were committing to go on a trip that was still many months away (in June).  We talked about it and both felt complete peace so we sent in our deposits.

e3 is a great organization out of Plano, TX which leads a ton of missions trips all over the world each year.  The three "e"s stand for equip, evangelize, and establish.  Teams go into countries and partner with churches to go out and do personal evangelism.  When someone accepts Christ, you go back and study with them to build up their faith.  After you leave, the local churches go back and continue to work with those Christians as they grow in their relationship with Christ.  I really felt God's call to do missions that focused on evangelism and loved that e3 committed to doing the follow-up.  I knew we could only get but so far with people in a week and it was reassuring to know that others would continue that work.

The trip was scheduled to go to an area in southern India called Wayanad but as you will learn in another post, we ended up going to the city of Aurangabad which is east of Mumbia (Bombay).  We trained over the following months and began to pull together the needed funds.  We had the opportunity to begin to get to know some of our team members and were excited to minister with them.  We were pumped for June 16th to arrive!

Here is a map of India with some of the locations you will hear us talk about:

Stupid Squirrel!

While this story is a few weeks old now, I have been encouraged to put it in writing for posterity.  The story begins Thursday, September 1st, 9 days before our wedding.  I drove to our townhouse from work to hang out with Am for the evening.  When I arrived, Am was sitting on the couch chilling out.  We talked about our days and then she nonchalantly mentioned that we had "a critter" in the house.  The "critter" had chowed down on half a banana in the kitchen and she could hear it running around in the air ducts.  Am was pretty sure it was a squirrel.  In my infinite knowledge of such things, I assured her that it was just a big mouse and surely could not possibly be a squirrel.

So I set out for the kitchen where the noises were coming from and could hear the critter hanging out behind the washer and dryer.  Our townhouse has a stackable washer/dryer in a small closet beside the entrance to the kitchen.  It just barely fits so the only way the "critter" could get out was to come up over the top of the dryer which sits about 6 feet off the ground.  I watched as two hands grabbed hold of the top of the dryer and a little head poked up over the back to see what the noise was (no joke).  Sure enough, the eyes that locked onto mine were those of a squirrel!  We stared at each other for a few seconds and he disappeared down the back.  I grabbed a box and decided to speak in a friendly voice to try to persuade him that inside that box was the place to be.  He didn't buy it.

Finally he poked his head up again and walked out onto the top of the dryer.  I held the box up but he was having none of it.  With no notice, he did a kamikaze dive off the top of the dryer just barely missing my head!  He hit the sink with one foot landing in a water-filled mug, ran up the back side of the sink, across the counter, and went sliding across the hardwood floors of the dining room.  Am had opened the front door so the two of us took off after him, yelling and screaming, and then shouting in victory as we chased the squirrel (which was still kind of cute to us at this stage) out of the house.  We went in search of the squirrel's entry point and found a nice hole in the screen of the living room window.  The power had been out from the hurricane so we had left the window open to let in some air.  Ah well, we shut the window.  Lesson learned.

The next morning I heard from Am that she had had a visitor that night.  What?  Yep, another squirrel was frolicking through the house while Am attempted to sleep.  Am barricaded the bedroom door and did her best to ignore the sounds.  When she woke, she found the little punk and chased him out the front door.  Figuring the squirrel was a stowaway, she searched the house and was satisfied that they were truly gone.  So off to work she went.

When Am returned from work, she walked upstairs to her bedroom and, sure enough, she saw a squirrel tail sticking out from beneath the venetian blinds.  At this point, she is getting pretty frustrated.  The squirrel bolts underneath the bed.  With a little effort (and a little yelling) Am chased the squirrel out from under the bed, down the stairs and out the front door once again.  At this point we are pretty sure that we are no longer dealing with squirrels that came through the living room window.  There was no way they could have stowed away silently that long.  This was a single squirrel who had found a secret entry point.  So where is this super secret entry point?  And how is Am supposed to sleep knowing there may be squirrels running around the house? 

Am and I spent Friday evening at my place (this was our big move weekend) so we had a little bit of a squirrel break.  I sent her home with instructions to call me if there was any sign of the squirrel.  When Am arrived home, there was no evidence the squirrel had returned so she attempted to sleep.  But, of course, every little sound in the house makes your imagination go wild.  Luckily she did get some sleep and woke up to find no sign of the squirrel.  The crisis finally seemed to reach its conclusion.

Am and I went to visit dad during the next morning and then were planning on making dump trips in the afternoon.  Before swinging by my place to load up for the first dump trip, we decided to swing by Am's to make sure the squirrel had not returned.  When we pulled into the parking place, this is what our eyes were drawn to:

Before we can even get out of the car, we saw one of the community maintenance trucks pulling in a few spots down from us.  The maintenance dude gets out and walks right up to me.  He says, "I can see by the look on your wife's face that you live in that townhouse.  Don't worry, I am going to install a new blind for you right now."  Come to find out, our neighbor had heard Mr. Squirrel running around and thought it was somewhere in her apartment so she called maintenance.  Maintenance showed up and searched her place, couldn't find the squirrel, and left.  A few minutes later the neighbor left her apartment and saw the squirrel sitting in our living room window!  So she called maintenance again.  When the guy showed up, the two of them stood outside cracking up as they watched the squirrel pulling the blinds up and down by the string trying to figure out how to get out (I would love to have seen this).

The maintenance guy then let himself into our apartment and chased the squirrel out the front door (let's face it, by this point the squirrel knew the way).  He left to go get the new blinds and was now back to install it for us.  While he walked back to his truck to get his supplies, we walked inside...and saw the stupid squirrel run up the stairs to our 2nd floor!!!  In the time that it took the maintenance guy to drive back to his shop to get the new blinds, the squirrel had gotten back into the house!  I went out and told the maintenance guy that he was back and he didn't believe me.  It really was pretty unbelieveble.

Finally convinced, the maintenance guy was back in his truck en route to the shop to pick up a squirrel trap.  Meanwhile, Am and I did a quick inspection, our hatred for the squirrel growing with every step.  There was squirrel poop and pee everywhere!  He pooped on 6 of the 8 dining room chairs, all over the kitchen counter, on the couch and loveseat (with a nice pee spot on the couch), up the stairs and in the bedrooms, and down the stairs into the recreation room.  Squirrel poop on all three levels.  Unbelievable.  At this point our well of mercy was completely dry and we decided this squirrel needed to die.

The maintenance guy arrived but clearly had no clue what to do.  We shut the front door so he couldn't get out and started our hunt.  The maintenance guy found him upstairs and chased him down to the living room.  I tore the flaps off a Bed, Bath, & Beyond box and started chasing the squirrel trying to trap him under the box.  The maintenance guy chased him with the trap that had an opening about 6 inches high and 6 inches wide somehow thinking he could scoop him up into the trap and Am started chasing him with the broom.  Classic.  The only one of us with any hope of helping the situation was Am who was trying to hit the squirrel hard enough to knock him unconscious...or better yet, kill him.  Unfortunately, none of us were having any luck.  The squirrel kept running up the loveseat and diving into the window in hopes of finding his freedom.  But with the window closed, he simply crashed to the floor each time, collected his wits, and then tried again.  We eventually gave up and let him out the front door again.

The maintenance dude had a few things he "wanted to try" in hopes of catching the squirrel during a subsequent visit.  I pulled him aside and the conversation went something like this.

Me:  Sir, do you see that pretty lady over there (the one with the murderous look in her eyes)?

Dude:  Yes sir.

Me:  I am marrying that pretty lady exactly one week from today.  Do you know how bad my wedding is going be if she isn't able to sleep for the next week because we have squirrels running around the house at night?

Dude:  I understand.

Me:  Then what can you do to help me?

Dude:  Well, my supervisor...

This went on for a while.  I was sick of hearing about the supervisor who this guy was clearly terrified of.

Me:  I think we need to go have a chat with this supervisor.  Where is he right now?

Dude:  Well...um...I guess I can try to give him a call.

Next thing we knew, the supervisor was on his way over.  Fortunately this guy was a lot more competent and knew what to do.  We had figured out that he had to be coming in through the laundry room because Am had purposely closed the door and we had found it open when we came in.  Plus he always seemed to show up first in the kitchen.  So we placed the trap on top of the dryer and started barricading the door so there was no way the squirrel could make it into the rest of the house.  The supervisor was going to have a carpenter come and climb up on the roof to identify and close whatever passage the squirrel was using.

Somewhat satisfied, we sent the maintenance guys on their way.  The squirrel was either very traumatized by the beating he took from Am or was perplexed by the door that wouldn't budge, but we didn't hear from him the whole rest of Saturday.

Sunday morning rolled around which was moving day for my mom.  We got everything over to her new place and decided to make a stop by our townhouse before heading back to make another dump run for my mom.  We were happy to find the squirrel had not made his way into the house, however, he had clearly made a very strong attempt:

He was trying to chew his way through the door!  This is one persistent squirrel!  We had reached the end of our rope.  We headed for the community office.  We must have had a pretty crazy look in our eyes because the lady in the office quickly went to get the maintenance supervisor.  We explained that we were about to take matters into our hands which meant either Am using her little pistol to end the squirrel's life or me buying some plywood and pounding nails all over their townhouse.  The supervisor was quickly en route to our place.  We arrived ahead of him and to our utter delight, this is what we found:

I am ashamed to say that I could not help myself.  This squirrel had pooped and peed all over our new furniture and had caused my future bride to lose much needed sleep.  I found myself taunting him which he didn't like one bit.  He lunged at the side of the cage trying to get at me (he had been trying to get out the door but now was coming directly at me).  He was one crazy squirrel.  The supervisor took the cage out the door, the squirrel leaving one final stream of pee all over the floor as he went.  We were given a solemn promise that the squirrel was to receive "a special meal" that would permenantly rehabilitate him.  Am really wanted to do the deed herself.  I definitely saw a whole new side of Am during the Squirrel Crisis.

So how has this event changed us?  Well, we leave the living room window closed now and no longer leave bananas on the kitchen counter.  Squirrels are no longer "squirrels" but "stupid squirrels".  And when we drive down the road now and we see a squirrel, we do still swerve, but now we swerve toward the squirrel instead of away from him.  Stupid squirrel.

Ireland Day 11 & 12 - Belfast & Dublin

I am going to combine days 11 & 12 since there are not as many pictures for these two.  Day 11 started with a drive from Maghera to Belfast.  We drove up to Cave Hill which overlooks the city of Belfast.  We had read about a great hike where you could see some amazing views and some cool caves but it ended up being a really long hike so we decided to pass.  We stopped by Belfast Castle before leaving Cave Hill.  Belfast Castle was built in 1872 and had a really cool garden with a cat theme (legend has it there has been a black cat at Belfast continuously since it was built).  Here are some pictures at Belfast Castle:

We headed from Cave Hill down into the city.  We were to meet Joanie (Willie Quinn's daughter) at 4 PM so we had a couple of hours to roam the streets.  We had a lot of fun checking out the stores and were able to get our Starbucks kick at a local mall.  Below are pictures of the streets of Belfast and of City Hall (we were to meet Joanie at Ten Square, a restaurant just behind City Hall).  We saw some protestors outside of City Hall that were calling for peace from those who were opposing British rule by doing violence that was hurting Irish citizens.

We arrived at at the restaurant a little early so we decided to run down to the local Jury's Inn to check out their rates.  The rates were great so we decided to reserve a room.  We ran back to the restaurant and got there just in time to meet Joanie.  Joanie was absolutely delightful and we had a blast getting to know her and learning more about her family and Ireland.  We ate a fantastic dinner at Ten Square and then headed to a local pub, The Errigle Inn, where we got to experience the local scene.  We left feeling like we had made a friend for life.  We headed back to the Jury Inn and hit the sack.  Here we are with Joanie at the pub and a picture of our hotel:

Day 12 was our last full day in Ireland.  We got up and walked the streets of Belfast one last time before  hitting the road for Dublin.  We were able to visit a few more stores and make a final Starbucks run.  Here is Am at Starbucks:

We made our way back to our car and started the journey back to where it began, in Dublin.  We checked into The North Star Hotel and then hit the streets to wander the city.  We headed for Grafton Street which is the most famous shopping street in Dublin.  The street was for pedestrians only and it was absolutely packed!  There were a ton of cool shops and we were able to wrap up our souvenir shopping.  We also were able to experience some more cool street musicians.  Below is Grafton Street and one of our favorite street musicians (the little boy is running up to give him money):

We closed out the evening with a trip to the Hard Rock Cafe.  I collect Hard Rock glasses so I was ecstatic to pick up a Dublin glass.  We headed back to the hotel (with a minor sidetrip to McDonalds for dessert) and went to sleep for the last night in Ireland.  Here is Am at Hard Rock Cafe:

We woke up early on Day 13 to head for the airport.  We longed to stay in Ireland but at the same time were excited to go back to some routine.  We both had fallen in love with Ireland and promised we would return.  So it was goodbye for now but we shall be back!  Here is a summary of our journey:

Ireland Day 10 - Maghera and Giant's Causeway

We are now up to day 10 of our Ireland honeymoon vacation.  We dedicated most of day 10 to visiting the area of Northern Ireland where some of Annmarie's family comes from, just outside of Maghera.  The town is known as Swatragh and it is the hometown of the Slamon family and Annmarie's mom is a Slamon! Annmarie's Uncle Tim Slamon, who has been doing some ancestry research, lined up a meeting for us with one of his contacts, Mary Bradley.  We met at a hotel in Maghera and spent some time talking over coffee and cookies with Mary and a gentlemen she brought along with her, James O'Kane.  James's grandmother, Mary, was a Slamon.  We took off from there for a tour of the area.  First stop was at the local church where the Slamons would have worshipped.  We were able to view the grave of a James Slamon, the one Slamon they knew was in the church's cemetary.  Here is the grave:

From there we went to some property that belonged to the Slamon family many years ago.  In one of the historical recordings of the Slamon family, a reference is made to a huge stone marker that was on the Slamon farm land.  We had the opportunity to go out and see this stone marker and stand in what was a field belonging to the Slamons.  Here is Am at the stone marker:

From there we stopped in at the property of Willie Quinn.  Willie's grandmother was actually another Mary Slamon (not the same as James's grandmother).  Willie shared with us some stories about his grandmother and explained that she had died right there at the house on his property.  Am and Willie hit it off right away and Willie asked if we would come back that evening and join him and his wife for dinner.  We agreed and hit the road again with Mary and James.  Here is Am with Willie.  The house in the background is actually the house that Mary Slamon lived and died in:

From there it was off to a wallstead that was the home of James's grandmother, Mary Slamon (are you confused yet?).  This was extremely cool!  While there were modern houses all around, the originally walls to the house in which Mary had grown up were still standing.  We found this fascinating!  Here is a picture of the walls:

Next stop was the home of Frank McKendry.  While Frank has no family connection to the Slamons, he does know that his family bought their land from Harry Slamon years ago.  He was gracious enough to show us around his property and give us some historical information of the area.  This is a picture of Am with Frank McKendry.  The actual house that the Slamons lived in on this property had been removed several years before but it stood just behind where they are standing.

With this we headed back to Walsh's hotel.  Am and I were going to head for Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland and then come back to have dinner with the Quinns and Mary Bradley.  We said our goodbyes to James O'Kane who was hands down one of the nicest gentlemen we had ever met.  Here is Am with James in front of Walsh's.

Am and I quickly ran in and reserved a room for the night and then hit the road.  Giant's Causeway was about an hour north of Maghera and is a very big tourist attraction in Northern Ireland.  We arrived only to find that you had to park in a lot off of the property and be bused in.  Once you arrive on the property, you have to take another bus to actually get to the Causeway.  But when we arrived, we found it was all worth it!  The Causeway is absolutely beautiful.  It is made up of 40,000 basalt columns supposedly formed from an ancient volcanic eruption.  I personally think God was just having some fun.  You can walk out on the rocks that jut out into the ocean and you find yourself far enough out that the waves are crashing all around you.  You actually have to be fairly careful because when the big waves come in, they crash up over the rocks and you can find yourself quite wet!  I still haven't figured out what went wrong but I had something funky going on with on eof my settings on my camera so the pictures did not turn out very good.  But I have done my best to salvage them.  Here is Giant's Causeway:

We headed back for Maghera and got settled into our hotel.  We, once again, ended up with a really cool room at a really good price.  Here is our room at Walsh's:

Mary picked us up for dinner but we decided to meet an hour early so we could swing by the house of Shemus O'Kane.  Shemus had an awesome land certificate from 1908 that shows that the land he owns was purchased from a James Slamon.  He had agreed to let us take pictures of the land certificate but he also wanted to meet us.  We had a blast hanging out with Shemus and his family.  In one of those "it's a small world after all" moments, we found that Shemus's son is a Chartered Financial Analyst and the certificate on his wall was from Charlottesville, Virginia (just an hour from where we live in Richmond).  Pat O'Kane also stopped by and introduced himself as James O'Kane's brother.  We had a great visit before heading off to dinner.  Here is Am with the O'Kane family and a shot of the land certificate:

As we were walking out, Pat asked if we wanted to run across the street to see his son's workshop where he makes Hurley sticks for the Irish sport of hurling.  This was very cool!  They actually can put images on the sticks and a popular one in Ireland is to have your wedding picture put on the stick.  We promised Pat that we would send them one of our wedding pics so he can have a stick made for us.  Of course, we were also told that we would have to come back to visit to pick it up.  We agreed!

From there we went to a great restaurant and met Willie and his wife Susan.  We had a fantastic time!  Willie's daughter, Joanie, had wanted to come but was tied up with work.  We were trying to figure out if we could make it work to meet her the next day.  We decided to head for Belfast where she lives and to connect with her over dinner the following night.  After a fanastic evening of hearing great stories about the area, we said our goodnights and hit the road.  We truly felt like we were saying goodbye to family. 

I can't even begin to convey how grateful we were for this day.  We had so much fun and felt so welcomed and loved by everyone that we met.  A HUGE thank you goes out to Mary Bradley for taking a day off from work to show us around and for introducing us to so many people. And thanks to everyone that we had the blessing to meet.  You were all extremely hospitable and we are anxious to get back to spend some more time with you!