Reminiscing

I recently had a round number birthday, and a small windfall at about the same time. So I had a wild idea-- why not take my daughter to Ireland with me to celebrate in style? She was a fantastic travel companion, and we saw much of that lovely country. We drove the Ring of Kerry, hired a local boat to take us to the ruins of a 6th century monastery at Innisfallen,stayed in a manor, stayed in a castle, stayed in an incredible showcase of modern style,  
hiked a mountain to visit the cairn of Queen Maeve, visited the Cliffs of Insanity, learned about fairy rings, 

shopped the high street of Galway, listened to an evening of Irish traditional music, and ended up in Dublin, too exhausted to do much except dine and sleep. I was offered birthday upgrades, birthday toasts, birthday chocolates, and birthday cupcakes.  We took selfies in Dodger gear and tweeted them out-- and the Dodgers responded! We shared driving, took pictures of delicious food, and generally had a blast. I highly recommend embracing birthdays, especially round number ones, and we have decided to continue this tradition on our round number birthdays-- and 5 is a round number! 

After we returned, one of her friends made a tintype of one of our selfies. And he signed and titled it!

I highly recommend this manner of birthday celebration.  I thought the tintype idea was very clever,and it turns out Carlton is trying out a kickstarter campaign. It can be found at tintypeKickstarter.com.