Okay, so now that I've shared the first part of my summer travel plans with you, I'm ready to tell you about our big, grand vacation!

Mark and I are going to Europe at the end of July!!! We are going to spend 10 days visiting England, Ireland and hopefully France.

We are so blessed to be have this opportunity. Last year Mark's parents and his sister and brother-in-law  visited England and Ireland. Mark's sister has a best friend that lives in England right now. They grew up going to school together so Mark's family is very close with her. She invited them to visit her and her husband last summer. Mark and I weren't able to go last year because we had already used our vacation days on our honeymoon! But when she extended the invitation to us again this year it was something we couldn't pass up.

We've always wanted to be able to do some traveling before we have kids and this seems to be the perfect opportunity. It is so much easier to go and visit someone that lives in Europe who will be your tour guide AND be able to stay with them instead of trying to figure things out on your own!

We were slightly discouraged when we found out exactly how much it was going to cost to just buy the plane tickets! But how fantastic is it that our income tax return check was pretty much the exact amount we needed to pay for our entire trip???

Now, I'm sure there are more responsible things we could do with our tax return...maybe use it to buy a section of fencing for our backyard that we've been wanting? Or buy a new couch for our living room? Maybe put it towards the fund for a new roof that we'll probably need in a year or two? I was able to pay off my car in January so the only debt we have is our house and Mark's school loans.

We thought about these options, but we truly feel like we've been presented with this once in a lifetime opportunity! In 20 years from now are we going to remember how we saved money to put up a new fence that probably had to be repaired again, or are we going to remember our trip to Europe? We know these chances don't come around very often and we don't want to look back on our lives and regret that we didn't take these chances.

I don't know if you cared to know all of that, but I felt like sharing. :) The point of this all, is we're going to Europe! I am extremely excited about going to Ireland, my mom's heritage is Irish on her dad's side. I'm hoping to find some information before I go and see if its possible to visit anywhere close to where my granddad's family is from. Mark's mom's mother was actually born in Ireland and last year she actually found her family! Literally found people she had never met (cousins/aunts/etc.) just by asking around in a strange land! How amazing is that? I don't anticipate that happening for me, but it would be incredible to just see the land where my ancestors are from, right?




We're also throwing around the idea of the visiting Paris by taking the Chunnel from England to France. How romantic will it be to see the Eiffel tower??