the past two weeks, all at once.....

I was told recently that my blog has been lacking. And I know if Anne were not in Haiti she would be complaining too. And looking back over February, I have not shared much with you. So, prepare yourself for a massive update now. so make your tea, grab a biscuit, and cozy in for a good read.

For youth group, just before Ash Wednesday we talked about Lent and Pancake Tuesday and of course Mardi Gras. I thought it would be fun to make king cake cupcakes and let the kids ice them with green, yellow, and purple icing in pure Mardi Gras fashion. Our oven was on the Fritz, so I went up to bake with Rachel McCormick. I didn't know that the idea of measuring things in cups and thus the silver common kitchen measuring cups. So we converted my recipe to grams- or tried- and made a disaster of a pan of cupcakes. Rachel made so much fun of them, this is her with my failed recipe that tasted like granola bars! haha.

We had a great time trying many recipes to finally get good buns. I put a button in one instead of a plastic baby and didn't tell the kids the tradition of the king cake until Michael found the button. Good times.


On Fat Tuesday, Shroud Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday as it is called here, I made pancakes for Lauren and I for dinner. And they didn't have pancake mix so I had to make them from scratch. I was pretty dang proud that they turned out amazingly tasty!


On the 1st of March I went to Dunmurry, a small town just outside of Belfast, to celebrate my friend Lynn's Birthday. Lynn is a fellow Boys Brigade officer who has become a very dear friend of mine. This was her 31st Birthday, and the first time she had EVER been out to celebrate her birthday. Needless to say, we had to make it a good one. I have never seen someone cry with joy so many times in one night, it was a great sight. The DJ was a cross dresser named Tina likes Tantric (sorry for my failure to censure). He was absolutely hysterical dancing and singing. We had a wonderful night dancing to silly 80's songs and avoiding the dodgy soldiers who were out at the bar looking to pull. It was a brilliant night out, with about 20 of us out to celebrate with Lynn. And I even went Eurostyle in my leggings! Shocking- I know! Of course, I have pictures!


Mom, Drew and Nana, Troy, and Kaitlin Morelli were just here this past week for a visit. We had a great time seeing Belfast and a few other places in Nireland including my favorite the North Coast. One of the Highlights of the North Coast trip was the Carrick-a-reed rope bridge. In November when Anne and Mom and I went, the bridge was down for the winter. I was excited this trip to get to cross it. As well, Nana, who is not afraid of anything, almost wet herself while crossing it. Her face was priceless but I am not cruel enough to have taken a picture. Once she was safely across Troy and I had a grand time jumping on it to see just how much it would bounce. Somewhere in the background I heard mom yelling at me to stop haha. We crammed into my room and living room, but had a good time with great meals and fun bus trips. Drew is now taller than me, and it was a shock when I opened my door to find him struggling with jet lag, yet a good 4 inches above me. We had two wonderful pub dinners, one at the Posh Potthouse and another at Whites Tavern which has been in operation since 1630 and had a turf fire. Pretty good view of Belfast. Nana took lots of pictures with signs to send to her hubby so he would know she was thinking of him. I will only post the somewhat appropriate ones. haha. I also took Kaitlin out to Kelly's and the Duke one night to meet friends and see some traditional music played by friends of mine. I completely forgot that at home she was underage and had never ordered from a bar before, so I got her to make the orders. She tried a variety of Irish beers, including Guinness, Harp, Tennets, Magners Irish Cider, Strongbow Scottish Cider, and Bushmills Whiskey since we had visted the town that afternoon. Pretty successful night out! (Don't worry, she had half pints!) Here are some pictures from their visit, and I will hopefully post more on Webshots soon!

Drew with his nasty dessert at the Potthouse, looked like pate

Nana and one of her crazy pictures!!

Mom and Drew at the Causeway

Drew and I on the Carrick-a-Reed Rope Bridge

On the walk to the Tesco on the day they arrived

Drew pretending to fall over the edge

Mom and Nana messing around on the beach
HUNTERS!
The Coast

MORELLI'S at Nana's in Derry! haha.



Last Night we had a Red Nose Day Dance Marathon. We were intending to dance or at least remain standing from 8pm-8am. It ended up that most of my youth had sport today so they couldn't stay all night. After about 1, when there were only 4 youth left, it was really hard to stay motivated. Then one got sick and we all decided it would be better for us to just go home at 3.30am. While the dance marathon part wasn't as successful as it could have been, we did raise a lot more money than we were shooting for, with at least £260 already counted and more to go. It was a fun evening while it lasted, and I am still waiting to see what all will unfold for our group for next Friday on the actual Red Nose Day and the whole total amount of money we raise!

Tonight, one of our long lost boys on the street came over to tell us that some kids had drawn with permanent marker all over our front wall around our garden. We cleaned most of it off with nail polish remover, but the black parts just smeared a lot and now look awful. Looks like we have some painting in our future, although part of me feels that painting it is just asking them to do it again. Oh the delinquency of Belfast.

On a more day-to-day note, the photography club that I work with between St. Patrick's college and Castle High School has been better. Club is often cancelled at Castle, and so I have been going up to St. Pats and just meeting with that half of the club instead. The students will be submitting their photos into an energy saving competition at our next meeting on Monday and then we will start a transformation project. My youth at The Point have been doing a movie series, using clips of films to talk about big issues, like death and heaven, which has led to lots of theological topics and big discussion. It has been really great. Mom came while she was over and said that they have come a long way since November. I think they are very much adjusted to having a program each night and something very structured planned for them, unlike when I first arrived and they were used to just anything. Very good.

I have also been taking the children's sermon for the past 5 Sundays or so and will continue indefinitely. It has been pretty funny, ranging from 2 kids to 10. My favorite so far was my Johan story, which I will do part two tomorrow. I made a big whale out of poster board and the kids had to throw their paper dolls on straws into the whales mouth. It went over pretty well, I was pretty proud of it.

**Other cool fun fact! Daylight savings time is tonight in the US but not until the 25th here. So for two weeks or so I will only be 4 hours ahead, Crazy huh?!?

Alright, I hope that has caught you up and fulfilled your need for updates from Belfast. And that should have been enough reading to keep you off my case for a while : ) I will try to be better in the next two weeks before Egypt. And I am sure when I return from that trip I will have LOTS to tell!
Take care of you!
OH and GOOOOOOOOOO HEELS! I live for March Madness!!