A few weeks ago on Twitter, a few of us were randomly talking about travel and we all began listing our top 5 destinations.  It was so fun to see everyone’s dream places to visit, so I thought I’d share my top 5 wish-list travel spots here and see what yours were!

My rules for the top 5:

Money is no object
It can’t be somewhere I’ve been before
I’m ignoring logistics and timing
I am constantly changing my mind about which destination is my …

After leaving Dublin, we spent the day driving down to our next destination, Cobh, and stopping at any interesting place we saw along the way!  First up?  Lunch at the adorable Copper Kettle restaurant in the little town of Durrow.  Did you know that Irish vegetable soup is not like American vegetable soup?  It’s this amazing puree of vegetables, must include lots of potato, so it’s all thick and rich and incredible.  I found a recipe online that looks pretty …

Whew – our trip to Ireland, with our friends Laura and John, was super fast, but really fun!  None of us had ever visited Ireland before, so we were motivated to see as much as possible, and packed a lot into our five night trip.

We flew into Dublin and arrived on Friday morning.  After taking a taxi into the city (no train from the airport), we checked into our hotel (the Kellys Hotel Dublin) and checked out the city.  The …

Just returned from a whirlwind trip to Ireland – more pics and lots of details to come soon but for now here’s a little peek:

We got really lucky with the weather, it was freezing but we didn’t have much rain at all – the picture above is from our excursion to Blarney Castle, their gardens are gorgeous.  Can’t wait to share the whole trip!

My husband, Nick, and I just returned from a very wonderful ten-day trip to Germany. We explored medieval cities and fairytale castles. We saw Bavarian maibaums and got lost in the Alps. We ate pretzels and wursts and schnitzel, we drank liters of hefeweizen, and we celebrated Oktoberfest with new and old friends.

Now German food is not for everyone — it’s very heavy in meats and starches. In fact, I’m still surprised I didn’t come back five pounds …

My adorable sister is in medical school in Parker, CO.  I miss her desperately (she used to live here in Chicago, too) but it’s so fun to be able to visit her in Denver!  I went out over Labor Day and had such a great time.

This is her kitty, Tony.  He was a great sport while I snapped photo after photo of him. :)  This is the one I like the most, straight out of the camera.  I’m still LOVING …

The hubby and I ventured to Central America for the first time in August to visit Rebekah and her husband in Granada, Nicaragua. I was so excited to see them, and to see where they have been living for the past year and a half! We left super-early on a Friday morning and when we arrived in Granada, the first place we headed to was our hotel, the Hotel Con Corazon.  Our adorable little hotel had a pool, …

Stop 1: Copenhagen
Stop 2: Stockholm
Stop 3: Helsinki

By FAR my favorite stop on our Baltic cruise was St Petersburg, Russia.  We had two days to spend there, and due to the language barriers and the short time to visit so many sights, the four of us hired a private tour guide.  SO worth it!  Instead of traipsing around with 50 of our closest friends on a cruise tour, the four of us had a car and driver to ourselves and were able …

In the excitement over picking up our lives and moving to a brand new city, a big event on our calendars got a tad overshadowed for a while. Now, though (thanks largely to the nice tax lady at H&R Block), our excitement is back in full-swing: we’re going to Europe in six weeks!

One of T’s sisters is getting married in Ljubljana, Slovenia in early May. She and her fiancé (who is an old college teammate of T’s, so they go …

Stop 1: Copenhagen
Stop 2: Stockholm

Well here we are in Finland, folks!  Our Baltic cruise stopped in Helsinki on a drizzly Sunday, admittedly not the best for photos (drizzle) or tourism (Sunday).  The biggest attractions in town are several churches, so that is what we toured. 

The shuttle from the cruise terminal dropped us in downtown Helsinki, a short walk from Esplanade Park and Market Square.  I quite enjoyed walking around Market Square and could have spent a lot of money on the lovely leather goods and …