maryandred.com

Happy 3rd Anniversary to our longtime friend, Matt McGinnis and his wife, Alicia.

Hope Boston is treating you well!

Happy Birthday to one of my best gal pals, Tricia!

Here she in in the Swiss Alps - the closest I think anyone could ever get her to skiing!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Mr. Mooney, Junior!  Noah (in his dad arms) is the reincarnation of A-Rod (minus the attitude).  It is almost unfair how beautiful Ragan and Steve’s kids are.  Almost :)

From left to right: Steve, Noah, Ragan, and Makenna Mooney!

Wow.  My husband is absolutely amazing.

So Thursday night I am slightly annoyed with Red because he failed to plan the nice dinner in the city he promised for our seven year anniversary.  However, he found out his new assignment wasn’t coming in until Monday so he was “considering” staying home on Friday.

“Do it!” I said.  “Stay home and we’ll have a romantic Friday together!”

“We’ll see,” he answered.

I wake up Friday morning blinking at a little box that Red has placed on my pillow.

“Happy Anniversary!” he said.

I open the box and inside is a pair of earrings and two tickets to the upcoming U2 concert.

I gasp because the tickets have been sold out for months.  “How did you get these?” I asked, ”That is so cool!”  Then I look at them again.  “Wait a second,” I stammered,  “Croke Park?  Wait, isn’t that in…Dublin?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“But…but…” I blink and look at the date one more time.  July 25, 2009.

“Our flight leaves in four hours,” he grinned.

So we hopped the redeye, landed and went directly to the concert venue to be 466th and 467th in line (out of 89,000+).  While some people had been there overnight for three days, we managed to get in the front row.

Amazingly, we were the least hard core U2 fans in that crowd. Some of these people literally take a year off and travel the world to see U2!  The guy to Red’s left had been to over 700 concerts!!!

Regardless, it was an amazing show and we had an absolutely stellar view.  We were so close we could see the whites of their eyes!

Not the best shot of Bono, but you get the idea.  It was pretty awesome.

After an exceptionally long day, Red and I still managed to party it up in the pubs until 4 a.m.  The best part is, we woke up the next “day” and when Red looked at the clock, he thought he accidentally left it on NY time.  After confirming with four other sources of time, we realized we had indeed slept from 4 a.m. until 6 p.m., a mere 14 hours.  Guess we needed it pretty badly. 

Regardless, we walked through the streets of Dublin, along the river Liffey and even stopped to have a meal at the pub next door to U2’s bar and hotel.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to Dublin without Irish stew and a pint of Guinness.

Thanks for the great surprise, Red! Looking forward to the next one!

Congratulations to both Red and me for hitting the lucky seven year mark :)  Of course, if you count our first kiss on July 12, 1996, then it is thirteen years and if you count our first meeting in August of 1992 then it is seventeen years.  But I’ll stick with lucky seven.

Happy Anniversary, baby!

Happy birthday to the lovely Jessica Hans. 

Can we go dress shopping now?