What a fantastic day spent with our friends in the country.  Finally showing Shawn my roots, and giving him a better understanding of what I'm really made of.  It took 15 years to bring him up there, but it was the most meaningful beautiful day ever.  As usual, we had a blast together!!!

Today, we did it... August 17th, 2013 we celebrated our wonderful 15 years of being a couple, and living as husband & wife by having ourselves tattooed.  Yes, tattooed!  In specific, wedding rings, designed by ourselves to signify the "arc & wave" Celtic theme.  This being the true symbol of our ever-lasting relationship.

For those of you who  know us well, you know that we are against tattoos...but this is different...this is the most symbolic meaning we found within in our Celtic Wedding Tradition research....it symbolizes a deeper committment and connection (in our opinion anyway!).  

I will never forget the day that I proposed the idea to Shawn.  I had been doing a lot of research on Celtic wedding traditions and came across the Celtic Wedding Tattoos.  Not only was this very meaningful, but it served a practicle purpose to.  Shawn is a machinist and can not wear rings at work.  By having the tattoos, he wouldn't need to worry about taking it off or on (or God forbid...having to wear it on a chain!!!).  So that day when Shawn came home from work, I told him what I had learned.  Immediately he said absolutely no-way....as soon as I said the word tattoo.  Understanding his perspecitive on the idea of marking your body, I got up to go back about preparing supper.  After a few minutes, he said "o.k. Angel, what is this tattoo thing all about, I know how much you loath tattoos too...so this must be important".  Once I explained the idea and what the tattoo would replace, the celtic symbolism etc, he instantly said "Yes!!!"....and he wanted it immediately...I think I was the one who was more apprehensive after that, he just wanted it done "immediately"...  It took me 6 months to find the right tattoo artist (one who would be willing-that was a lot tougher then we thought - but in the end we had a fantastic artist who was refered by a friend and she did a fabulous job - Thank you Katie & Emelie for making it possible).

Everyone said it would hurt...and hurt ALOT!!!.  At one point, there was discussion on making a brace for me so that I wouldn't pull away when the artist was working...I was petrified by this point....but when the time came, I still went first (it meant a lot to me to be the first!!!).  The artist said "o.k. take a deep breath"...and she started...and I looked at her and said "that doesn't hurt at all!!!"...and it really didn't, maybe it was because of the meaning I felt for what I was doing...or maybe I can handle more pain then most people think...I don't know, all I do know was it didn't hurt at all....

What a day that was...I'm sure if we both had wings we would have flown home...it was the most uplifting magical experience of my life, that I know for sure....short of giving birth to my 3 children, this one solidifies my life...

So we are taking this one step farther.  The tattoo artist only did the upper half of our identical rings (yes! completely identical!!!)...but this was o.k. with us....as Shawn said, 2 halves that make 1 whole.... We decided that whenever one of us leaves this world, the other will have the second half of the ring done, so that the circle can be completed.  I'm not quite sure if this will happen when we're 90, but there is always permenant markers  as I like to say....when there's a will - there's a way ... :)

The best place to start this blog is why we choose Jamaica to get married.  Hmmm, guess because it turned out to be the best deal for the price :)  But Jamaica was always a country that both of us wanted to visit one day.  The waterpark, 3 beaches, 3 pools and all the kid activities really interested us to.

We did start off saying Cuba....a Celtic wedding in Cuba with the kids.  Then it was Ireland, which is still a big dream of ours.  We wanted to go to Cushendun (where Shawn's father was from), we had found a seaside cottage right in the little village, and the cost of the trip was comparable to taking the whole family on a destination wedding.  Somewhere along the way the 'Parental Guilt' caught up to us and we went back to having a destination wedding.  So Jamaica was the choice, and boy does it ever look to be a good one.  The resort seems to have all we could possibly ask for.