My husband and I recently returned from a long-awaited and twice postponed trip to Ireland. This was either our 9th or 10th trip there. (Neither of us had the desire to do a deep search to win the battle over the number.) We do agree that we’ve spent time or at least driven through all 26 counties in the Republic of Ireland and the six in Northern Ireland. This trip itinerary was designed to fill in places we hadn’t been (or at least hadn’t spent enough time in) that also lined up with book research I needed to do.

Last week I traveled to Guatemala as part of The World Orphan Fund team. It had been exactly two years since my last international trip, which was to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda in February of 2020. As we returned home then on the eve of the pandemic, the many masks being worn in the airports were a harbinger of what was to come, but we could never have imagined how the pandemic was about to disrupt our world.

I have recently returned from a nearly two-week trip to the African countries of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda. This trip was part of the outreach efforts for The World Orphan Fund charity that my husband founded. I mainly play a supporting role to this effort, but I often get asked how “we” started this charity.

Here’s the team we traveled with on this trip. (L to R Dena Donovan, me, RJ Johnson, Tom & Elizabeth Evenson, Steve Donovan, and Ellen Nowak)

I've talked at length before on my website and at writing conferences about how archaeology and history have inspired my fantasy novel writing. The amazing megalithic structures of Ireland have been particularly significant to my storytelling, often making their way onto my covers. This has made July an incredibly exciting month so far with discoveries of previously unknown megalithic structures near Newgrange in Ireland’s Boyne River valley.

Two years ago, we spent the latter part of April in Ireland and visited the Beltany Stone Circle in County Donegal. You can hear all about that trip in my blog post from May of 2016. I would be very happy to be back again to celebrate May Day at Beltany today.

It’s been twelve months since I’ve typed those words and shared an interesting travel experience with you. This little adventure to Spain also fulfills April’s “Never done THIS Before” Challenge. Initially, I expected my new experience to include viewing the Semana Santa (Holy Week) processions and relying on my Spanish to navigate. (I was attempting to use English as little as possible.)  But, boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, we got a little more “experience” than we expected.

One of the eight Celtic festivals or holidays, Lughnasadh or Lammas is celebrated on August 1 each year. Lammas means half loaf and this festival day represents the first harvest day of the growing season. In Ireland, this date is known as Lughnasadh.

Nearly all of you know how much I love to travel, and you probably know that I was incredibly excited for the recent trip I took with my husband to Ireland and Italy. It was a fabulous adventure!

Whenever I return from a trip to Honduras, I go through a culture shock of sorts. You know that feeling when you walk back into your house after having been on a trip and you think, "Is this really where I live?" because it all feels a bit strange and a bit too nice? So on my first night back I was feeling a little disconcerted and overwhelmed as I began to worry about the kids we had just said goodbye to.

Today is the Autumn Equinox, also known as Mabon or Second Harvest. It’s one of the eight holidays on the Celtic Wheel of the Year that you see at the beginning of my novel Circle of Nine. Autumn is definitely one of my favorite times of the year, but I do get a little sad thinking that this day represents equal hours of light and dark and from now on the days just get shorter as we descend into winter. Brrrrr.