♥ Louisville Irish Fest ♥

This weekend, the Louisville Irish Fest was held at Bellarmine University.

With an enrollment just shy of 3,000 students, Bellarmine is a small, private Catholic University and is located in the Highlands area of Louisville. The campus is really pretty. It is set among rolling hills and tree-lined streets. It is particularly pretty when the leaves start changing colors. (Photo below from Council of Independent Colleges Historic Campus Architecture Project - shows Bellarmine in the foreground with downtown Louisville and the Ohio River in the background.)

Bellarmine was opened in 1959 as Bellarmine College. It was changed to University status in 2000. On the campus is the W.L. Lyons Brown Library, which houses the Thomas Merton Collection. It is the largest collection of the Trappist monk's works. By 2020, the University hopes to triple enrollment, expand the campus, and add more Masters and Doctoral programs.

The Festival was held in the quadrangle of the campus, which is the main area between all the academic buildings. I didn't realize how small the campus really is until I looked at this campus map.

I arrived around noon, and at that point, things were just starting to get geared up for the day. I wandered around the yard, following the sound of music (not the movie...lol) and watching some medieval fighting along the way.

I eventually found the source of the music...a band called NeedFire. They performed some traditional music and some more upbeat rock music, as well. I listened to the band play for a bit and had fun watching the two cute kids sitting in front of me.

My next stop was to see some puppies!!! BIG puppies! They were Irish Wolfhounds, one of the tallest dog breeds in the world. I asked the owner about how much they weighed...140 lbs! And these were small ones! They are very gentle, loyal, and sweet dogs. According to Wikipedia, it is believed that they were introduced into Ireland in 3500 B.C. and were used to aid in wolf hunting.

I strolled along the covered walkway looking at all the vendors' shops that were set up to sell homemade jewelry and other items.

The food smelled SOOOOO good!!

There was a small culture and history display inside Wyatt Hall chronicling the history of Ireland, as well as the history of Irish communities in Louisville. I stepped inside for a quick peek.

I went back outside and was pleasantly surprised to see a girl dancing to some Irish music!

The Festival was starting to get busier and I could tell that people were having a great time! The weather could not have been more perfect, either! It was a clear, sunny, cool early Fall day! I had a little more time to kill, so I wandered back to the other end of the quad to listen to more of NeedFire.

I ran into my friend JJ and he told me that NeedFire is a Dallas based group! No wonder I liked them! Lol! JJ had taken some promo photos and he had some prints from the shoot with him...they were awesome! We listened to the end of NeedFire's set, and then it was time for me to head out for the next event on my schedule.







She was dancing!

The Irish Fest was a blast! I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the music. It is definitely a must-do again next year! It makes me wish I could be Irish! :)

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♥ Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen ♥

I was craving something warm and chocolatey, so Zoe and I decided to go to Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen! It began as a small neighborhood bakery in 1986, and now has 7 locations in the city, plus one over the bridge in Clarksville, IN, and one in Shelbyville, KY. They have an incredible assortment of pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, ice cream, and other goodies. Several of the locations also include a deli.

We had to make a quick pit stop before ordering, and Zoe had fun taking photos of us in the bathroom mirror!

I ordered a piece of Chocolate Chess Pie. It was OMG delicious! It literally melted in my mouth! Warmed up and with a dollop of whipped cream...I was in pie heaven!

HUGE cookies!

We went to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen that is on Lexington Road in St. Matthews. It is in a little shopping center called The Promenade, so Zoe and I walked around for a few minutes and looked in the windows of the fancy boutiques before calling it a night.

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♥ Saints ♥

Since I was out of town on my birthday a couple of weeks ago, some of my coworkers have been anxious to have a birthday celebration dinner with me. We had tried a couple of times to get something together, but had been unsuccessful. Finally, Zoe, Megan and I decided to just go, and tonight was the night! The first thought was to go to Tumbleweed, but then I decided that I really wanted to go a true Louisville place, not just a chain restuarant. So, after work, Zoe and I drove just a few minutes away to Saints on Breckenridge Lane in St. Matthew's.

Waitress Zoe is ready to take your order!

It really was just water in that cup, I promise!!

When we first arrived, we were the only ones there (hence all the goofy photos!)! We sat down, and it actually took quite a while for someone to come take our drink orders and bring us menus. We weren't in any kind of hurry, so it wasn't really too big of a deal. I had been told by a friend just this afternoon that Saints has really good cheese bread, so we decided to order it as an appetizer while we waited for Megan to arrive. We had no idea that it was a pizza-sized tray of deliciousness! Cheese, bread and garlic...do you really need anything else in life?!?! Hehe.

By the time Megan joined us, the restaurant was starting to get a little busier and they were setting up a table at the front of the room for some sort of event. We weren't sure what was going on, but then a man announced that it was Trivia Night! There were two guys, Casey and Chris (who has the same birthday as me...even the same year!), sitting at the table next to us and they invited us to join their trivia team. Well, it turned out that the trivia was ridiculously hard and only people who were alive in the 30s (which was true for pretty much everyone else in the room - there was even one lady who was knitting a sweater while she was playing!) would know the answers. Needless to say, our team lost! But, the food was good and the company was good. The service, however, was not that good. Things took forever, cups were empty for a while before being refilled, the check was wrong and it took ten years to get the waiter's attention to get it fixed. I have been to Saints once before (although I did not order anything) and both times I've been, there has only been one waiter for the entire room! I feel bad for them, but the restaurant really should plan for more coverage for busy nights like this.

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