Home Sweet Home!

We are home sweet home…and man it feels good. Everyone loves to go on vacation but you know at the tail end of all the excitement the dreaded trip home starts to hamper the fun. So of course a few days left in Ireland and I was ready to just BE home…such anxiety worrying about the long journey we had ahead of us.

We left Foxford on Jan. 2nd…after the good-byes (which are HORRIBLE every year), even with wonders of technology I cry and cry leaving my family! This year made me sad thinking about how my grandmother is getting older and her health isn’t getting any better. She’s one hell of a tough cookie BUT you know you can’t stop age.

I saw this cool picture on pinterest of the generations of a family…this is our 4 generations…Nanny Molloy, Nana, Mama and Owen…I love it. We are kinda hiding Nanny’s hands..this was taken as we were walking out the door saying goodbye…in the small kitchen in Irishtown full of people…so I had to get the pic and fast! And this rainbow showed itself as we were literally walking out the door to our car to drive away…ironic?

But we drove the 3 hours from County Mayo to Dublin…the sun was shining most of the time and we got to take in just HOW beautiful the country is. When we go to Ireland people always ask me what we did…or what we saw…and I always have the answer of nothing. haha We don’t really go site-seeing when we are there. Usually its for 2 reasons a) we have an “event” we are there for that takes lots of time or b) I don’t like taking time away from family. BUT someday we will travel that country and see what it truly has to offer.

But…everything about this journey home wasn’t so pleasant…I’ll explain.

We had to get up at 3am to get ready to drive to the airport…I should have known our day was going to be horrible when I missed the turn off to get us to Dublin airport..we ended up having a scenic tour of some ghetto Dublin town at 4am. We finally figure out how to get back on track…and were in search of the car rental drop off area. Dublin airport has recently built an AWESOME new terminal so we weren’t sure where to leave the car back. In typical Irish fashion the Hertz car rental desk was closed until 5am (which was the time we were suppose to be checking in)…so we waited….and waited…and the a-hole of the worker strolled in 10 minutes late to work. Grrr
So we check in with AerLingus…knew we were headed to Frankfurt Germany then switching to U.S. Airways for our flight to LA (or so we thought), when they told us tat the desk that we could check our bags straight through to LA AND we could check the car-seat for no additional fee we were stoked. So from here I’ll just highlight the “exciting parts” (fyi I cried)

• Flight left Dublin 30 mins late due to high winds.
• Get to Germany…hurded into an airport with no direction…having NO clue what terminal, gate or direction to go. (Frankfurt airport is HUGE…we had to take a tram to another terminal) We were looking for our Los Angeles flight…wasn’t there…that’s because we were heading to Philadelphia!!!! And No one told us this.
• Found out we had to collect our bags in Philly to go through customs. (Grrr would have been nice if the lady in Dublin would have told us this)
• (FYI: German nationals scared me…I didn’t like being in a country that didn’t speak great English.) We finally find our terminal that has NO food and NO bathrooms…where does that. We are stuck and unable to leave the terminal since we didn’t have much of a layover due to leaving Ireland late. Owen is starving at this point…but I had snacks for him.
• From Germany to Philly Owen is an ANGEL (best lil traveler around!). He watched TV/movies..ate 1/2 a chicken breast but I didn’t stress since I KNEW they’d have McDonalds in Philly.
• Landed in Philly…and waited over an hour to get through customs…5 flights landed at the same time and only 3 customs officers working…seriously??? Clock is ticking for our connection to LA!
• Waited at Baggage claim…missing 2 suitcases…worst nightmare!!!
• Go through HELL, I mean security again for the 3rd time today, with a hungry TIRED child is NOT fun!!!!
• We RUN (yes Yosh even ran…and we didn’t get to stop for food!!) to our gate…since our plane is about to leave us…to realize that the German U.S. Airways worker booked our seats…3 different seats no where near eachother. At this point Owen is having a total MELTDOWN! He was hungry, wanted a bottle and was exhausted.
• Get on board…ask for some milk for Owen’s bottle to be told they don’t carry milk (5 hours from Philly to LA…and NO milk?!?) So Owen is upset…I’m upset. Yosh is sitting away from us…I felt so sad for him. I cried there in my seat b/c I was feeling like the worlds worst mother..not feeding my child when he was hungry. But he fell asleep on take off and slept the whole flight home. Poor lil dude.

Get to LAX still missing the 2 bags…and now 2 days later we are still missing the 2 bags. What an adventure coming home. I don’t recommend it to ANYONE, especially when traveling with a toddler! I’m still hoping we get our bags…maybe tomorrow?!? But I had to get this off my chest…I’ll have to get back and write about some more of the FUN things that went on while in Ireland!!!

And Happy New Year Everyone!!