written on June 5th
We have been planning this trip to Ireland for a long time. Getting our family of 4 over here was something that took some major planning. Its not like the old days when my parents would book me a ticket…an aunt or cousin would pick me up from the airport and I’d sleep at some family members house. BAM easy. Now with 2 kids, 4 suitcases, 3 carry-on bags, a stroller, a car seat… it makes EVERYTHING a bit more difficult.
Our travel “adventure” started off on a HORRIBLE foot. We were heading to LAX at 5am…everything seeming to go pretty smoothly on the 60fwy and we hit some traffic. I started to feel the anxiety of being late. And then…before we even hit the 605 Ella pukes ALL OVER herself. I was so frustrated. I had packed another outfit for the mess she would possibly make on the airplane but now I was freaking out that she might get air-sick. We got to the airport…loaded a trolley up with the 4 bags, our carry on, the stroller, car seat and wheelie, the diaper bag AND my purse. I took ALL that and the 2 kids inside the terminal….found a place to sit and we waited for Daddy to go drop the car off at an off site long term parking lot. It felt like FOREVER…during that time I gave Ella some zofran…to help ease the belly!
While I sat and waited I was lucky enough to people watch. There was a metal frame thingy that the airline workers used to make sure that everyone’s carry-on’s were the appropriate size. My GOD…people are so stupid. They looked at the lady like she had 5 heads when she said please place your bag here. They’d put it in the thingy wrong side up…then stare at her like “uhhhhhhh”. She’d tell them to rotate the bag….again like they weren’t able to understand English (which WAS totally the issue with some of them haha). But it amazed me…over and over again. The woman was so patient with all them too. I wanted to slap them all! lol
But Yosh finally appeared…THANK GOD. Sitting with two crazy antsy kids makes time seem to move SO SLOWLY. He went to check in at the self check-in kiosk. He then gave me the “OH FUCK” look….the kiosk was saying we missed our check-in time and it was too late. We were SO confused. He went to someone to ask…yes our flight was departing as we spoke. I wanted to cry! How could we have gotten our times wrong? We thought we departed at 8:55am…55 minutes after the actual departure time. ((We realized later that our flight HOME leaves at 8:55am)). By the grace of God we were able to pay $300 and get booked onto the next flight out, so we were able to still make our connection in New York.
The flight to NY was great. Ella slept for 2.5 hours of the 4.5 hour flight. We arrived EARLY so we had plenty of time to feed the kids and let them run off some energy before getting back onto another airplane.
The flight from JFK to Dublin didn’t go as nicely. There were 16 planes in queue to depart…so we taxi’d for an HOUR! Of course Ella slept during that time. And woke before we were even at cruising altitude. And the little booger stayed awake almost the whole 6 hour flight!! She decided to close her little eyes about 25 minutes before landing. Nice timing little lady! Owen did as well but he’s such a great little traveler. She wasn’t too bad either actually. Yosh and I estimated that we watched Frozen about 7 times…she freakin loves that movie. And we did ANYTHING to keep her quiet for the sake of those around us.
For some reason getting through customs is a complete mess in Dublin. I don’t quite understand why they wouldn't have more officers working the windows when they know they’ll be getting a FEW flights in at the same time with American’s….baffles my mind. Luggage collection and rental car pick-up went smoothly.
We stopped at a local shop to pick up new SIM cards for our phones…got connected and we were on our way. 3 hours later….yes its a 3 hour car ride from the airport to our side of the country…we landed in Foxford, Co. Mayo.
Thankfully the kids AND Yosh all snoozed while I drove. We got into Irishtown (my grandmothers house) and were greeted with family. It felt so nice. But we were all WRECKED from lack of sleep.
We hung out all day….trying to stay awake was difficult. I loved getting to see Owen and Ella hangout with their cousins.
The weather was nice…so playing outside was awesome. This is my cousins front yard they are playing soccer in and THAT is my parents house you see there. Construction is coming along nicely…
We got the grand tour of which rooms were which…Bernie is over the moon!
Had to check to see if the leprechaun was home…lol
….flashback Christmas 2011…. 
And we finally all got to meet the newest little man…Gavin Brogan!! My best bud, Catherine’s son who was born 6 weeks ago. Owen LOVED him. He couldn’t keep his little eyes off him. Ella liked him…but didn’t like ME holding him. Little possessive of her mommy!
Looking forward to our vacation over the next 3 weeks…
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