Packing for myself and 3 children (I make Yosh pack for himself…I ain’t got time for that) is HARD!! You don’t want to over pack and def don’t want to forget something important. Being in another country can make getting certain “must-haves” pretty darn hard. Thankfully my parents live there, my cousins have kids and are very close by…so these trips are hard but kinda getting easier with time as well!
I make lists, calendars of events we are doing while there and yes I list the outfits. I’m crazy I know! BUT it helps my brain know whats going in those suitcases. And its hard because we are going from hot california to chilly Ireland. But one summer we were there and got GREAT weather. Like shorts, tanktops, sunscreen weather!! Another summer were there for 21 days and it rained for 19 of them! So…its a crapshoot!
But our long ass day of travel was starting. We had a direct, night flight from LAX straight to Dublin. Which made me nervous and made me calm all at the same time. Usually the loading and unloading of the plane was the annoyingly hard part. BUT keeping kids happy for 10+ hours was also very scary! They SHOULD sleep….right?
Thank GOD for ipads, movies, snacks and coloring books and crayons! The kids did pretty good! Ella slept a LOT of the flight on the floor. Maggie sleep in my arms/on the seat next to me. Which was great for her but made it impossible for me to sleep. ((That was ROUGH)). And poor Owen. He wasn’t able to get comfortable…at all. He was on the other side of our row of seats. I had Maggie on me and I wasn’t able to get to it. He was so miserable he just sat there and cried to himself. Oh I was so helpless and felt horrible for the poor thing. Daddy got a few hours of sleep in his solo seat on the other side of the aisle from him.
But we landed and made it. We were exhausted BUT we landed!! We also found out that Ella gets air sickness…she puked in a vomit bag on landing…yeah…that was fun! I remember last time we were in Ireland she was sick the day after landing….so Im assuming her little butt gets altitude sickness or something. Poor thing.
Haven’t been that happy to see my parents in a long time though!! They drove the 3 hours and met us at the airport…to help us bring down our suitcases. 5 people, 5 suit cases, 2 carseats…yeah…impossible. So we are lucky enough to have my parents come up and help it get it all west to Co. Mayo!
I am usually the sol driver of our rental car while in Ireland. But I didn’t get a wink of sleep on the plane so I HAD to nap on our car ride home! I was dieing. So we stopped and got our phones situated. Ate some McDonalds and THEN headed to Foxford.
Daddy did great driving…I got 2 hours of sleep…so I was feeling like a new woman! And our first stop is ALWAYS Irishtown to see my Nanny!
Loved seeing the oldest and the youngest get some lovin’ time in!! My Nanny’s kitchen brings back so many memories of my childhood…and I get an automatic sense of comfort when I walk in!!
But we only visited shortly…had to get home and unpacked, fed, showered and then in bed. Time to start trying to get my kids on Irish time (ugh)
My nights looked like this….Maggie WIDE awake…then that usually folllowed by one of the other ones! It took 6 days to get them online Ireland time. Not to bad!
And My Mama was able to make us a good Irish Fry breakfast (for lunch). Siiigghhhh. Happiness!
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