Our Ireland Trip! Day 0

Back in July, the four of us went to Ireland for the wedding of Jenni and Sam.  I can still hardly believe that we've had so many opportunities to travel so many exciting places . . . eek!  I struggle a little with blogging about this because I really don't want to boast in our amazing gifts that we can take no credit for . . . and yet I do want to share our joy, especially with our families (I'm not sure my mom has seen more than a half dozen photos of our two weeks there, and there's something wrong with that!).  And so we begin.  We did a pretty decent job of keeping a trip journal this time, so it's likely that the narrative will be straight from that much of the time and very boring to most people.  That won't start today, though, because I need to get it from John's laptop still.  But here's day 0, July 9, 2014, the day we flew to Dublin!  

First of all, my mother was kind enough to drive us to JFK, even remembering to bring cash for the numerous tolls we had to pay (yikes).  We arrived with plenty of time but were quite encumbered with luggage.  We had kept the clothing for the four of us to one small suitcase and one small garment bag, but we had John's laptop bag, my purse, the soft carrier for Ruthie and a large frame-pack for Gemma and our two enormous carseats.  And we didn't bring a stroller.  Lugging all that stuff through the airport was a challenge on the shoulders, but we made it through.  

John also got momentarily detained because a page of his passport was coming out, but thankfully a second security person overruled the first one and let us pass.  Then we arrived at our gate, waited a while and discovered that our flight was delayed and we had to change gates.  We had several hours of just waiting, and lots of this sort of thing was happening:  

Of course, many of the passengers waiting along with us were Irish people returning home, so we got to just enjoy hearing them talking while we were waiting around!  In our limited experience, we've found Irish people of all sorts--from the north and the republic--to be just delightful, and that helped make our wait more delightful.  

I was a bit disappointed to discover that it was a smaller plane than we'd previously taken overseas.  Someone help me--it was three seats on each side of the aisle.  As Ruthie was ticketed as a lap child, it meant three seats for the four of us.  At least we were together, but it wasn't particularly roomy, and we had no choice in the in-flight entertainment this time, either.  We found ways to keep ourselves busy, though, and the children slept pretty well.  

Now it's time for the uber flattering "after" pictures, when we woke up after a brief night and arrived in Dublin!

Hooray!

Oh, the air was refreshingly crisp for July.  We collected our belongings and took a shuttle to pick up our rental car for the week.  We weren't ready to relax by any means, as John had to quickly adjust to British backwardness roadways and drive us to our motel in Limerick.  I was on high-alert the whole time, and he performed flawlessly that first day.  

I visited Jenni in Northern Ireland seven years earlier, but this was my first time seeing so much Gaelic!  

We did arrive safely, but that's another day's story.  I have a coughing child to attend to . . .