Ireland or Bust

Okay….I'm not the greatest writer, but with my terrible memory I'll be kicking myself in a few years if I don't write down some stories of our Ireland Adventures. Also, since its hard to communicate with everyone back in the US (due to our slow internet), this is a good way for those interested to know what we have been up to. So I will start from the beginning. 20 Bags!!! We received notice in mid/late November that we MIGHT be moving to Ireland in Jan 2014 (that was 6 weeks away)…again...Might!! We had an apartment in Oregon, a house in AZ, a car, 2 trucks (borrowing my Dad's in OR), and a boat, no passports and 12 years of collected kid/home furniture, not to mention celebrating Thanksgiving, Riley's Bday and Christmas in the middle of the potential move. We finally received notice that it was really happening and went to work right away. Greg packed up his apartment in a few days, I flew into Oregon on a Thursday afternoon, hoped in the truck and we headed back home to AZ by Friday evening. From there its all a blur. I won't forget the awakening I had when we had our garage sale a few days after Thanksgiving. With the help of many family and friends dropping what they were doing on a holiday weekend to come help us prepare. We loaded our garage full of our possessions that we weren't able to bring with us or just couldn't keep in a storage unit. It was sad watching things that we worked so hard to get and spent so much money on to sell at a fraction of the cost. It also opened up my eyes on how many thing we had that aren't needed. Still very scary to sell most of your belongings. Finally, after a quick 6 weeks of packing, sorting and trying to spend time with family and friends Dec 29th had arrived. It was a very sad day. Saying goodbye to our cat Poker (she went to a good foster home while we are gone), Indy (my parents are watching him), and all our family was hard. It was still not a really sad goodbye because its more of a seeya later, we HAVE to come back. My parent and Greg's took us to the airport with all 20 bags of luggage. (those pictures are sad so I won't post them). We arrived at the airport 2 1/2 hours before our flight. With Greg on Crutches from his recent wall jumping accident we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. Security was breeze, even though Greg with his crutches and his metal shoulder set off alarms, we were on our way to the gate. We had dropped off 10 of the 20 suitcases at the check in counter so now we are left with 2 a piece. We opened up the iPads and the headphones and tried to forget the sad goodbyes that just happened. The girls of course alway hungry wanted to eat before we go on the plane. Many trips to different restaurants in the terminal so everyone could eat what they wanted, we finished up our food and waited for the plane. Greg went up to the check in counter to check and make sure the flight was ok, even tried to upgrade his seat so he could elevate his leg and found the flight to be delayed 10 minutes later. Finally they start boarding, we wait for our zone to be called, give her our tickets, alarm sounds WRONG FLIGHT!! We sat at the wrong gate for 2 hours trying to get on a plane that took off 10 minutes later than our flight. We immediately start running for the other gate, of course it can't be close, we are 1/2 a mile away from the correct gate, with 10 bags, 3 kids and a husband on crutches we have to run as fast as we could to the other side of the terminal. We get 1/2 way there and hear our names on the loud speaker "Farmer Party this is the Final boarding call for Flight 839 to Philidephia. We were going to miss our flight!! I drop the rolling carry on bag to give to Greg (who now has a back pack, roll bag and duffle bag on crutches) and start sprinting to the gate. I pass the girls and encourage them to keep running we are almost there. I finally make it sweating, wheezing and panting while getting lectured from the ticket lady asking where we were, we checked in over 2 hours ago. She argued that their wasn't another gate/flight, I didn't care, We MADE IT! I informed them my husband was coming on crutches to hold the plane he was on his way. Everyone was seated and ready, I think they might have been a little irritated with us. WHO CARES WE MADE IT!! The flight was long and boring, nothing exciting which is a good thing. We made it to Dublin the next morning at 8am about 45 minutes earlier than scheduled, of course it was raining and breezy (WINDY). Now we had to find a way to get our 20 suitcases to the car dealership where another van and car will be waiting for us. It took 2 van taxi's and too much Euro to get to the dealership. We finally make it to our new home! The girls went crazy and ran through the house over and over again to make sure they weren't missing anything. They had already preassigned their bedrooms and wasted no time in unpacking and organising the few items we brought with us. They ran outside and started climbing the trees and hiding in the fort, enjoying the cold Irish Winter, they didn't care it was just above freezing outside or that it was 30mph winds and rain, they fell in love with Ireland the minute they arrived. As did Greg and I. On New Years morning we woke up to a Rainbow outside our kitchen window. I think thats a good sign for our Ireland Adventures in 2014!