When choosing the dates for our trip to Europe, I wanted it to be after Ian's college classes ended and before Nadia left to work at Camp Susque in early June. Typically the kids have a quiz in Indiana the day before Mother's Day, so I scheduled our first flight for the evening of May 10. A couple of months ago they announced that the quiz in Indiana wouldn't be taking place this year. Nadia had then been planning to go to a graduation party more than two hours from our house on May 9 so I invited Xandir over to our house to spend time with Ian and Oliver. Ian was still finishing his physics exam on Saturday morning, but he was able to play with Xandir most of the six hours he was at our house. I also allowed Ian to finish unit C of Precalculus on Saturday evening after Xandir left even though originally I had said he had to finish that first. Nadia and Oliver are done with their schoolwork for the year. Ian just has one more unit of Precalculus to finish by the end of June.
My kids aren't typically very good at remembering their parents' birthdays, Mother's Day, or Father's Day. On my birthday Oliver was the only one of my kids to even say the words "happy birthday" to me last month. He gave me a card he made, a hug, and the gift of not playing monopoly for one month. This year Nadia and Ian together made me a Mother's Day card and bookmark, and Oliver also made me a card. I'm very grateful for Paul's mom and my mom. Their presence is missed, and I'm very grateful after years of singleness followed by infertility that I became a mom about eighteen years ago (technically I've been a mom for 21 years as we lost our first baby in 2005).
Sunday morning we dropped Milo off around 8:45 before attending the first service at church. He was very nervous at home when he saw the suitcases and very nervous in the van, but he was thrilled once he realized he was at the Seibert's house. We are very thankful that they can watch him while we're gone. On our way to the Newark airport, we stopped to get some sandwiches at Subway. I had brought some bananas, carrots, chips, and brownies to supplement our lunch. It is much cheaper to park at a hotel than at the airport, so we parked at a hotel and took their free shuttle to the airport. There was zero wait for the TSA screening so the TSA Precheck wasn't necessary, but I'm always grateful to go through a metal detector instead of a body scanner. We got to the airport a little over three hours in advance, which is what they typically recommend for international flights, but it meant we sat at the gate for over two hours before the boarding began. However, it was a case of better safe than sorry. I originally thought we'd only have two flights on this trip (to and from Dublin), but due to the fact you can't take rental cars on ferries, we also need to fly to England and then from Scotland back to Northern Ireland. I thought we'd take the train to Paris, but it was actually cheaper to fly on the particular date we are headed to Paris (normally the train is cheaper). The only train tickets we have are for the end of our trip to get us from Belfast back to Dublin. Paul and I made three tips to Europe together from 2002-2004, but this is the kids' first time on this continent. The kids were pleasantly surprised to find out that they would be feeding us (free) meals on this flight, and I was surprised that we will be offered blankets and pillows as those haven't been offered on our flights lately, even our lengthy flight to Hawaii. Praying for a safe trip, for all of us to stay healthy, for things to go as smoothly as possible, and for Paul not to have too much trouble driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Usually the first day is the hardest due to the fact we probably won't get much sleep on the plane tonight and we won't be near a bed until late on Monday night in Liverpool, England. I told the kids if they don't sleep on the plane they will be awake for about 34 hours straight.
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