ireland

It's 7:30 on a Saturday night, and I am winding down and getting ready to go to bed pretty soon. Normally, this would remind me of how lame I am. But not tonight! I am going to sleep so that I can be awake and alert at 4:30am to finish packing the carry-ons and get ready to be picked up by the car service at 5:30am.

We finished packing the suitcases, and I must say I am totally proud of myself. Both suitcases are well under the 70-lb international limit (one is 48 and one is 59) and the garment bag is holding only our dress clothes and not also the extraneous things I couldn't jam into the suitcases, which is what I expected. I didn't even have to use the little extra zipper that expands the suitcase an extra few inches. I was tempted to pack more to fill them up, but instead I decided this way there is more room for any purchases I might make while in Ireland.

My parents and Bevie and Grandfather left about an hour ago on their red-eye flight, so they are well on their way! I just tracked their flight and it looks like they should be on time into Amsterdam to make their connection.

I said I wouldn't be able to blog while over there, but we did pay for the data service international plan on Mike's blackberry. It's possible I'll be able to check in once or twice, though blogging from there is not as easy as with the iPhone.

Tomorrow will be a very long day, so I'm going to finish up a few things and get some sleep.

Happy New Year!

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*Just as I finished writing this and was about to sign off and post it, the building fire alarm went off. So I had to haul poor Mike out of bed (who has not been feeling well today, and needs his rest before tomorrow) and drag him outside. Thankfully none of the firemen looked particularly worried and eventually the alarm turned off, so we came back in. Probably just another idiot who turned on their new oven with the user manual still inside. (We had to go outside for a fire alarm for someone who did that when we were living in PA. Genius.)