This year we were incredibly blessed to be able to go on a most amazing vacation..or perhaps it is more accurate to say TWO vacations that happened to be back to back! For one week we toured around Ireland and for the second we sailed across the Atlantic on the the Queen Mary II. This once in a lifetime trip was compliments of Mom and Bill - a fantastic gift of memories we will treasure forever! It was even more special because all three Bell girls' families were together to experience it together!
So, for the next few posts I'll be writing up some of my memories of the trip and posting some pictures. I hope you enjoy!
***Getting Started***
So, on July 5th we began the adventure! The plan was for all four families to meet at JFK airport. All three of the flights in were scheduled to land roughly around the same time and Anne-Marie and Greg, who had arrived the day before and spent a sweltering day touring the Big Apple, were to meet us at Mom and Bill's gate. That is pretty much what happened, but as is often the case, there were little hiccups in everyone's plans. For us and the Stokes, the hiccup was getting in early but not having a gate ready...much worse for the Stokes than for us....for the Jehn's it was an unbelievably long check in process...but for Mom and Bill it was the extra excitement of having a crane-like devise transport Bill, in his wheelchair, to the gate. Tracy, Anne-Marie and I had been waiting at what we thought was their arrival gate for about 1/2 hour, texting Mom trying to get an idea of when they'd being coming through. Of course the texts weren't arriving right away and we were waiting at the wrong gate, but luckily we saw Mom through the crowd and were able to greet them with kisses, jokes and lots of babbling...which is kind of how the Bell girls roll ;)
We were very lucky that our arrival gates were close to each other and close to our departure gate, but the down side was that apparently everyone else was departing out of our gate sometime during the evening so at first it was very hard to secure a spot for all of us...but eventually we did...and then, of course, eventually they changed the gate. We created our own 'nook' of chairs and waited to board. Peter, Abby, Johanna decided that they wanted to sit together on the plane, which at first I was unsure of, but how can you say no to three cuties all giving you the sad PLEASE eyes? Wayne and I ended up with Meagan in the aisle across the way which was nice because she taught us all the ins and outs of the cool touch screen on the seat back. Delta knows its International customers...you could listen to music, watch various TV programs and movies and play GAMES...including a plane-wide trivia game (which I believe Tracy ended up the champ of)! It was pretty impressive, but certainly didn't help me sleep at all.
Before we knew it we had landed in Shannon - greeted by bunnies on the grassy areas by the runway! We got off the plane, used the restroom and waited for Mom and Bill to be assisted off. In no time at all we had gotten through customs, claimed our bags, changed money, bought snacks and equipped our phones with international SIM cards. And then we waited. Our flight had arrived early and our tour guide (and bus) was not there yet...but, just about the time we all started getting antsy Joe Clancy and our 'Golden Chariot' arrived!
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