Back in Donegal...

Well, here I am in Donegal. Technically it’s the 30^th April, but I’m in denial that it’s after 1am already so I’m still trying to pretend it’s Thursday.

I arrived here in Donegal yesterday afternoon, and I must say it’s a little strange to be ‘back’. As I was driving here it was like I was on auto pilot, I didn’t have to check the road signs to make sure I was going the right way, nor did I even really wonder how long it would take me. I knew every curve in the road, and even some of the potholes are still there too.

I’m not really sure what I expected to feel when I got here, but I was certainly surprised as I entered into Buncrana and drove the last few miles to the cottage.

Until now Donegal has always been a place I have been eager to get to – from a tiny little infant I have come here for Christmas, summer, autumn holidays (and everything else in between). Then when I moved here it became home very quickly – even though I always knew in the back of my head it was just a temporary home until I figured out how to get back onto the path life had in store for me.

So, why different now? Well, I guess all along I’ve been planning this trip as a ‘work’ trip – to get a job done. I’ve always known I would have to come back and get my stuff together, sorted and packed, and that day came, but I think in the back of my head I still expected to feel some sense of excitement or ‘at home(ness)’. But no. I think that will come when I hit London next week.

I am enjoying the beautiful countryside that surrounds me, and I loved going down to the beach and the gravesides yesterday, and hey, it’s not even all that cold – it is wet though!

Anyway, as I’ve been packing up stuff and trying to be really brutal about not keeping stuff I really don’t need it’s hard. I’m a sentimental old fool (aka rat pack). I keep stuff, stupid stuff – anything wrapped up with sentiment and I have a hard time throwing it away. But this time I’m really trying to be good – to get rid and have a good clear out.

Tonight I was going through all the CD boxes and putting the CD’s onto spindles – I came across 3 that were made for me by an old friend. I don’t know why but I had to play them just to see what was on there. The first was a birthday DVD that the said friend had made for me back several years ago (probably 1997), after 10 years of being best friends. Watching the video made me kind of sad since she and I aren’t in touch anymore; we’re not friends anymore (her choice – long story). Over the course of those 10 years we went through so much together and I really honestly thought we would be friends til we were old (and grey, although that happened years ago for me). I had imagined going through many more major life events together. Alas, it wasn’t to be. I guess she’s still clinging to bitterness and resentment. Maybe one day she will realize that life is too short for all this carry on, that we should treasure loved ones and let go of the past.

Well – on that sad note (sorry) I’m going to try and get some sleep. The jet lag is crazy this time and I could hardly sleep last night, and then when I did finally sleep I didn’t wake for the alarm. It’s 1.20am and I’m still not feeling tired… ugh. Usually I’m ready for bed around 9.30 -10pm back home! Hahah – YES, I’m old!

Oh, and incase you’re wondering – there are two (valid) reasons why I am still claiming it’s the 29^th today. The first being that I only have til Tuesday morning to get my stuff done here, so if it’s Friday already then I’ll start panicking…. (yikes). The second (valid) reason is that on the 30^th (TOMORROW) it will be just two weeks until my birthday. Actually, our birthday, since Cory and I share our birthday…. But it’s only two weeks until my 30^th birthday. I’m dreading it. It’s terrible. I’m trying to not think about it but it’s impossible… I’m getting old. I’ll no longer be a twenty-something. I’ll be in my thirties… can anyone say “mid-life” crisis?!?!

New York... New York

Well, Today is finally here.

This morning our alarm clock went off at 3am and jump started us into the day. The drive to PDX was pretty good and we made good time... we grabbed a quick bite at the airport and then it was time to go through to the gate!

I hate good-byes.... they're never fun - I was sad to be leaving Cory home for 2 weeks while I went off to Ireland. I should say that it's not all fun and vacationing - I'm going to be sorting out the house and my stuff, so the first 6 days will be pretty hard work for me. I'm hoping I everything goes smoothly and I can get things done quickly and then go visit my brother and his family in Laois - I haven't seen them in way too long.

Anyway, I have a 7 hour (+) layover here in JFK and am slightly tempted to take the subway into Manhattan and grab dinner and see the sights, but I'd much rather not do that on my own and I'm kind of tired and think I might just waste time here and grab dinner at the airport instead.

I have a a lovely 4 hour (+) drive as soon as I land in the morning and I'm not exactly looking forward to that unless I get some sleep.

Anyway, I'm going to walk around and have a look in the shops..... catch ya on the other side!

Come on you whites!!!!

I'm anxiously watching the live feed of the Fulham vs Hamburg game taking place in Germany right now. I really would love for Fulham to win, that would put them through to the final... YES, you heard it, Fulham could get through to the Europa Cup Final!

What a game that would be!

Atletico Madrid are currently winning against Liverpool, but imagine for a second if Fulham and Liverpool win... what an awesome Cup Final that would be.

I've currently got everything possible crossed, fingers, toes - you name it, it's crossed....


COME ON YOU WHITES!

All systems go (& update)

Well, it seems like the volcano has slowed down a little and the weather system is again in our favour and all that paired together means it looks like our trip is going ahead.

I'm trying to not get all my hopes up, but to a certain extent I can't help it - I'm excited to go "back home" and see all my family and some friends too. It's been entirely too long already and I've been looking forward to seeing them since the flights were confirmed.

My temporary passport should arrive today too, which is great - it looks like everything is fitting into place. I just need to get the last few bits done here before I go, get the cases packed and then I should be done! YAY


Not much else to report from this week. I've had a couple of dentist appointments, one with Dr Brian which was supposed to be about a 90 min appointment but ended up running over by 90 mins - so I was tender last night from all the prodding and poking and having 2 teeth with exposed nerves for quite a while. I saw Dr Johnson (my oral surgeon) this morning too for a follow up and he's very happy with how everything is healing and the x-ray showed that everything was as it should be. I'm so excited that things are working out now...

So, I also booked my Ortho appointments - for just a couple days after I get back from the trip. It looks like I'm going to be in braces the first week of June - YIKES. That will be different, but it's exciting too... it's another step in the right direction for us. I did find out that it will be a 30 month treatment plan though, so that looks like I'm going to be with "train tracks" until December 2012 - it sounds like a lifetime away!

Oh, and I should also say that my little nephew Paul is out of the NICU and is up in the room with my sister. He's doing really well, a little jaundice, but not too bad. He's borderline for treatment so they said they'd rather not treat him if they can get away with not, he's been through enough already. Apparently he's spoilt rotten. He loves to be held, rubbed, touched... you name it, he loves it. I am so excited to meet him. It feels weird that I have a new niece and nephew to meet when I get to London... Charlotte is already 4.5 months and I have only seen a few photos of her from when she was first born. It will be such fun to meet the two little ones.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I am currently waiting in for FedEx to deliver my passport so I had better make good use of the time and get some things done that I need to.

Over and out!

Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is the birthday of my wonderful Mother, so I wanted to sing "happy birthday" from the roof tops... Although, I decided against it, since I am a terrible singer, and she's several thousand miles away so I don't think she'd hear it anyway.

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!
We love and miss you and can't wait to see you SOON....

Oh, and I love these two photos of Mum and I, so figured I just HAD to share them with you! :)

Little Paul

Isn't he adorable! :)

Welcome to our newest nephew!

My sister gave birth to a beautiful little boy this weekend - little Paul. He's absolutely adorable and I am so excited to meet him (come on volcano, gimme a break... I have babies to hold!).

He was a little premature and has some fluid in his lungs so he's hanging out with the nurses in NICU right now. They're taking good care of him and he's being a good little boy.

Here's a photo of the handsome little thing.... I'll add a better one when he gets out of NICU!

Is someone trying to tell me something?!?!?!

Well, no passport as yet and the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland still seems to be spewing... I'm starting to wonder if there is a reason I shouldn't be flying in a week's time. It seems like things are getting really close to the cloth. All UK & Irish airspace is closed because of the volcanic ash and NATS look like they're not going to ease up the ban until it's safe to do so.

Honestly, I'd rather be grounded than take the risk of failing engines half way to the UK!

It's a little frustrating that this has happened and it's just a week before my scheduled trip. I have the trip schedule so well planned with connecting flights to London and back and train tickets booked to see friends etc. It would really be a pain if I had to change all the scheduled flights.

I did hear this morning that there is a slight chance that the volcano might be easing up. It would take a little while for the air to clear, and a fair amount of time for the airlines to get themselves sorted out, but I'm hoping that since I have a booked ticket it shouldn't cause much trouble if they are flying by then.

Fingers crossed on this one!

Hummmm

So, this week has been crazy busy but all in all, pretty uneventful.

My father-in-law had his foot surgery as planned on Monday, except everything was not as they expected so it was a little bigger of a surgery than they had hoped. His recovery time has increased from 2 weeks to 6 weeks - YIKES!

Get well soon Pops!

Humm, what else can I tell ya? Well, my passport saga is still ongoing. I called the embassy on Tuesday morning to see if it had arrived with the Monday batch, nope, it's not there. The lady suggested I go ahead and order the Emergency / Temporary passport. I was kind of frustrated that I had to pay more money just because their office in Dublin was on strike, but at least it would mean I could travel without changing flights etc. So, I sent off for that and am waiting for it to arrive. It should come in the next couple of days (hopefully).

Yesterday I took and passed my driving knowledge test. I need to get an Oregon drivers license so I thought I had better get on it. I have a little friendly bet with a friend of ours, Dave that I'll pass before him, so I'm hoping. I passed the knowledge test so I have that under my belt and just have to wait for the driven test. The earliest date I could get that would fit around my trip to the UK/Ireland was end of May.... I sure hope he doesn't beat me. He failed his knowledge test, and hasn't ever held a driving license..... fingers crossed guys!

After doing that at the DMV yesterday and bringing breakfast to my wonderful hubbie I headed to the Dr's and had my bloods drawn. Just a quick check up to see how my thyroid levels are doing before my trip.

I must say, now I've added the ctyomel to my daily meds I'm feeling miles better. It makes all the difference in the world. So, if you're having thyroid problems and are taking Synthroid (or generic) and just don't feel 'right' it might be worth considering getting a T3 supplement added to your meds.

Not much else to report I guess. The birds are still visiting us like their life depended on it. The grosbeaks every morning and their numbers are increasing rapidly! We still get the occasional crash into the house or window, I guess I can't really stop that.

The humming birds are still awesome. We have added another feeder too, so that brings us back up to three. They found that new one right away and instantly fell in love with it.
It's so much fun to watch them feed and it's interesting to see how territorial they get too about their "favourite" feeders... You get to see a real show sometimes.

Anyway, I guess I'll get off here and get some more of the things done that I'd like to before my trip. Not long now (if my passport would hurry up and get here that would be awesome).
I think tonight we're going to a friends house who is going to help us make a birthday gift for my parents, and we have a fun day planned for tomorrow.

The Newest Mr & Mrs Fast

Erik & Krista were married on Friday evening. They had a lovely ceremony at a friends property in Wilsonville.

HUGE congratulations to Mr & Mrs Erik Fast... and welcome to the family Krista, Kaylee and Gavin!

Bad timing for a strike!

Yesterday morning I woke up at 6.30 am and had a feeling I needed to call the embassy and find out how my passport application was going. It should have taken 4(ish) weeks, and it had already been that long. I was getting excited for my trip and was a little anxious that I didn't have a passport in my grubby little hands yet!

So, I got up, left them a voicemail and waited for my call back (I hate that they don't have people answering calls and that I always have to leave a message).

Anyway, about 2.15pm they called back and said that my passport was being held up in the backlog because of strike action taking place in Dublin.

• Firstly I didn't know my passport was being processed in Dublin
• Secondly - who was striking? What for? and why now?

Grrr - the lady on the phone was NOT the most helpful person I've ever talked to and she quickly got off the phone after mentioning something about a temporary passport.

Hummm.... I was bummed. Nope, I was beyond bummed - I was heart broken. I have so looked forward to this trip, it's been entirely too long since I last saw most of my family and friends. I couldn't imagine postponing or cancelling at this stage.

After doing a LOT of research and calling several different official offices for advice and then piecing it together I put another call into the consulate in San Fran. This time I just left my name and phone number and said I needed advice on how to get back to Ireland. I hoped that by not mentioning I had a passport question I might get a different person call me back.

A little before 10am a lovely helpful lady called me back. She asked me lots of questions about my situation, dates of travel, immigration status etc and she said her best advice to me would be to wait. She said they get passports every Monday and that I should call on Tuesday 20th if I haven't received my passport before then. They can check if it came in the day before and if not I could get a temporary passport issued. They can do them there in the consulate office and mail them the same day they receive payment. It 'should' give me enough time to get it before travelling. I asked her if it would be safer to go ahead and order it now but she said they only issue them for last minute or emergency scenarios, so they would have to wait til the w/c 19th April anyway.

Irish passports have a huge backlog right now and they are expecting approximately a 12+ week delay on passports going through the Dublin office...

So we wait - it means we have to wait til the very last minute, but we wait and hope...

I'm going to still try and get everything done that we need to, and hope and pray that everything gets sorted out in time. I would hate to spend even more money on this passport (since I'm cheap) but if we have to then we will.

3 weeks and counting

OK, so last night it hit me that in three weeks right now I'll be sitting on a flight JFK bound! Yikes! I can't believe I only have 3 weeks to get all the stuff ready that I need to.

Ummm - I have grand plans for my sister's baby blankies and I haven't even cut the cloth. I've washed it all and it's ready, but I just need to get the sewing machine out and get started!

There's a long list of other things I need to do before then too, so I had better get my list started so I don't have to do any last minute panics or anything like that. I'm not really up for that right now!

I should also say that I am SO SUPER EXCITED that I get to go back and see family and friends. It's been entirely too long and I shouldn't really leave it that long again - EVER!

I don't think the boys know that Cory's coming too, so that will be a fun surprise for them when he shows up! :)

Anyway, I can hear the clock ticking saying I am almost out of time so I need to get busy today so I'll sign off here...

Tick tock.... tick tock.... tick tock.... tick tock...

Happy Easter

I hope you all had a very lovely Easter weekend. We had a fun and 'interesting' Easter Sunday.

We started our day by getting up early and making some things to take to lunch at Cory's parents house. I made Cornbread casserole and some Yorkshire puddings to go with lunch. After that we got ready and headed out to Church here in town. It was really busy, but was a fun service and the choir did a good job. The message Charlie gave was really good too, he's a good speaker. If you'd like to hear that or any of his other messages you can listen or download from the website which is here (f you click on audio archive then 'launch' you'll get the complete list).

After church we headed out to the farm and got the lunch ready to serve. It was so yummy! We had lamb, potatoes, yorkshires, hot cross buns, crab salad, cornbread casserole, jell-o salad, stuffed eggs (and the list goes on).

Cory's Grampa and aunt Donette came for lunch too, so it was good to be able to visit with each other and share stories. Cory's Grampa tells the best stories, he has had such a wonderful life - I could sit and listen to him all day.

After a little while Doug went out to check on the Momma cows that were down in the barn. A few moments later he called us and said two were really close to giving birth and that we should wrap up and come down there. So, we did exactly that. Thankfully I'd brought a change of clothes and there was some rubber boots in the garage that were perfect for me. So we bundled up and headed out.

We climbed up on top of the hay bales in the barn so we could watch over both cows and not spook them too much. One of them was really nervous about the whole thing and any little noise we made seemed to make her more anxious.

After about an hour the blonde gave birth to a pretty big calf. I could feel the pride well up inside me as I quietly cheered her on through the hole process, she did such a good job!

The other one was having a harder time of it and didn't seem to be making much progress. We decided to head up to the house and warm up. We were both blocks of ice!

The next time Doug checked on her she had given birth to the calf and it was healthy too. YAY!
One more was looking pretty close to giving birth last night, but news this morning was that there was 7 born last night! YIKES!

Anyway, that was pretty much our Easter in a nutshell. We came home and tucked into the Easter eggs that we had got from the British store in Lake Oswego. Cory's first ever one, and it seemed like it was a hit. Looks like that'll be another sure tradition in the Fast household from here on out!

More birds (photos)