Flying while pregnant - not recommended!

Being back home with my family for Christmas was great, getting there was horrible!

I never, ever want to travel longhaul again while pregnant. Travelling to LAX was bad enough, but then having to get onto the 10.5 hour flight to London Heathrow was bad... real bad. I thought since we were there for almost 4 weeks that I'd be feeling 'much better' by the time we had to make the journey back home... I was wrong. The flight(s) home were even worse. The flight to LAX from London was a nightmare, nothing else can describe just how bad it was. I had sickness the whole flight and I couldn't get a moment's rest. I'm sure having just experienced an emotional goodbye a couple hours before flying didn't help but let me just say, DON'T DO IT! It's horrible!

Bluergh!

The last couple of days I am feeling totally blah, bluergh and ick! I don't really know why and can't really put my finger on it but I just don't feel 100%. My back hurts and my stomach is icky so I have been taking it easy this afternoon.

On Friday we left town to go camping for the weekend. I was really looking forward to getting away and also for some cooler weather. It had been far too warm for little ol' me and I was starting to feel a little wilted. I needed some cooler temps!

Dear hubbie loaded up the truck on Thursday evening and I did the last few bits on Friday morning and then I jumped in the truck to go pick him up from the field and we hit the road. We headed just south of Bend to a place called La Pine but as we pulled into the campground we were greeted by the 'Campground Full' sign. Uh oh, this was bad news. We hit one other campground and saw the same thing so we decided to head up to Paulina Lake.

We had wanted to camp up there but I was a little nervous because of the lake and the mosquitoes, but since the other two sites were full it was a sign so we headed up the road to Paulina Lake. Neither of us realised it was so high up and it seemed like the road just kept on going and going... at 6350ft we entered the campsite and it wasn't full. Infact, it was only about half occupied! YAY - I was excited!

We found the perfect spot and jumped out to start setting up camp and WHOOOSH, the mosquitoes were on us like crazy! I could even feel them biting me which is a first, usually the first I know that I've been bitten is a few moments later when it starts to swell.

Ugh! Cory was willing to leave and go find another campsite somewhere else but I didn't want to, it was so pretty there and it was an adventure after all.... a few painful bites later I was starting to feel like I was going to go crazy, so I got inside the half erected tent while Cory set up everything else and got a fire going.

A few moments after the fire got going they started to leave, they really didn't like the smoke so we kept the fire really smokey!

We walked over to the lake and it was just beautiful, it was as if we were on top of the world. There was no other point of reference that we could see from where we were and at over 6000 feet we really were up high!

After that we went to find the host and paid for the night... he warned us that it would be cold (and it was) and that hopefully we had enough blankets to keep warm for the night. I was actually looking forward to it being a little cold, and already had my beloved beanie hat on! ;)

We went back to the campsite and fixed up a yummy dinner and chilled out by the fire before hitting the hay early.

It was pretty cold that night, it hit somewhere in the low 20's and we felt it but we were very glad for lots of warm blankets and a blow up mattress! After breakfast and a walk to the lake we packed up our stuff and hit the road.

Saturday evening we stayed at a campground at Detroit Lake and it was substantially warmer than at Paulina Lake (it was also substantially lower in elevation) and had next to no mosquitoes. I didn't get one bite that evening nor did I even see a skeeter lurking nearby.

We camped close to a little beach on the far side of the lake and it was quiet and calm. We had a fun & very relaxing weekend... laying on the beach, relaxing strolls, throwing rocks and just not having to do any of the stuff waiting for us back home.

ooooh, and I almost forgot to mention that we had the first smores of the year and they were perfect! :)

London...

Well, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm here in London at my parents place. It drove down to George & Jen's on Tuesday afternoon and stayed with them til I flew to London on Thursday morning. I was pretty lucky, all flights from Ireland had been cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday because of the dangerous levels of ash in the air from the volcano.

When I got to Luton airport I went to baggage claim and grabbed my bags and then made my way out to the terminal to find my Mum. I saw her and Morgan looking up at the screens for arrival information, so I snuck up on them and just said "well hello, fancy seeing you here". Morgan stood there, his mouth wide open and couldn't say a word.... he was speechless, literally... for half an hour at least. The first thing he did say when he finally found his tongue again was "Where's Cory?" closely followed by "Caroline got a baby and I got a sister". He's so funny, whatever goes on his head he just blurts out.

Alfie was shocked when he came home from the shop with Granda and found me in the kitchen... he stood there for a few minutes and then just said "Hello Mary" ("Granda, look, it's Mary").

I was excited to see my sister and meet her new little baby, Paul so we hopped into the car and headed over to her place. He's just adorable and such a good little man too - she's lucky!

I'll post photos and try and keep updated, can't make promises tho...

Donegal photos

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...