AT HOME IN IRELAND

We had a great trip to the States for the Christmas holidays. I was able to go the first couple of days in December and spend a little over a month there. I went to the dentist 3 times, had my eyes examined and got new glasses, and got my driver's license renewed. My husband had his physical, got his year's worth of medicine to take back, and also got into his dentist. We had a great time visting with our children, their spouses, our grandchildren and our friends. My husband's mother was also able to come spend a week with us. I achieved "Silver" status with my frequent flyer miles so was able to bring a 2nd suitcase back to help get all the stuff we got for Christmas back over here without having to pay extra for it.
Our flight to Atlanta was at 6:15am, so we had to get up at 2:30am so we could shower and leave the house at 3:45 for the airport because we had to return our rent car. There weren't a whole lot of people at the airport, but we still had to wait in lines in security. I had the opportunity to go through one of those new "body scanners". The security guy was telling anyone with knee or hip implants to let him know so they could go through that. They were also just making other people go through at random. I wasn't able to see the scan image, but I thought it was a lot better than having to be wanded and patted down. I hoped the scan image was at least in a private place. I wasn't quite sure where it was. After I went through the body scanner, I stepped into this other glassed-off area and the security guy had me stand there and wait until he said I could go. I figured he must be waiting for some kind of "all clear" from the guy reading the body scans.

Our flight was delayed leaving home because they had a malfunctioning part. It was a navigational part and we heard them testing it. It was a part that would tell the captains to pull up if they got too close to like a mountain or the ground or something. They finally took the part out of another plane and put it in ours. That plane was the 1pm flight to Atlanta, which an Intel friend of our was on. He got transferred to another flight that went to Salt Lake first and then to Atlanta. When he got to Dublin, he didn't have his luggage either and wondered if it was still in Salt Lake.

My husband and I got upgraded to First Class on the Atlanta flight, so that was really nice. I'm sorry, but I couldn't help thinking of Madagascar 2, where King Julian is in First Class on the plane. I had to chuckle to myself sitting there when the other passengers starting coming in. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go watch it. :0)
We got to Atlanta about noon Eastern Time. We had a 6 hour layover. We were at our gate and we saw a bunch of missionariee coming for a flight to Zurich that was taking off about an hour or so before ours. We went over and introduced ourselves and they seemed very excited to talk to some members. There were about 8 - 10 of them. Most were from Utah, but 2 were from California and 2 were from Virginia. They spent lots of that 2 hour waiting period taking turns talking on the phones to their families.

Our flight to Dublin was really packed, and to tell you the truth I've never seen that flight not packed. The Irish people all like to fly standby. I bet at least 50 people or more were flying standby. Lots and lots of kids, and some of them not too happy of kids either. :0+

We came home and went to sleep for a couple of hours and then got up and showered and my husband went to work for the rest of the day. We were glad to find our house safe and sound, and to also find a layer of snow all over the Dublin area, with more expected to come.