I set the alarm for 9am this morning and then turned it off when I woke up tired. I did get out of bed around 10:30am so that’s a pretty good start for the day. I could hear the water running for forever this morning and then when I go to climb in the shower, no stinking hot water! So if you ever wonder, you now know why I am wearing a hat in my pictures today. I’ll have to get up super early in the morning in order to get a shower. Two days in a row is a No Go. I think we actually made it out of the house well before noon today, probably since Robert and I didn’t have to take a time-consuming shower. We took the bubble car today with Matt ... read more

The time zone change is reeking havoc with my schedule. I had hoped to be up and out of the house by 10:30am but I didn’t end up getting out of bed until noon. After I showered and went downstairs, Matt and Billie were already up and downstairs in the kitchen. I told them that they should have woken us up. We were up last night playing cards until well after midnight. We made sandwiches to take with us for lunch; Billie and I had peanut butter and lemon marmalade which turned out to be tasty. I think I’ll take a jar home for Grandma and pick up some smoked salmon for Grandpa. Today was Matt’s turn to drive their very compact car on our days adventures. First stop was the Blarney Stone and Castle outside ... read more

Wow, what an adventure it has become to get us to our final destination. I was barely able to get any sleep on the long leg of our journey over the Atlantic Ocean and what ever waters we crossed. My geography needs to be brushed up on. We landed in Shannon around 11:30am local time (3:30am PDT). Passing through immigrations was quite easy and I now have another stamp in my passport, yippie!! After grabbing our luggage, and Robert realizing that his suitcases had been damaged in transit, we headed over to the Hertz counter to claim our right hand sided vehicle. They denied my credit card even though I paid it off before we left so I had to use Kara’s card (so sorry darling, but I’ll pay it off when we get back). The ... read more

Robert wanted to get up bright and early this morning so we could get an early start on the day but I did not want to wake up! He finally rolled me out of bed around 7:15am and we still didn't end up leaving the house until close to 9am. By the time I got things done at work and we ran our errands, it was 10:44am before we left Bend. We actually made really good time driving down to San Francisco. MapQuest estimated that it was approximately an 8 1/2 hour drive and it took us about 9 hours but we stopped for Subway lunch in Klamath Falls and stretched our legs at several rest areas. Battling through California freeway traffic is always a rush but we made it to Nate's house with little incident; ... read more