Home Again

Silas and I made the journey safely back to Ireland.
Silas was getting his molars, two on the bottom are visible and one on the top you can just feel. I think it is hurting him more than I realize. I always assume that he is just being a crank, but his sleeplessness and general grouchiness at Rachel's may have been more due to the teething than I thought. On the way to the airport he was really fussing, but as soon as I started rubbing his cheeks and jaw he calmed down and fell asleep.
The nice lady at the Ryan Air desk allowed me to check the baby cot as a baby item, free of charge. It explicitly states on the website that you aren't allowed to use the baby allowance for anything other than a stroller, but who am I to argue. It saved me paying 10 euro to check an extra bag. The security line was very long, the passport control man scrutinized our documents, but the flight over the fog filled valleys of the Rhine (maybe the Rhine? Not sure actually) was very lovely.
Orrin collected us at the airport and we stopped for a sandwich on the way home. Rachel and Trey may have a tougher time with the language, but one area where Germany has Ireland beat is drive through restaurants. I don't think they exist here. No, I take that back. There is a drive through KFC in town. The road system in Germany is just much more similar to the American interstate system and I had gotten a little used to it while I was there. So, there a wee adjustment period needed now that I'm back in the land of sheep filled narrow windy roads. (Ok, they aren't sheep filled, but in general the pace of life in Ireland is quite a bit slower.)

Saturday night we went to the Christmas party for Orrin's workplace. We had an OK time. Dinner of turkey and ham and lots of vegetables, mincemeat pies for dessert and really sweet wine, which Orrin drank way too much of and ended up feeling pretty sick. They had a really good band, but they were very loud which made visiting very difficult. Nearly half of the people were dancing at any given time though, so I suppose it wasn't intended to just be background music.

Sunday we were all feeling pretty puny so we just sat around the house mostly. I was feeling a spurt of organizational energy and went through the pantry and refrigerator and made a meal plan to try to whittle everything down before we head back to America for two weeks at Christmas. Our one accomplishment of the weekend was going grocery shopping, but we are all set for the next two weeks I think.