Well, the road certainly rose to meet me for this “adventure”. As soon as I said I wanted to go to Europe, the whole Universe conspired to make it happen. Around Christmastime, I casually mentioned  to my aunt that I wanted to visit Europe, namely Italy…or France…or Spain. She soon informed me that a First Class flight experience topped my 90-year old grandmother’s Bucket List, and that my uncle was able to cash in his flight points to make it happen, but that no one in the family was able to take her anywhere far enough away to make the flight worthwhile…

A few months later, on Valentine’s Day, my “cousin” – a silly formality for a woman who’s closer to a sister – birthed a sweet, red-headed Irish lass in a Dublin hospital, where her and her husband now live. I wanted to meet our new addition so badly, but I’d have to wait until they came to the US in June. Unless…My aunt asked – Would I be able to take my grandmother to Ireland, in exchange for a free luxury flight whenever I wanted? Umm, YES!

The “hitch” was that we had to fly out of Philadelphia, where my grandmother lives. Now that I live in Charleston and work remotely, I visit my Philadelphia office every 6 weeks. Luckily, I was able to schedule our Europe trip right after heading to the job site for a few days. That got me “back home”, so my super cute Nanny, Mary Ann, and I could hop onto an international flight from PHL to DUB.

I’d been to visit Ireland before, so this trip wasn’t about wearing the most fashionable clothing while traipsing around the Cliffs of Moher. It was about taking a thousand pictures of a child whose parents don’t want any of them posted on social media. It was about spending time with my “sister” and catching up on all of the loving insults that we share. It was about laughing at the joys of being a caregiver for the first time ever. It was about having tea with way too many sugar cubes in an Irish country manor house. It was about going shopping in downtown Dublin by myself, only to realize that I’d much rather get back home to that cute, cute baby. It was about getting flipped off by my Grandma when I told her she wasn’t allowed to save leftover First Class snacks.

I posted a few photos of my journey, wore a few outfits more than a few times, and laughed until I had tears coming out of my eyes. Although it wasn’t necessarily the Mediterranean vacation I had originally planned, Ireland sure made me feel lucky.

❤