Skip to main content

Glo's Graduation Trip to Ireland--Day Three

Image
By

Today started out with SO. MUCH. PROMISE, but as I write this, I find that I am once in again in one of the miserable situations I frequently find myself in on vacations.

I could hardly believe the view out my window this morning.  We had pulled in late last night, and I obviously couldn't see anything that wasn't sitting in the view of the car's headlights, so it was a delight to wake up to green, even without any sunshine.

John and Glo were headed out running, and I wanted to get outside as well so I put on my tennis shoes and headed out.  The roads here are too skinny to walk on without peril to one's life, so I walked one of the farming paths.  I was set to listen to my scriptures, but I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the moment, so I turned to my voice memo app.  On it, I have music recorded by my family over the years, and two very appropriate songs for the moment were "All Things Bright and Beautiful" with Hannah and Glo on strings and me on piano, and Glo singing "The Curra Road" with guitar.  If it weren't for my stupid bunion, I could have walked forever, but I called it at 2.5 miles.





















It was really sweet to see John and Glo out running.  When John ran the Causeway when Glo was a baby, we never could've imagined that everything would come full-circle someday.

Can you spot them?

Then, we needed to go grocery shopping seeing as we're staying in a beautiful house with a full kitchen.  Normally that event wouldn't be blog-worthy, but being in Northern Ireland, shopping is so fun!  We all headed to Tesco in Coleraine, about a 25-minute drive away.

We got out of there for £150, but not before Glo noticed a "Kiln Dried Wood" self kiosk.  I won't even go into the fact that it was next to an egg self-kiosk (where we could pick the name of the hen whose eggs we wanted).  As we all know, Glo loves fire, and she was all set to build us a fire in our fireplace at home.  So she and John picked up a large parcel of ash and threw it in the back of the car #onlyinnorthernireland



Then it was time to come home, turn up the thermometer from 10° C, build a fire and relax.  This is something I think we all needed to do, it was raining outside, and with the heat turning on, it just felt perfect.  Until it was dinner time....

John had bought chicken breasts, and he wanted to grill them.  I suggested using the George Foreman grill in our home, but it wanted to use a grill outside.  We had bought potatoes, but we didn't have any oil to roast them, and we didn't have other "veg".  Glo and I ran into Bushmills to buy everything we needed.  The chicken ended up being done much earlier than the veg, and John was hangry so everything went south as he demanded we not wait to eat and didn't want any of the rest of us to wait even though we wanted the complete meal on our plates before we started eating.

We watched "The Watchers", a movie set in Ireland, with bruised emotions and then went to bed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Quest for Birkenstocks

By
One of the main reasons I go to Germany every couple of years is to restock my supply of Birkenstocks.  I started buying them when I lived there, and I basically can't live without them now.  It just about kills me when a pair runs its course and needs to be thrown away.  I think in my lifetime, I've thrown away only three pairs.  One that never was quite right (the straps were plastic and would cut into my skin after a long day), one pair that I wore gardening one too many times (the brown dirt stains wouldn't come out of the white leather), and the pair that I was wearing when I broke my ankle (they were an unfortunate casualty of broken ankle PTSD because those purple and blue paisleys go down as one of my favorite pairs of all time).  I only threw out the garden ones a couple of days before I left for Germany, because I knew I would be getting a new pair. The only store where I have ever bought my Birkenstocks is Hoffmann's in Speicher.  (Well okay, t...
2 comments
Read more

Johannah's Bridal Shower

By
One of the only reasons to lament my daughter not living in Utah anymore? Sister Mecham.  When I think back to the absolutely classic, beautiful, elegant, heart-warming bridal shower she threw for Glo, I literally sit in awe.  Her talents and abilities are unmatched! Believe me, I was hoping anyone  would volunteer to throw Hannah a bridal shower.  Being only two weeks post-op, I knew it was going to be very difficult for me to stand up let alone host the thing.  I even asked several people about me throwing it, thinking they would tell me it wasn't  up to me, but do you know what they ALL said? Of course  I should host it. This is what we do, baby! So I took a deep breath and decided to do it the best I could do it, knowing that I would never equal what Becky Mecham could do. Since Hannah's wedding colors were Tigers colors, and since Hannah loves baseball, I figured a baseball-themed bridal shower would be perfect for her.  And she agreed! But l...
Post a Comment
Read more

Your Life in Two Suitcases

By
I remember when Johannah told us that she wanted to serve a mission.  It was a couple of months after her freshman year had begun.  When she uttered those life-changing words, "I want to serve a mission," my heart sank.  Mark hadn't been home from his mission for very long, and the pain of having a child gone was still pretty fresh.  Let's just say that I wasn't at all encouraging. However, time passed, and when she actually submitted her papers, I was so excited for her.  I was excited for me too.  While I can't pinpoint any specific blessing that came to us when the boys were serving their missions, there is just a special kind of purpose that enters my life.  I can't really do anything without thinking about my missionary, and in some special way, my life is changed.  I write daily letters which, for an introvert, is cathartic.  I study my scriptures a little bit better because I want to be able to offer encouragement.  I'm constant...
2 comments
Read more