We're Going to the UK!

Oh. My. Goodness.  Mr. and I just bought our plane tickets for June where we are going to visit Ireland and Scotland.  This is one of my dream trips!  I almost can't handle it.  Almost.  Right now I'm in the blissful stages of planning (we only bought our plane tickets but haven't booked anything else yet) and all we have are possibilities.  It's thrilling!  Not to mention all of the reading and research I get to do - which I say with genuine enthusiasm as I absolutely LOVE researching and planning.

Since it's the UK where most people speak our common language, I'm not too worried about international travel and the cultural barriers.  What I am worried about is how to pack for a 10 1/2 day trip.  You will see a lot of pins from me in the next few days/weeks regarding how to successfully pack for a trip with only a carry-on and a backpack.  I know I can do it... I mean, we do it when we camp and backpack, but since I've never done it for a vacation over 5 days I am in new territory.  I've already started my own "travel essentials" packing list, which right now changes on an hourly basis based off of my Pinterest and Google research.

The other thing that's weighing on me is how we are going to see everything we want to see while we are there.  I'm starting to realize that we will have to plan another trip in the future in order to hit our Must See's.  Currently we plan on staying a few days in and around Dublin before heading West.  We'd like to stay at least 1 night in a castle, and we'd also love to explore some of the burial mounds and "thin" places but we aren't quite sure which ones.  Perhaps if we have time we will make it to Galway before we have to head to Scotland.  The only part of the Scotland leg of the trip that we've planned (besides the flights) is to see some friends we have that now live there and hopefully spend some time catching up with them.

In other news, I got a new job!  I won't start until the end of February as we have a few meetings and things that I still need to travel for, but my official start date is February 24th!  I'm super excited as I'll be working with our merchandising team in Young Athletes, Tennis and Golf.  I cannot wait to learn some new things and see how that part of our business works.


So many good things in 2014 to look forward to!