They made it!

Because of some great luck, my parents' flight managed to take off and arrive as scheduled today, even though over 16,000 flights were canceled throughout Europe just yesterday. This made it even more exciting to surprise them at the airport this morning. They had no idea!

The cab dropped me off at school then continued onto their hotel, since it was 6 a.m. and we all wanted some rest. However, they were checking in really early and there was no room available. By the time I met them around noontime, they had already walked around Dublin for a good four or five hours and they were still eager to head out to the city for the day.

Our first stop was at a farmers market in Meeting House Square in Temple Bar. Mom and I each got a lamb kabob, and Dad got a puff of vegetables and tomatoes, or something like that.

We headed over to the craft market, where we ran into Colleen, Melissa, Molly and Tara shopping for dresses. Before I introduced them, Mom already knew who they were due to her avid blog reading.

We left Temple Bar and headed down the River Liffey to the Guinness Storehouse. It was quite the walk, but I think they would say it was well worth it. The factory was a ghost town, though, since there have been no flights getting in or out and this is THE tourist spot. We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Halfway through, we sat down for a break and some delicious Guinness and Bailey's muffins.

Then we headed up to the Gravity Bar, where I had my first drink with my parents.

We did some damage at the gift shop, then headed back to the hotel, where I crashed and took a nice long nap while they went out to a Starbucks. We had dinner at Foley's Pub, but we were all pretty tired, especially them, so we called it a night and I came home. We have another big day tomorrow, so they have to shake off that jet lag!

It was just so wonderful to get to see them. I'm very excited to have them here for an entire week!