We have nailed down our second destination.  Now we just have to figure out the number of days that we will be staying in each place.

So, England…


Portugal…




and…

As for the third place, we are working on that now.  I'm pretty sure that all three places will be quite different.

Certainly, England and Portugal are very different - climate, culture, influences, food.  I'm looking forward to some meat pies and beer in England and then vast amounts of seafood and port in Portugal.  There is a good chance I will have the gout by the time we get to our last destination.

Jess bought the tickets to Portugal today, I think we are flying in to Faro because she asked if I wanted to stay three nights in the south.  So, the airlines are doing some weird shit with buying a seat for Malcolm.  You have to say that he is two, but then you're allowed to put his birthday in as the real one. I would assume they go by the birthday and not the age.  I'm telling you now, that if any weird shit happens in an airport and they try to take him, I'm not coming home.  There have been very few times that I have had very scary automatic military rifles pointed at me - in Belfast and on the train as we entered Slovakia from Austria.  My assumption is that it could happen again.

I was actually allowed to buy a new shirt for the trip but was informed that I get so sunburned, that I will look insanely red in my new red shirt.  That and the steam coming out of my ears from trying to navigate for Jess while she is driving on the wrong side of the road.

I think we have July 3 - 13th in England and will try to plan the 13th to the 20th or so in Portugal.  That will depend on where we go for the last stop and how much time we will need in each.  We are supposed to discuss that tonight, however, I need to get the grill on, everyone needs a bath (except me) and then there's getting Neil to bed, which usually results in the first installment of my sleep for the evening.  So, this could be a long night of planning, or in other words, no planning.

**So, I did get outside to cook.  Jess' stolen steak.  Seems they mis-marked the skirt steak - which just means awesomeness, for cheap.  Oh, shit!  Is she rubbing off on me?

Now it's time for Rescue Bots.  If you haven't noticed, there is a theme to our travels - castles.  I must have been a knight, or at least someone shoveling dung inside of a castle in a prior life.  Either way, I am pretty sure I would have qualified as a smelly European.  So, the big question, where will the third location be?  I'll narrow it down for you with a few more castles…

Ireland...


France…


Germany...

Romania...

Scotland…



I cannot wait for this vacation - I really need it.

Did I mention that this guy turned one yesterday?

So, the other day (Monday?) I decided to stop by Barnes and Noble and pick up a book for our travels.  We prefer Frommer's but apparently, they aren't coming out with one until the fall and the last one I found online was from 2012 - but as I walked around, I said to myself, we don't know exactly where we are going so why buy the book and then have to return it.  The Rick Steve's guides for England and Great Britain were about the same price so, I said to myself we might as well get the Great Britain one and then this way we have stuff if we decide to go to Wales.  We already have a Scotland book and to be honest, it is really its own country but don't get me started on that.

When I returned, Jess says, "You know, we usually buy the book and then buy the flights."  Yeah, huh?  So Jess picked it up on her chores the nest day or two days later.  Either way, we have the Rick Steve's book for Great Britain even though we haven't decided to go there or even go at all yet.

Jess found some cheap flight on Condor Air - which probably means the four of us will be flying on the back of an actual condor.  The flight is being operated by Thomas Cook, which does tours and all that crap over there so, it shouldn't be a problem.  Not like our flight with Flyfuckingglobespan.  I'm still not sure we even got all our money back for that flight.  Just thinking of that episode is making me anxious and making me want to punch someone in their throat.

I'd fly this condor because it looks pretty bad ass and more importantly it means we would be returning to Spain or someplace where people are fucking stupid enough to randomly fight with bulls:

• Bolsover Castle
• Coinsbrough Castle
• Wharram Percy Medieval Village
• Whitby Abbey
• Scarborough Castle
• Rievaulx Abbey
• Barnard Castle
• Bowes Castle
• Egglestone Abbey

It's Spring Break week which means vacation.  But this one does not really mean vacation because I will be headed to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so that we can have a test prep program and swap those days to use in the summer.  Easter was good.


This would normally be a good thing but as usual, there are a lot of things up in the air - applications to become part of special programs, movement in job positions and general stuff that should probably get done at the house while I am on vacation during the summer.

Today, we are supposed to go get Malcolm's passport.  It's 8:34 and no one is up.  Except me.  This is probably a good thing since Malcolm likes to get up twice a night.  Neil didn't nap yesterday, and in the process, woke up Malcolm who usually had two good naps during the day…do you see where I am going with this?

I think back to the flight with Neil the last time we went and then the nightmarish few days afterwards:  refusal to sleep, desperate attempts to let him sleep with me on what amounted to a cot, the man-sized Scottish tissues.



I lied, it's 8:36 and Malcolm and Jess just walked downstairs and into the back room.  Neil will probably start banging on the floor and yelling, "I have to pee pee…"  I love getting woken up like that.

We started talking yesterday and think that we may have found a flight overseas.  I'm not exactly excited about where we would be landing (we landed there before) but we wouldn't be staying there for long.  It will be off into the countryside, like the last trip.  I'm cool with going to cities and seeing things there but the countryside is much more relaxing, the places we were able to stay in were way nicer than a hotel room and given the general climate of things of there, the less crowded, the better.

So where are we going?  Still not sure but the decently priced flights were to manchester, England.  So decent, we can probably get Malcolm his own seat and use his car seat on the flight.  Those of you who know me know why I am not excited by that city, however, there is a lot to see to the east and northeast.  Additionally, it is not far from Scotland and if I have my way, we would go up the entire west coast.  We saw a good portion of the middle but not the south and the north.  Then, there's always the castles and ruins - and that's all I really need.


And beer.


And Haggis.




  And football.

I thought I might start this blog just in case we decide to take a trip this summer.   There are a lot of 'what ifs' that will determine if we will be able to actually take a trip.

We decided to take Neil across Florida to see Monster Jam! and also see some of my relatives that live over that way.   It shouldn't be a big deal, we took them to the OBX this summer and that was like 10 hours and they were like 6 months younger.




We had gotten in Jess' parents' car and headed up 75 and were ready to pull off on to 31 I think.  We had planned for both boys to sleep during the three hour or so ride.  Yes three...Jess thought it was "like two."  The problem with this plan was that Malcolm had just woken up from a two and a half hour nap.  As we pull off 75 and on to the other road Malcolm gets more fussy.  He's already pissed that he is on the seat because he wants to crawl around.  He's cranking out and we get to the light.  He stops crying and I turn to Jess and say, "WTF? Do we have the only child who doesn't like a moving car?"  With that the light turns green, we start moving, he starts crying and it starts raining. I turn to Jess and say, "Maybe a big giant fist can come out of the air and punch me in the balls too."  She says that that can be arranged.

Out of nowhere, Neil starts yelling, as only a three year old can when being woken from a deep sleep by the shrill cry of his 8 month old brother "I have to pee, I have to pee, I have to pee."

Not in the nuts, but pretty close.

I cut across a bunch of traffic, his desperation is getting louder and he's getting more upset and I get him out, shorts down and we're peeing.  He's peeing, I'm not.  I get him back in the car and explain that we have a long ride and he should try to go back to sleep.  Through his sleepy eyes, he smiles and says, "Ok, Daddy."

We get moving again and Malcolm starts crying.  This goes on and off for at least 40 minutes, with Neil getting pissed off and saying, "Tell Malcolm to stop that!"  Yeah, good luck with that.  And for the record, you're three, you can't be that fed up with your little brother yet.

So, Europe with a three and a half year old and a 15 month old...not a problem, right?  Not with these two…




I mean, look at these two - so well behaved, they play nice together, and most of all, they're absolutely adorable.


Oh wait, I forgot about the jealousy….






Yes, clearly this is going to be a good idea.