An Empire State of Mine or The Big, Fat, Irish-Korean Wedding

I know it's been a while, and I have no excuses. June 16, I went to New York for my cousin's wedding. Grace went with me. She thoroughly enjoyed the plane trip there. I was worried about how she'd handle it. My mom paid for my ticket, and Grace was young enough that she could ride as a lap child. I was really nervous about not having our car seat on the plane. Grace stared out the window of the plane for at least an hour, fascinated by all the clouds. I was very proud of her. She was such a good girl! Mom held her for most of the two flights to NY. Once there, we got our bags and waited for mom to secure a rental car. She wasn't happy with it when she pulled around, so back to the rental lot we went, and waited in the car while mom went off to have a talking-to with the rental people. Meanwhile, Grace is in the back seat going "Uh-oh. Trouble. Uh-oh, Nana. Nana, trouble." I sat laughing & explained to my almost 2-year-old that this was something she would grow used to. If Nana wasn't in trouble, she was making some. Finally we got everything straightened out, go settled into our hotel, and went to dinner. All the while my ears are popping, and it's incredibly painful. Did I mention the last 20 mins of a plane ride are a nightmare for me? I just hide my head and try not to cry. The pressure has always bothered me, even when I gnash away at chewing gum.

The next morning, I woke up at 5. I laid in bed a minute. I hadn't slept too well, being too worried about seeing my family for the first time in almost a decade. I thought I should probably check out the fitness room, get it out of the way for the day, but it was 5. Who the heck gets up at 5 in the morning to workout... ON VACATION? I do.
So I tiptoed quietly about our darkened room, pulling my things together. I spent almost 2 hours in the fitness room of our hotel. 1 hour on the TM, then more time doing weights. It was a small room, not much bigger than the common American living room, but it had what I needed. I got back to our room drenched. Ma & Grace were still sleeping. I waited till Grace got up to shower, so we could both be squeaky clean and pleasant smelling for the family.
I can't remember how it came up, but at lunch that afternoon my mom told me to tell my favorite aunt what I had been doing that morning. I told her I was at the gym... on vacation... at 5 in the morning, which is really 3 in the morning here at home. She said I was nuts. I figured as much. It runs in the family.

The next few days were filled with loud, very stressed out Irish relatives all yelling at eachother as we prepared for the wedding, and super naughty food. My aunt seemed very supportive of my new lifestyle, and tried to buy me food I could eat. "What do you want? I don't know what you eat. What do I feed you?", but whenever I'd open my mouth, my mom would give me the evil eye. I was sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. My mom didn't want us to be a financial burden on anyone, especially with my "special diet". I told her it's not a special diet, it's how I live my life. She was also very concerned that I'm starving myself to lose weight, which she added a few days later that I eat too much. Huh?! Yeah, I told you this family is crazy. To reinforce the craziness, I continued to wake up at 6 every morning and hit the gym. Yes there were days I didn't want to get out of bed, but I went, and stuck with the program. Because healthy food wasn't really available to me, I ended up getting sick on vacation one day. My stomach hurt so much, and I had the runs like nobody's business. Luckily, a yogurt ended up chasing most of the discomfort away (hooray for natural cultures!). Around the same time, my family decided to hit White Castle for belly bombers. If you've never had one, it really is something to try. It's sort of a rite of passage in my family. They're these little sliders of cheeseburger death. I let Grace have one (again, rite of passage), but passed on it myself, and laughed all the way back to my aunt's house while everyone belly ached about their belly ache.
I offered multiple times to cook for my family, but nobody took me up on my offer. It was a week of fast food and feeling really gross. At the wedding, everyone kept telling me how amazing and beautiful I looked.
I kept looking around to see who they were talking to.
I guess I'm still getting used to compliments.

The day before we went home, my aunt took Grace to the local aquarium. They had a pool of little rays who were SUPER friendly. They would come right out of the water and let you pet them. I tried to get Grace to pet one. The noise that came out of that kid's mouth was somewhere between terrified and "THIS IS AWESOME!". It was the funniest little screech. I was rolling.

The trip home was not so fun. Grace was kind of a bear the whole way. To start off, we got out on the tarmac in NY and sat for a while, before being informed that there was a nation-wide shut down of all aircraft in and out of Chicago (where we were stopping first). So they took us back to the terminal. We were delayed 2 hours in total, but we thought it might be okay since we had a 2 hour lay over in Phoenix. Maybe this delay would mean we wouldn't have much of a layover. We get to Chicago, and get out on the tarmac, and we're informed that there will be a further delay while we're re-routed. Joy. We stay optimistic, hoping our plane in Phoenix will wait 20 mins for half of its passengers on the plane we're riding. We get to Phoenix only to find our plane left. We had a 2 hour layover. Nobody was amused. I just wanted to get home to my own bed, healthy food, and normal life again. I think Grace felt the same way as she got upset whenever I'd restrain her from running down the tunnel to any incoming planes. She knows the plane takes her to daddy, does it really matter which one? Let's just get on one already!
We finally got home around midnight, a good 4 hours after we were supposed to be home.
Grace got to see her new room, which I had spent most of June cleaning out in preparation for her move. Andy did a bang up job with it. I will have to post pictures soon as we still haven't gotten it decorated.
My studio got moved into the tiny, time-share kitchen-sized space of our bedroom. It's pretty scary. I fell into bed with a "yeah-right" mentality about attacking it. It's insane.

Mom stayed on with us a few days. I fell out of the routine I had spent so hard maintaining. I'm just getting back into it now. Luckily I've still been losing.

Will post again soon with the story of Grace's birthday. The length of this one is getting out of hand and my brother-in-law needs help running a few errands.

Keep fighting your dragons!