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Finding Nolin

20131109_142738Sunday Jenn and Grace left with Pap Pap on Grace’s first international adventure…Ireland. It was complete with an overbooked flight that resulted in a late arrival, an extra day in Ireland, an awesome future credit and a trip-within-a-trip to New York.

While I was excited for them, I was also a little nervous because I knew this now meant I would be balancing the solo parenting / full time employee work life thing a little longer. If this goes bad, it could be a very long week. To be fair though, I did know that I would have some extra help from Grammy.

November is a month about being thankful (at least according to Facebook). So I am thankful that my bad hair gave me the chance to meet my wife, that adoption introduced me to two of the most amazing people I have ever met in my entire life and that I have had an opportunity to spend over a week one-on-one with Nolin (Grace, I am looking forward to our time in the near future). Continue reading “Finding Nolin” →

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Son Of Mine

For Christmas my mom had an 8×10 canvas of the picture of Nolin and I walking in Ireland made for me.  This now hangs up in my office at work beside my “O’Brien Family Adventures” collages from 2007-2010 that Jenn makes me each Christmas.  Unfortunately it is March and I have yet to see the 2011 adventures (hint, hint). This has also  raised several questions in the office as people keep looking for the updated picture. Continue reading “Son Of Mine” →

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The Legend of The Car Continues…

So we woke up in the morning and I prepared to make the dreaded call to the car rental company as Jenn and Nolin played with the cousins.  This was going to be fun since they were already scared to rent the car to me in the first place.  I felt like a little kid telling his parents he just broke something.

I started off the call with Hi, this is Patrick O’Brien I rented the Polo from you all the other day…and well, while we were driving, we had a minor issue. Looking back I probably made it sound worse than a flat tire and you could literally hear her heart sink on the other end of the phone.  Again, this was the girl that was so nervous to rent the car to me that she needed to make sure I knew how to turn the key in the ignition. Continue reading “The Legend of The Car Continues…” →

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And So The Legend of The Car Begins…

On the wrong side of a good road

Saturday began day two of driving (on the wrong side of the road in a backwards manual car).  It took a few minutes, but I quickly regained my confidence with my temporary dyslexic driving.  The day turned out to be an even nicer day (weather wise) than Friday, so we headed to Northern Ireland to visit Giants Causeway, a large volcanic rock formation that was unbelievable.

Luckily we had Jenn’s brother Kevin in the car, who was able to give us good directions along the way and help me get comfortable with navigating the 78 roundabouts along the way.  One thing I quickly learned about Northern Ireland…their signage is in miles and miles per hour…WTF?!  Now on top of trying to keep up with awkward turns, backwards gear shifting, and crazy partially yielding roundabout drivers, I also had to try to convert miles per hour to kilometers so that I didn’t get a ticket.

I am not too proud to admit that I kept trying to do the math in my head and I wasn’t very good at it at all.  Luckily, Jenn has tried her best during our marriage to keep me physically fit, therefore I knew that 5K was 3.1 miles.  I was then trying to divide the miles per hour by 3, multiplying by 5 and adding 1 for every 10…it got way too confusing, so I just started driving a little slower than everyone else. Continue reading “And So The Legend of The Car Begins…” →

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