Sunday, September 5, 2010

And Then We Moved to Ireland.

In August we moved to Ireland. It was a very long day. The kids did great on the airplanes, but it was the in between and after the airplanes that was rough. But heaven knows it could be worse (and it has in the past) and I was just grateful to get it over with and grateful I don't have to do it again for a year .

Our rental house wasn't ready and so the company put us in a temporary place which is a holiday house on a golf course. The house was sufficient but far away from anything, and since we had to share one car, and I was terrified to drive, I found myself pretty housebound for 3 weeks. I would get the car about once a week and at nights, so I managed to go to the grocery store, movie rental place, and the public library. On most days we took advantage of the nearby park. When I say park I mean a huge expanse of land with fields, paths, woods, playground, and castles.

Since we are Americans it took us a while to get used to all this walking, but then it become routine. This is what our normal day was like:

We start at our cute rental house. It was very lived in, had little hot water, huge spiders, and mold. But other then that- it had comply duvets, cable tv, and a fully functioning kitchen. I am always grateful for dishwashers!

We walked down the road until there is a gap in the stone wall. There we entered the forest.


After about 5 minutes we emerged. There were a lot of blackberry bushes at the exit. We loved eating them everyday. Do you know there are no bears in Ireland? We had the berries to ourselves!











As we walked through the fields we could see the sea in the distance.















We walked about 5 minutes through the fields.











After the fields we came to a pond or boggy type place. There was water but it was covered by lily pads, catails, and something like bamboo. The funny thing is there is a life preserver station just in case someone is swimming in there. Weird.








We finally make it to the park. It has a stone wall around it and has lots of things to play on. The weather is about 65-70 F and the wind blows the clouds quickly along. Sometimes we have rain but it doesn't last long. We love Ireland.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

July on the East Coast USA

The best part of this summer was seeing all of our family. We had a great time at the beach this year and getting up to various shenanigans in the backyard.

I also got to see my favorite Centreville HS friends at our annual summit. I think we've been getting together for about 15 years. Crazy.
We got to hit the air and space museum as well. As Adam said "Space is my life!"
Airbender finally came to the theater and Alex got to make good on his hairdo. It was so good to see all of our loved ones before leaving the country. As usual we wished we could all live together but it is not meant to be. The summers are enough. I love my family.