Week of July 19, 2015:

A less eventful week, but exciting due to our company!! As I mentioned in the last post, our friends John and Colleen came to visit.  So much fun to see family and friends here in Ireland... hint, hint! Russ and the girls continued to explore the city and surrounding villages with lots of fun little places discovered!   One of their favorites was the McDonalds in Bray, which resembled a castle and had as many thrills as the junky carnival the weekend before.   

While there, the girls had their faces painted which turned out to be a lot more work than Russ ever bargained for.  After getting home, he was busy doing laundry (disclaimer... Russ has ALWAYS done our laundry) and heard the girls laughing uncontrollably; which any parent knows,  is never a good sign.  The sound of laughter lead to finding the girls rubbing their faces all over the couch… the couch which came with the apartment... Time will tell how the 'furnishings' look once we are ready to move home... needless to say, facepaint on the couch on week 3,  isn't setting us up for good conversations with the landlord 23 months from now :)  

Sweetest little puppy & kitty... pre-couch incident!

Wednesday, we went to Immigration...  I am happy to report we are all legal and citizens of Ireland for the next year (we need to reapply again July 2016)!   Loralye became quick friends with our Solicitor (attorney) Ruth.  That morning, Russ and I were busy gathering our paperwork, while the girls were busy creating their own documentation.  Loralye had in her purse a little notebook and pen with 34 pages of scribbles for “the man at emmegradion".    




When we got to offices, Ruth walked up and introduced herself and we began exchanging papers.  Loralye looked at Ruth, then at me and said… “Where’s the man.”  We explained Ruth was going to help us and at that moment, Loralye proceeded to rip out all of those papers from her tiny notebook  and handed them to Ruth, explaining that we needed them for "emmegradion".   Ruth, in the typical friendly Irish fashion, happily and graciously accepted the crumpled, very loved 'documents" and tucked them into her folder.  While I often wonder how much of this experience they will remember, I pray they are learning, growing, and building cultivating spirits of inquiry. 

After a long morning of paperwork, fingerprinting and waiting, we decided to head out on one of the sight-seeing buses to get a better idea of all there is to do in Dublin.  We picked one of the tour buses with  30 or so pre-defined stops. from there, you just hop on and off at the places you want to see.  We hoped off at Trinity College, the Dublin Castle and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Many of the other places had tours which were lengthy, not age appropriate or had long lines.  That being said, we passed the Dublin Zoo while on the tour and decided to go back the following weekend. 

Trinity College (I think we were there 8 minutes)

Dublin Castle

Lo being "The Queen"

St. Patricks Cathedral

Even though there was so much to do and see, the girls by far got the biggest kick out of the tour bus.  It was a double decker bus, with an open top.  Of course, they insisted on sitting on the top, even when it started to rain.  Loralye continues to point the tour buses out each and EVERY time we see one and always asks if she can go on it again… I have no idea why we pay to take them places… they seriously love just riding around on all the different kinds of transportation.  That being said, we tried another kind of public transit to go to the zoo; the LUAS.  The LUAS is more like a tram and runs through the city right along with traffic.  On the way back from the zoo, it was packed and we were crammed like sardines.  Loralye kept asking when we were going to be able to sit and I told her that we probably wouldn’t because the train was full.  She got this completely disgusted look on her face and says to me, “this isn’t the train, it’s the LUAS!”  Everyone around us just started laughing… nothing like a 3 year old correcting you on which type of public transit you are riding on. 



"Hangin' On!"

Lo's excitment when the bus started moving!!

We are still in pursuit of a car but have made some good progress.  Things work a bit differently here with respect to insurance… oh, and we have no credit here in Ireland!   All in all, there are lots of good options and I am sure we will be able to get something soon.  We have made plans for our first vacation here in a few weeks.  I was planning to go to London the week of August 10, so we decided to bring everyone along the week before and spend some time exploring.  We have lots on the agenda and there is a ton to do, so I am sure it is going to be a great time!!  A co-worker of mine and her family recently moved to Belgium and she too will be in London at the same time.  We decided the guys and the kids would enjoy having some time together, so we found an adventure/water park they will stay at, while Sarah and I commute to work. 

I think we have been taking way too many pictures, because these girls are constantly asking for the camera.  In fact, I think Annelyse has taken approximately 9,638 selfies since we have arrived.  Between the selfies and video's (tutorials actually... where she dictates/describes in explicit detail everything she is doing to an non-existent viewer) Russ is having to dump our phones/ipads nearly daily to keep the possibility for real photos open.  Below are some of my favorites that she has taken. 

Annelyse is really into selfies now!!! 

Some of my favorites that I find on my phone :)

We have continued to explore some of the sights close to home.  We ventured out to the zoo and found some new little parks and places to hang out.  All in all, still enjoying our time and keeping busy!   The harbor and water are still on the top of the list for places to hang out.  Russ and the girls discovered the Dalkey Library, so they now can grab their books and head to the pier for some "relaxing reading time."

Beautiful park called the People's Park in Dun Laoghaire, which also has a playground which they love!

Now more than a month behind... but we are still trying :)


Hope all is great with you!  We love hearing from home, so please keep us posted on how things are going and what's new! 

Take care and love,

Lyndsey, Russ, Annelyse & Loralye