Weeks of Sept 6th and 13th... Settling Into Mt. Anville and Our Next Adventure

Hello everyone. It's Russ here doing a blog post finally (although I will take some credit for proofreading/editorial duties on her posts)... I can't believe with how busy Lyns has been being a great wife, Mom and employee, that she found the time to keep up on this blog like she has. It will be great to have this adventure documented to look back on in 10, 20, 30 years. Thanks Lyns and Mom!!! Also, thanks to everyone who has mentioned reading the blog and enjoying the updates from us. That definitely makes spending the time putting the posts together even more worthwhile! We will be looking forward to catching up more with everyone during our return trip to the US for the holidays!

These weeks in mid September were not extraordinarily exciting, but productive. The time was perfect for continuing to explore the neighborhood and city of Dublin and plan for our upcoming trips to Belgium and Holland and our return trip to the States in December. We continued getting settled into out apartment and into our school (girls), work(Lyns), and domestic engineering/househusband/chauffeur (Russ) routines. Getting a TV and a TV license (yes, a 160 Euro TV licence), a drivers license, home/property insurance and an Ikea run for the last of the furniture were some of the things we continued to work on. We now have the equivalent of two full beds and a sofa for anyone interested in visiting or staying with us! It's a small apartment, but the layout is pretty efficient and we think we have utilized the space well. Just let us know if anyone is looking for an Irish getaway and we'd be happy to put you up for a stay!

Putting IKEA furniture together. Love that the girls want to help me out! What good helpers.

For the girls, they are quickly acclimating to their new environment and making friends. Mondays are always the toughest, but as the week grinds on, they continue to get better and better with the school routine. One of the little things we did for them was to bring a surprise snack/treat bag at the end of the day of school on a few days during the first couple weeks. This quickly went from a spontaneous surprise treat to an expectation for each pick up. Obviously that expectation needed some adjustment, much like the two month summer holiday... even though they didn't continue to get a treat EVERY DAY, they are just fine wouldn't you know!

Surprise treat bags that they looked forward to during the first couple weeks of school.

They are meeting new friends and starting to really get interested in the schoolwork and the extracurriculars. We have been talking about having play dates with some friends after school and they have been getting birthday party invitations! Annelyse will be doing ballet (Lo is still too young). We have also got them involved with swimming lessons at one of the schools closer to home. It's even been cute to hear them pronouncing words with an Irish accent and to hear their vocabulary expand with some of the Gaelic words they are learning! Here are a few examples of Irish sayings, similar to what they are learning (courtesy of irishcultureandcustoms.com)...

Enjoying dinner on our veranda on a nice summer day.

Met a lobster fisherman at the harbor. He showed us his catch (and his arm where one of them snapped him.. ouch). I need to get a kayak and some lobster pods! Good eating!

Here Annelyse is dressed up in some of the items in the store at the front of the Dalkey Castle and Heritage Center. They give medieval performance.

Here are a couple little video snippets from a cold fall evening when we were walking back from dinner. The sun was going down and as you can hear, the wind is whipping. The Irish fascinate me with how they swim in the water here. It can't get much above 60 degrees in the summer and here it may be closer to 50 degrees. Crazy! The kids often times can be seen jumping off of the piers or the other walls surrounding the harbor.

I thought this post would be a good time to talk about how amazing we think the parks and play equipment are here in Europe, very natural in looks, unique in their designs and very fun for the kids (and parents) using them. Here are some of the best pictures we have of these...