A new post - was that a pig that just flew over??

I almost don't even know where to start to update the blog...I can't believe its been nearly 2 months since we've updated. We're really sorry!!

We made it safe and sound to Ireland on the 10th and hit the ground running! We stayed in a lovely holiday house (a furnished vacation home) for 3 weeks while we looked for our "permanent" house. The house was great - but we somehow didn't get many pictures of it. LOL It was interesting staying there when the washing machine broke and the part to fix it came in 2 days after we moved out. :o/ But it was fun.

We in a small village about 30 minutes west of the nearest major city. There are several schools, coffee shops, pubs, and small grocery stores within 10 minutes of where we are living.

We moved into our permenant house just over 2 weeks ago and are really enjoying the feeling of being settled. The house is a lovely old farm house with a great history - the stair rail, banister, and a few of the doors are from several boats that had shipwrecked on the beach by us. It was listed as a "5 bedroom" house, but bedrooms 3 and 4 are pretty tiny, and "bedroom" 5 would barely fit a cot. LOL But its exactly the space we needed and plenty of room for all our "bits and bobs". One of the best features is a little bonus room behind the kitchen that has become the girls' playroom. I tend to spend most of my time in the kitchen these days, as we have a manual dishwasher now ;o) and the washing machine as well as dining table is in there. So, the girls can play near me while I get my stuff done.

So, this post will be a bit hodge podge b/c we've been a bit out of our element and have really only gotten into a good routine in the last week or so. So, we've just posted our favorite pics from the last month.

The girls during our first week here

Hannah "playing the flute"

Many of the furnishings we've bought are "DIY" (aka Seth puts it together). This is one of the legs of our new laundry hamper.

Hannah making her lunch the night before her first day of school!

The girls are both really loving their schools. Hannah will start junior infants (similar to kindergarten) in the fall, so this preschool has been great practice for her with the language and the way things are done in schools here.

Hannah on the first day of school. She went right over to the table without blinking an eye

You'd be hard pressed to find a place here that you can't see the ocean/bay. This is the view the next street over from the holiday house where we stayed.

The view from our kitchen window.

This picture shows 2 things: the massive snow storm we had the first day we moved in (we also had rain and snow that day) and how close the pub is. :o)

The shed behind our house

The awesome playground we found. What a view for a playground, eh?

Not to mention the bright sunny day we had!!

Hannah on the teeter-totter

Cailyn on her favorite toy!!

Standing across the street from our house looking towards town

That's the pub on the left; on the right is one of the secondary schools

Hannah making tea in the playroom

The girls' first minutes in the playroom

Seth and the girls hiding under the "magic cloak"

This is the living room and you can see our awesome carpet!! :o)

The girls in front of the shed behind the house

Jen and the girls standing in front of the house

the bottom left window is the living room

bottom right window is the home office

The top left two windows is our room

The top right window is the girls' room

Right behind the house where we park the car (and our car, lovingly named "Arch Angel" by a friend)

Cailyn warming her hands by the fire

sweet girl snuggling with daddy