Ireland
Moving to Ireland: House Viewing #3
If you’ve been following along on our house hunting adventures in Ireland, then you’ll know that House #1 and House #2 were a big, fat bust. I hate to spoil the surprise, but if we are connected on Instagram or you ran into my dad, then you already know “third times a charm” is now my favorite phrase ever. House #3 is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath semi-detached home located in a small coastal village about 30 minutes south of Dublin. Semi-detached is just a fancy way of saying it’s actually attached on one side and thus a duplex. This home was built in 1966 and thankfully has had some updates since that…
Moving to Ireland: Temporary House, Floor 2
After Monday’s awe-inspiring pictures of where we stayed while we searched for a permanent Irish residence, I didn’t want to leave you hanging over the weekend without showing the 2nd floor of this home. You’re welcome. (You can read all about the first floor here.) Let’s climb the stairs to the second floor. Ask me how many times the kids took that stair turn too fast? Go ahead. Ask. Once each. Alright, my son might have done it twice, but his danger streak runs a mile wide. This townhouse is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home. At the top of the stairs you can turn right to the bathroom and one of…
Moving to Ireland: Temporary Home, Floor 1
Moving to a foreign country is exciting and full of adventure. It is also full of paperwork and more paperwork. You need paperwork to enter the country. More paperwork to stay in the country. More paperwork to open a bank account. And so on. Needless to say, the powers-that-be want to be certain that you really want to live there. While all of that resolve testing is underway, you need a place to stay until you are legally able to lease a home. Handy Husband’s employer provided temporary accommodations for our family while we searched for a permanent Irish residence. The company assisting us with the relocation, Irish Relo, gave us three choices of homes…
Moving to Ireland: House Viewing #2
To recap: We moved to Ireland. We need to find a place to live before our household belongings arrive on the slow boat. Ready. Set. Freak Out! The first house we viewed was in the town of Raheny. The second home we viewed was located much farther north in a college town called Maynooth. This quaint village is home to St. Patrick’s College and Maynooth University. (Mayooth Harbour with train station in the background.) People. I big, fat LOVED Maynooth. I was ready to settle down with my afternoon tea and my new Irish accent and make that place my home. Maynooth is about 40 minutes via train from Dublin’s City Centre.…
Moving to Ireland: House Viewing #1
This is our mission: find a house in Ireland to rent ASAP. For those of you who are curious about corporate moves, they come with a variety of benefits. These benefits vary based on your company, where you are going and your negotiations. For this international move, Handy Husband’s company pays for us to live in temporary housing for 30 days. They also pay a realtor to show us 15 different properties. I’m not sure what happens if you don’t find a home within that amount of showings. No one here, so far, has needed more than that to find a place. *knock on wood* Two days after the kids and…
Moving to Ireland: Human Kindness is Overflowing
Our first week in Ireland has been a WHIRLWIND. Apparently, the motto in our house is “hit the ground running.” Just once I’d like to try dialing it back a notch to see how “hit the ground after this Netflix binge” feels. I’ll bet it feels nice…and not jet-lagged. Jet lag aside, I don’t want to give the impression that this week has been without any bumps in the road. Every good adventure has a few of those. However, as I keep my eyes focused on the big picture, I can’t help but feel I’ve seen the kinder side of humanity this week. Surprising? It sure as heck surprised me! In…
Adventure Awaits
There has been a frenzy of activity behind the scenes of this little blog. This happened. Then this happened. That’s right! We are moving! Again. Ha! Handy Husband accepted a new job with his same company and a transfer to Ireland! IRELAND. As in that foreign country that’s really pretty and green with a pub on every corner. That Ireland. Even though I am mired in all of the moving details, it still sounds unreal when I say it out loud. This has been a collective dream of ours since college, but even more so after we had children. We want our children to grow up considering themselves to be global citizens with a…
