It's all coming together now

Just one month to go. A friend came over yesterday to help me sort and remove.  We've only just scratched the surface and yet we came up with 4 bags for Goodwill, 3 bags for freecycle, a bag of toiletries for a shelter and plenty of good old fashioned trash. How did we manage to accumulate so much stuff? I must remember this feeling of drowning in belongings and not let it happen again.  Oof. So, plenty more to do.

That said, we are making a point to do all the stuff we love/haven't ever done here in Portland.  We went to Kruger farms for the concert for the first time last night.  Such a great time!  How have we been missing this every summer? Jeez.

We also plan to do at least one movie in the park - although I've got to say that keeping my kids up in public until 10:30 or so could be problematic.  Both for them and for the public...but, we only have a month left so it's now or never.

Sadly we will miss two of my favorite summer events in Portland - so you should go for me.  The Portland Festival Symphony is awesome, the very best performance is the first one in Cathedral Park.  Really anything that happens in Cathedral Park is great.

http://www.portlandfestivalsymphony.org/schedule.html

And Trek in the Park is perfection.  And they outgrew their previous park home, so now they perform in Cathedral Park.  See, everything that happens in Cathedral Park is great! Here's the link to Trek - and if you think you don't like Star Trek well....where do I start?  How about I just say to try it live - it's a whole different animal and is not to be missed.  Honest.
http://www.atomic-arts.org/

TTFN

question asked, question answered

How far north is Maynooth, Ireland

~140 miles north of london

~280 north of Vancouver, BC

~560 miles north of Portland, OR

~630 miles north of Boston, MA

~1890 miles north of Sarasota, Florida

Now for the question asked portion

what is this? On the M50 on north side of dublin

I can find it on google street view driving along the highway but can;t for the life of me figure out what it is?
For now known as the dublin funnel

how much stuff does one need...

I decided to take an accounting of my clothes situation.

• socks 14
• unmentionables 12
• pants 9
• shirts short sleeve polo 6
• hawaii shirts 7
• shirts long sleeve 4
• shirts long sleeve button 10
• long sleeve button down 4
• t-shirts 30
• sweat pants 2

outerwear:

• fleece 7
• sweater 3
• coats 9 (3 rain)
• hats 10

a few observations:

1. does one need 30 t-shirts? , obviously not, but t-shirts all have memories. 4 cancer shirts (2 breast,2 children), 4 dragon boat , 3 university of Florida, 3 from Clemson days ,
2. Will i need 7 hawaii shirts in Ireland? the high temp last year was 72
3. 10 hats? only really wear 3 so that will be trimmed up

Gaelic 101

a quick review of Gaelic or known as Gaelige to those who speak it

our new address in English

22 The Arches

Silken Vale

Maynooth

Naas

Co. Kildare

and in Gaelic

22 The Arches

Silken Vale

Maigh Nuad

Co. Chill Dara

happy to be living in County Chill...


some other Gaelic translations
Good Day Dia duit!
How are you? Conas tá; tú?
No Níl..
Yes Ba mhaith liom
red dearg
blue  gorm
and lastly important to know
It is wet. Tá sé fliuch.

thats all for now, thats go léir le haghaidh anois

Rob

A change of heart

One of the most difficult parts of this huge change for us has been my fear that our children would not thrive in Ireland.  Audrey in particular was filled with anger and sadness at the loss of her friends, community and close relationship with family here in Portland.  Well, something has shifted and she is feeling excited and ready to go.  She filled her backpack with Ireland stickers and is thrilled with the house that we've committed to in our new home:

(22 The Arches, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

http://www.daft.ie/searchrental.daft?id=1344719)

I don't know what made this change come about (perhaps lots of prayer on my part helped), but I'm so glad for it.  Audrey credits her 2nd grade teacher Erin Quinton with her change of heart.  We stopped in at our old elementary school yesterday afternoon and Audrey and Ms. Quinton hatched a plan to correspond while we are away.  Audrey will be Ms. Quinton's class pen pal.  She also tells me that learning about families on the Oregon Trail gave her some perspective.  What those kids went through made moving to Ireland look pretty good to her.  Thank God for covered wagons.  

found a house

Well we might just have a house ready when we get there. Reasonably close to town,schools and railroad.
Fridge appears to be american size not typical European dorm fridge size.

Here is an image gallery

and here is where it is,not that it helps if you don't know the town

exciting times

Rob