9 Months Old

Emma is now 9 months old and moving all over the place (Gus had to install the baby gate this weekend). Here are some pictures of her playing with her kitchen and pull-toy giraffe.

We finally took her to the pool and she loved it! She loved her float and loved splashing her daddy in the pool.

I finally got her on video crawling. She has her own kind of crawl and luckily doesn't go too fast yet. She usually loves to crawl for something she knows she can't have, like the video recorder in this video.

Back in the USA!!!

After many hours of flying we are back in the US. Here are some pictures of Emma on the plane. Just like before, she was great on the plane. She loved that we had individual tv screens on this plane. We put cartoons on for her to keep her amused.

Emma loves being home and being able to play with all of her toys. She didn't have much in Ireland so she doesn't know what to play with first.

We have a great playground here in our neighborhood and Emma loves the swings! (she's sporting her USA clothing just to show how happy she is to be back)
We set up the pool for her on our back deck, hopefully we'll get to the big pool in our neighborhood soon.

Goodbye from Ireland

This is our last post from Ireland. We are flying back on August 8th and are now packing to go home. We will continue to update the blog page when we get back to NC so family and friends from far away can see Emma grow, so be sure to keep checking back. Below are some of our more recent favorite pictures.

Emma started crawling this weekend!!! It is really exciting to see her moving across the floor! We'll try to catch her on video soon.

She is standing much better now, but makes me completely nervous, so I don't leave her side.

She loves to clap her hands!

Here is Daddy's girl supporting NC State!

She loves her xylophone.

So for now, bye-bye from Emma. (she snaps her fingers at the end of her waves)

Interesting Facts about Ireland

1. Drive on the left (this is a given, but it was hard to get used to, luckily Gus did all of the driving here)

2. No screens on windows or doors: this is a problem b/c there is no air conditioning, so the windows and doors are kept open quite often, we have had bees, flies and other bugs in the house b/c of this.

3. Water in the house functions on a pump: if you don’t know this and your pump isn’t on, you can’t take a shower (we learned this the hard way)

4. No thermostats for heat, it functions on a timer (dumb method and it would be really hot and then really cold in our apartment)

5. It rains A LOT, doesn’t get very warm and they have very long days in summer and really short days in winter. (in summer it gets bright around 4:30am and get dark around 10:30pm)

6. Different terminology: Lift=elevator, Rubbish=trash, Toilet=bathroom (that is my favorite, right to the point), Chips=french fries, Crisps=potato chips. “Cheers” is said all the time and if something is good or great then it is “Grand!”

7. Sheep are smart. Somehow they always get out of their fenced in areas and end up on the side of the road, or a golf course as we have seen.

8. Men don’t wear shirts when it gets semi-warm. No matter what age, men go topless if the weather gets close to 70 degrees. Especially our neighbor across the way. I don't think he owns any shirts!

9. Potatoes are everywhere! You will get fries with lasagna here! Also they tend to serve 2 potatoes with a meal, so you order fries with a meal and they bring you boiled potatoes as well. When I asked Emma’s doctor what to start her on for solids, he said “Potatoes”.

10. “Guinness is Good for You”: this slogan is everywhere and when you live here, Guinness is what you drink. Gus and I both really like it now and hated it before we got here. I think they brainwash you.

Beautiful Weather!!!

We have had some gorgeous weather with temps in the 70s, so we took advantage of it and hit the outdoors! (we are really going to have a hard time adjusting to the 90 degree temps back home)



Here we are in an area of Dublin called Merrion Square. This features a beautiful park and brick homes with Georgian style doors.




We visited a stud farm (horse racing is HUGE here) and a beautiful japanese garden. Emma loved watching the horses.

There is a small park close to the apartment, so Emma and I have been going there daily. She loves to be outside and watch the trees.

Her hair is blowing in the breeze...

8 Months Old, July 25th

Emma just gets bigger and bigger. She isn't crawling yet (thank goodness b/c I have no way to baby proof this apt) but she is starting to get up on her hands and knees and then she goes backwards. She started waving "bye-bye" now, which is really cute, and she starting kissing me on the cheek, which I absolutely love.

We are now in the process of trying to wean Emma and it is not going well. She refuses to have a bottle or sippy cup anywhere near her mouth. I know a lot of you have kids, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks!

Emma Visits her 3rd Country

Well, for our last big trip in Ireland we decided to go to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. It is a different world in Northern Ireland than in the Republic of Ireland. They use different currency, different measurements, etc. I can't believe that this was Emma's third country (and she is not even 8 months old, it is a shame she won't remember this).




Below are some pictures of Belfast including City Hall, an overhead view of Belfast from Victoria's Square (which is a brand new mall in Belfast) and Albert's Clock.

We took one of the famous political "black taxi" tours. This is a tour where you learn about the political history between the Protestants and the Catholics. The fighting in Northern Ireland only ended 10 years ago, therefore there is still a lot of division between the people.

There are murals on the sides of houses depicting just what the people went through during the fighting. Below is a mural in the Protestant section. It is creepy because no matter where you stand in relation to this mural there is an optical illusion that the gun is pointing at you.

You know when you are in a Protestant section of the country because they fly the Brisitish flag all over.

This is a mural in the Catholic section. In the Catholic section they will display Ireland's colors which are orange, white and green.



Titanic was built in Belfast. We went to the shipyard to see where it was built.

The picture below shows where the Titanic was painted. The picture after that shows how tall the Titanic was in this little stall and how it towered over the building.

We visited the Giants Causeway, which is incredible to see. The ground is formed into mostly hexagonal shapes from ancient volcanic eruptions. Although it is summer here and the hottest month of the year, we still needed our coats because it got rather cold here. This is at the very north of Northern Ireland.







We visited a huge castle called Carrickfergus Castle. We really lucked out with the weather over the weekend because we had very little rain.



Below are pictures of the walled city, Londonderry. The walls are so big that you can walk on them. It was amazing to see. Below, Emma is sitting on a cannon from the 1600s.

Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Dave Visit

We went to the Dublin zoo this weekend with Emma's Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Dave. She really had a good time. Of course, I had to have my picture with her in front of the flamingos.

Emma loved watching the meerkats. She stared at them for a long time.

We were able to see a tiger up close and Emma really enjoyed that.

Dublin has all kinds of festivals on weekends. We attended the "Urban Beach" festival and they had sand and games set up for kids. Emma was a bit scared of the sand at first, but then she started to play with it. As you can see, Daddy buried her legs in the sand.

Here is Emma with Uncle Dave at the Malahide Castle gardens.

And I took Emma to the playground to try out the sand again and this time she was really having a good time. She got really upset when we had to leave.

It got sunny, so Grandpa let Emma borrow his hat. Go Flyers!