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

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.