Happy (belated) Christmas!

Hello all!

It's me, Erin... checking in to say 'hello' and post a few updates. :)

First off, Niall and I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!  I missed my dear Dohm traditions and family as usual, but the Maddens sure know how to have a sweet Irish Christmas in their cozy Naas home.  :)  We had a wonderful time relaxing, sitting by the fire, playing charades, watching 'It's a Wonderful Life' (I was in tears-- these pregnancy hormones!!), reading, drinking coffees from their new Nespresso machine, and just enjoying family time.  It was very special and I am so grateful to have a family that I love so much here in Ireland.

Niall and I both finished up work on the 23rd-- that's me done for good until I pop!  Then, as Niall would say, I'll be promoted to 'motherhood'.  :)  I actually really enjoyed my last day at work; everyone was in a festive spirit, and I love the girls I work with-- I'm really, really happy I don't have to be on my feet for 7 hours straight anymore, but at the same time I'll miss the cafe buzz and seeing everyone.  With that said, it's just a few minutes walk away, so I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm back in there for a coffee!  We got everything packed up quite quickly Tuesday after work and hit the road that evening, stopping to check out a few furniture places along the way.

I'll update you on other things as well, but for now, here are a few Christmas shots!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning... cold but clear!

Niall got a lesson on lighting the fire (with several different ingredients)... it's an art over here!

Niall 'adopted' a tiger for Avril in Nepal.  Only 3,200 left in the wild... she loved it :)

Mum sporting her new apron and hat

Every year we put together a photo album with all the photos from that year.  We did one for mum and dad with photos dating back to 2008 (the weekend when I first met them!) until now.

Niall knows how to make his girl happy-- no gifts please, just a holiday!  We'll see how this goes with a baby :)  Thank goodness for British Airways frequent flyer miles!

getting ready for Benny's Ulster fry

Out for a Christmas day stroll

self timer :)

the cooks in the kitchen again!  Niall and I always feel very spoiled

Needless to say I finished this... and more.  A good way to end the day!

After 4 days of relaxing and being spoiled with homemade meals and warm fires, we headed back to Belfast Saturday afternoon.  We wanted to check on some post-Christmas furniture sales and see if there were some options for our new home (by the way-- we got approved for the loan!!  Move in day will probably be in a couple of months, after baby comes... phew!).  We didn't buy anything but there were a couple of items we had our eye on.  One was a big comfy chair called a 'snug.'  I found out from a manager (not sure if he was supposed to reveal this or not!) that it would be further reduced on Monday morning (today).  So, we took a chance and it was worth it!  Literally as Niall was making the purchase, 3 other people tried to buy it.  So, it is with great pleasure that I announce we have made our first furniture purchase for the new house!  Introducing the 'snug' :) ...

Our sitting room is small, so it's a good size for it-- fits two people!  We're planning on putting it in the front bay window.

As we were getting this sorted, Niall's parents were looking at another store down South and found us a great deal on another sofa that will go with it.  We decided to take a risk and let them order it for us without seeing it in person... we both hate shopping, so we are thrilled that the sofa hunt is over!!

In all of this you may be thinking, what about baby stuff?!  Yes, I must say I'm quite behind on that as well.  I was putting it off until the Christmas season ended because I didn't want to think about too many things at once.  But now, it's business time!  Here's our nursery so far:

we're going with the 'simple' theme here :)

Haha!  Hopefully the kid won't mind.  :)  We aren't changing our spare room because we want to keep it for guests... not to mention, there is a double bed in there that pretty much takes up all the space and we aren't getting rid of it.  Niall's buddy from work gave us this dresser with a changing space on top which was really nice!  We just need to give it a wee sand and paint job.

colour-- cream.  Still no inkling of whether it's a boy or girl, though most have guessed boy!

The big bag to the right of the dresser are donations from mum.  It was so fun to see a few things from when Niall was a baby!  And she got us a few cute outfits, mostly snuggly winter ones.  :)  Everything has been so surreal up to this point-- with less than 4 weeks to go, it's finally starting to sink in that soon, Lord willing, we will have a little baby Madden in our home!

Speaking of trying to get things sorted, we are leaving in a few minutes to look at a car seat we saw posted on 'gumtree' (our version of craigslist) last night.  It's a great deal so hopefully we'll get it.  I have more photos to post and more to say, but I'll get this published for now and update you guys again later this week!

Lots of love to all,

xox

Home Sweet Home! Where is that anyway?!

Some of you have visited no. 304 in the Bakery, the rest of you have experienced it through 'A Chara'. For the last 3 years it has been the 700 sq ft of Belfast that we have called home. Erin transformed it from bachelor pad to the Madden homestead it is now within a few weeks of her arrival on this island, mostly through the generosity of some of your wedding gifts! It has been a great spot for us to break-in our lives together. There have been some great reasons to love this place:  1) That view, 2) It's so warm 3) It's new, 4) So cheap to run, 5) It has a gym, 6) The location. There are some intangibles too like the fact that we never get rained on bringing our shopping in from the car, or the fact that our car never frosts up, or the Grocery Store in the building!

But, it's not really ours. 

We would both admit now that as of May this year we are entering a different phase of life. Yes, a baby will do that to you. But for other reasons too. And all of a sudden 700 sq ft doesn't feel that big any more. In the last few months Erin and I have been feeling like this was a season of change for us and as Christmas approaches we are embracing it. 

Almost 6 months ago we welcomed the Ludwicks on tour and the first stop on their Irish adventure was to attend a house viewing with us! 291 Holywood Road. A real project but a gem waiting to be polished for someone with the time and the money. We thought it was us. So we viewed, and prayed, and viewed again. The Ludwicks saw it, my parents saw it (they even drilled the neighbours for information), we thought it was going to be ours. We bid - rejected, then someone else bid, and bid again - both rejected. Then nothing happened for 3 months as we waited to see which bidder would flinch next. It was quite exciting. It's the house with the yellow for sale sign in the foreground of the photo below. All the the while though....

Lurking in the background, 4 doors up the Holywood Road, is a light blue house
that came on the market during our bidding war. We didn't even notice it!
(If you strain you can see the blue for sale sign)

Finally the realtor called and said it will be sold to the other bidders that week unless others bids are received. So we bit the bullet and bid again. Then they bid, we bid, they bid. Then out of nowhere a 3rd bidder comes on the scene and outbids us both. At this stage, knowing that the house was already stretching our budget (not including the roughly $70,000 of work that needed done!) we decided to throw in the towel. We were quite gutted but remained pragmatic about the situation. We were sure this was meant to be the house for us. Something about the Holywood Road appealed to us, even though it is the other side of the city to our Ormeau Road which we love so dear.

So the house hunt began again. We organised 9 house viewings for one Friday afternoon, dragged my dad, the house expert, up from Kildare to join us, brought our pen and paper and blitzed it. The viewings were scattered over all parts of Belfast starting near the Ormeau and working their way East. The last viewing that day was a 1,200 sq ft 3 bed semi-detached house on Holwood Road:

Long story short, this happened 2 weeks ago;

Sale Agreed

Now we are in escrow as I believe the yanks say. This process could take anything from 4-8 weeks. And nothing is guaranteed so don't go congratulating us yet. It is just one of a number of hurdles that need to be negotiated on our route to home ownership. By the way, the address will actually be 2 Clonaver Park, in case you are interested.

Now I know some of you will start to say 'wait! you promised us her back after some time. this isn't what we signed up for. we want our Erin back!' I hear you. I understand your concerns. But let me assure you, this doesn't change our plans. We're coming back. This decision was taken in light of; 1) the fact that we believe our Irish adventure has another 2-3 years to run and it does feel like we are meant to be here for now, 2) compared to Santa Barbara, Northern Ireland is quite an affordable place to live and mortgage repayments are generally lower than rent. After paying off $40,000 of my landlord's mortgage I figure I'd rather be paying off our own and 3) thanks to my father's mastery of negotiation we appear to have bagged ourselves a bargain.

Now we need to shop for some beds because when you visitors come, we need to have somewhere to put you.

In the meantime, we've been doing the usual (except more festively);

St. Georges Market

My wife is fattening up expertly for the baby

Ahoy matie, thar she grows!

Getting fat at the Maddens 

Really fat!

Until next time blogonauts!

France Take 2!

Hello family and friends!

Well, another week, another cup of tea in hand (plus one of my homemade dark chocolate peanut butter cups, mmmm), another blog post!  I must say I'm quite proud of myself for letting only a week pass before I get started on this one.

Many of you know that I was considering flying back to CA this month for a visit before the baby arrives.  I went back and forth for awhile, deciding against it in the end.  The length of time I would have been gone didn't really suit me (let me rephrase that-- I would miss Niall too much!) and it's hard to pass up cheap European flights!  The alternative ended up being a wonderful week away and I'm so grateful that I was able to soak in a little more sun before winter really closes in here.  I flew to Nice in the South of France to spend the week with Miss Taylor Payne, who is quite the French mademoiselle at this stage!  We had some good laughs and it was comforting to see such a familiar face from home.

Niall hasn't even asked to see my photos, I think he's still a bit jealous.  ;)  Here's a quick recap of our adventures...

bonjour! :)

Nice

SB girls reunited!

beautiful sunset walk along the promenade

We both arrived in Nice from our separate places of origin on Sunday night.  Monday was actually quite dreary and there was a huge thunder & lightning storm!  But we didn't really mind.  We got a hot chocolate, walked around, hiked up to a cool lookout point, and just took it easy.  I think I got my California accent back after just a few hours chatting with Tay.  :)

a day in San Remo, Italy

rockin' the belly look

On our second day, we took a train into Italy!  Nice is quite near the border so it didn't take too long and the train service was very handy and inexpensive.  We did more walking, had some gelato, explored a big market, and enjoyed being in a new place.  I must say we traveled well together, it was nice being with someone easygoing.

Isn't this a beautiful shot?  Another walk by the beach in Nice.

pizza truck!

We left Italy late in the afternoon and got back into Nice in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset.  Tay went for a little run on the promenade... I would have loved to join in-- there were so many runners out, reminded me of Cabrillo Blvd. in SB!  However, Baby Madden hasn't been on a run for quite some time now... so we walked.  :)

Taylor and I rented a room through airbnb for the week.  The couple we stayed with insisted we buy pizza from the 'pizza truck guy'.  We wanted something easy for dinner so decided to give it a try.  It was good.  And cheap!  We took it back down to the promenade and had a romantic pizza feast.  :)

day 3 breakfast

of all the places I've been to, France has the best bread

view of the cote d'azur out of the train window

Monaco!

On our third day we took the train to Monaco.  Wow-- what a beautiful place!  I think this was my favourite day.  It was so sunny and warm... I cannot express enough how good sun feels on my skin when it has been so long.  Seriously-- all you CA people, don't take it for granted!

We made the trek up to the palace to watch the changing of the guards.  The rest of the day we spent walking, eating at a big indoor market, more exploring, and a little rest at the beach.

so pretty everywhere...

We sat on this bench for at least an hour!  The sunshine felt amazing.

Cheers to a great day!  Don't worry folks, I didn't drink the whole glass :)

sushi in Nice for dinner!

All in all Monaco didn't disappoint!  It was especially fun for me to see it after getting into Formula 1 and imagining a Grand Prix race in that city... crazy.

On our fourth day we took the train to Cannes.  More of the usual exploring, walking, eating, and soaking up more of that sunshine!

my favourite meal, I think I had it 3 times on the trip... 'salad nicoise'

more beach time

It was cool looking at the countless fancy yachts anchored in the harbour... some of them were huge!

red carpet spotting?!

Our fifth and final day was gorgeous... sunny, clear, and hot!  I wanted to get up a little earlier and walk along the promenade.  I wasn't expecting to be out in time for the sunrise but I was happy I made it down in time.  I enjoyed being up before the beach got busy and watching planes come in for early morning landings.

Whenever I am in continental Europe I find it very, very hard to pass up freshly baked croissants-- let alone Nutella ones!!  I walked to this corner bakery twice on my own to sit, people watch, and indulge.  After my early morning stroll on my last day I couldn't resist topping the morning off with this simple pleasure.  :)

Taylor and I had decided to spend our last full day (we both had night flights) on the beach in Nice.  However, first we took a quick train ride in hopes of going to a Renoir Museum, which actually was the house where he lived in his later years filled with some original works.  To our dismay we arrived 2 minutes after they had closed the museum for lunch hours (11:30 to 2 pm... come on people, how long does it take to eat lunch?!).  Oh well.  We found a really cute market nearby and went to that before heading back to Nice.  The lounge chairs, sea, and sand were calling our names!

fresh produce, I miss this!

Taylor just chatting it up, she's such a local :)

Now we're talking!  We spotted our destination for the day :)

I totally spaced that I had left my bathing suit in my backpack that I stored at the train station.  Hope you all don't mind this sports bra / underwear shot!!

A good way to say good bye to Nice!

Well, there you go!  I could post more but you get the idea... it was a great trip.  My flight didn't take off until 10 pm Friday night so it was great having the whole day to relax.  Amazing that I can hop on a plane and 2 hours, 20 minutes later I'm back to scarves, jackets and boots... I stepped off the plane and the chilly air reminded me that I was definitely not in France anymore!  I was excited to see Niall, who made a late night drive to pick me up from the Dublin airport.  From there, we made our way to the Madden home in Naas-- I was so happy to have a weekend with the fam to top things off.

Nobody makes an Ulster fry like Benny does... nobody!!

the coveted chair by the window

:D

yep, I finished the whole thing no problem!

I know you all love the belly shots :)

Hoping to squeeze in one more flight somewhere before January-- we'll see!  I think I'll get Niall to check in with you all next time-- he's overdue for a post.  Have a great week everybody!

xox