As this blog has been running for quite a few years there’s an awful lot of different content about various things. Here’s a brief overview/timeline of how the blog has grown and will let you jump into sections you might be interested in.
This is a work-in-progress, but the highlights are:
May 2009: The first post…
Around the World in 96 Days – In the beginning there were just two of us heading off on a big adventure… Start here for an easy-to-browse collection of the blog posts from this trip.
2010: New Beginnings
This was the year when I started my last full-time job. And full-time it was. Extra hours were the norm and we covered 24/7 oncall shifts to support the systems we built. Nothing worse than a pager going off repeatedly during the night with some kind of crisis or other. Blogging took a back seat as I was spending too much time in front of a computer screen already. We managed a trip to Croatia this year, and then concentrated our efforts on cutting down the 2+ hour commute each way every day that we were doing for work. This resulted in us renting our house on the outskirts of Dublin and finding a suitable place to rent closer to the city centre. Our finances took a hit, but our sanity was saved.
2011: We got Married!
We travelled to Mauritius to get married combined with a honeymoon there.
2012: Our first child is born
We started the year with a visit to beautiful Mexico quickly followed with a return to see more of Vancouver than the last time we were there before taking a few days in Seattle. The main event of this year was the birth of the Rascal.
2013: Blog hiatus
It came back to blogging more regularly this year with our first holiday as parents to Tenerife.
2014: Back to blogging
Highlights of this year were a city break to Amsterdam and our big holiday to the Maldives. Lows were the constant sleep deprivation and the infamous wonder weeks leap ten. At the end of the year I started doing some freelance work from home which proved tough to shoehorn into life with a toddler.
2015:
This year we visited Lisbon, Waterford, Spain and Ile de Re in France. We also stopped renting and returned back to the house we owned, eventually, after quite a bit of stress.
2016: My Second Pregnancy and Homebirth
There was the pregnancy, the preparation for changes ahead, and finally the homebirth. Travel was limited this year – Malta and a trip to Antrim before the baby arrived. Then a few days in beautiful Mayo for our first holiday as a family of four.
2017: The Move to Montreal
After much delay we finally emigrated to Canada and started the long process of settling our family there.
2020: Pandemic/The Move to Vancouver
In the middle of a global pandemic we sold up and moved further west to settle in Vancouver.