Photo shared with permission from Spot On Sports

ThisIrishBoy started his GAA ‘career’ earlier this Spring. Enthusiastically he bounces off to training every week.  In under 6’s it is more about having fun than perfecting the sport – as it should be.

The reality however is, it quickly becomes as much about skill and success as it does fun. I can see it already, especially in the boys.  The research is stark when it comes to the percentage of children who give up sport after 12 years of age.  An age when  the value of children remaining engaged in sports related activity is supported in all kinds of research.  Often times if a child lacks the confidence in sport they turn away from the very activity they love.

Seeing a need to further develop teaching the skills of Gaelic Football to children of all ability levels, Barry Anderson developed the Spot On ball.  He believes that providing more confidence will keep children involved.

Barry of Spot On Sports  kindly sent us a Spot On ball to try-the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.  Unfortunately as an expat mom I myself didn’t have the understanding or skill to help ThisIrishBoy when he eagerly wanted to practice at home.

I hadn’t a notion of a handpass, and neither did he!

Photo shared with permission from Spot On Sports

The Spot On ball has been a game changer for us.  With its unique visual supports it shows children how to hold,  hand pass and kick the ball.  It has helped build ThisIrishBoy’s confidence even in a few short weeks.

ThisIrishDad took the ball to under 6’s girls training one Saturday morning.  He and the other trainers (who actually know GAA) were impressed with the position of the visual supports on the ball. Girls who for weeks had been having difficulty, quickly grasped the hand pass technique when using the Spot On ball.  The green ‘kick’ strip helped the girls identify where to try to kick the ball.

With only one Spot On ball at training, the girls did look for the visual supports on the other training balls.  The trainers will continue to use the Spot On ball until the girls master the skills.  Having used it only for a few short weeks we can’t comment on its durability over time.

The visual supports of the Spot On ball will no doubt provide support to children who may have difficulty following verbal instructions or have difficulty with movement and coordination.

Now even I can handpass too!

Disclaimer *** Spot On Sports kindly sent us a Spot On ball for review. As always all views are our own regardless of paid or gifted.

Today This Irish Girl asked to go to the local playground.  I have to admit – I pretty much hate the playground. I  use every tactic I can to divert their attention whenever we drive by. Today I guess I was in a good mood.  As she ran at speed from the car it was obvious she couldn’t believe her luck.

She’ll be 8 in September.

Eight is like a proper kid age, not a child age.

The playground was empty except for two boys sitting on the swings each in a peculiar hunched over posture that looked almost painful.  On closer look both boys were engrossed in their phones on their laps.

Sitting there on the swings – not swinging.

I can’t say for certain how old these boys were.  Older than 8 but not teenagers.  Not even preteens I am guessing.  Kids. Kids who should have been running, laughing…playing.

For 45 minutes myself and This Irish Girl played together. ( I said I was in a good mood!)

Conscious of the two boys entirely plugged in I sat my phone on the bench alone and chased This Irish Girl up and down the park.  I revelled in her laughter at my feeble attempts on the monkey bars.  We laid together on the bucket swing watching the clouds float by.

All the while I kept an eye on the two boys sitting on the swings hunched over – not swinging – not talking to each other.

Eventually This Irish Girl shared her frustration with me that she wanted a turn on the swings so we went over and asked for a turn.  The boys were well-mannered and obliging – both jumping up to offer their swings – these were good kids.  As This Irish Girl and I swung together the two boys moved off.  I stared willing them to play or at least engage in friendly banter – instead they moved to the bench and assumed hunched posture side – by – side.

So many thoughts were going through my mind…

Do those boys need smartphones? I know in today’s age there is great comfort in the ‘safety’ of older ‘independent’ kids having phones but was it worth the loss of playing at the park.

What examples are we setting at home with screen time? We are pretty strict (or at least try to be).  No tablets on school days, limits over holidays, not in bedrooms – the usual recommendations on screen time.  Recently though the kids were gifted ancient iPads from their older cousins.  They’ve both taken to texting and sending video messages /pictures to family in the U.S.  I love that this is helping foster these relationships but after today I am reconsidering it all.

Nearly an hour later we left for home and the boys sat there still.

As we walked to the car This Irish Girl grabbed my hand.  (oh sweet girl please don’t stop taking my hand).

‘Mom I don’t think those boys were having any fun at the park, that’t too bad.’

Yep sweetheart it really is too bad…(and please don’t hate me when you ask for a phone because you won’t get one).

It’s January which means we’re totally low on cash. Ironically a new year has us dreaming and planning on ways to spend money.  We’re not going to stop dreaming so we need to save extra money this year.

Here are three simple ways we save extra money:

Take A Money Challenge

Pinterest is over run with money challenge ideas.  Probably the most popular one is the 52-Week Money Saving Challenge where you put money away each week  progressively and save €1.378 within a year.  Week 1 you save €1, week 2 save €2 and so on until you’re putting away €52 the last week.

We tried this a few years ago and found when we needed money most it was hard to save.  We didn’t make it through the whole year but we did save an extra €500 for our summer holidays.

It worked better for us when we started jumping around the weeks and saving some of the bigger amount weeks earlier in the year.

The Manage

I had never heard of a ‘manage’ before I met ThisIrishDad and his family.  It is such a genius way to put away a bit of extra money over the year.  We participate in a Christmas manage but you could have a manage for any reason really.  All you need is a few willing participants and someone to religiously deposit money into an account for the group.  For 50 weeks out of the year we each contribute €10 to the Christmas manage.

Every group member hands over their weekly money and one person deposits it into a bank or credit union account.  Then 50 weeks later you get €500!!  Ours is run so we get it at the end of November every year.  We have two weeks off and then we are actually saving again for the next Christmas before this Christmas even happens.

Even though I try to have most of my Christmas shopping done early,  the extra cash in late November is always welcome!

Keep the Change

When Ireland started rounding to get 1 and 2 cent coins out of circulation I had a thought that ’rounding’ could work as a way to save extra money.  This is how it works:

• use cash to buy things as much as you can
• any time you get coins as change SAVE it

Pretty easy!

We have one of those money saving tins that you have to open with a can opener.  I’ve gotten a small change purse to carry with me and put any coins I get as change in.  When I’m home it needs to get into the money tin as soon as possible (to keep me from spending it on coffee etc).

The extra money always comes in useful whether its saving for holidays, a rainy day or to have for when the washing machine inevitably gives up.

Got more ideas on how to slowly squirrel away some extra money this year?  I’d love to hear them.

We’ve told ThisIrishGirl and ThisIrishBoy and now we can share it without fear of ruining our big surprise…..

We’re going to Lapland!!!

It’s no secret how much we love the holidays in this house. For years now I’ve been dreaming of taking the kids to Lapland and we finally are.

Before we go any further I have to say a big thank you to Corrina for all her posts on how to DIY Lapland.   We booked our trip based on all of Corrina’s useful information. Corrina this is happening for us thanks to you!  If you are even considering booking Lapland on your own you need to check out Corrina’s posts!

Also a big thanks to the friend who gave me the ‘gentle nudge’ to go for it over coffee one Friday afternoon in August

(this proves everyone needs good bloggers and great friends in their lives!)

I promise over the next few months to share all the details starting with what we’ve booked so far…

Flights

We’re flying with Norwegian air from Dublin to Helsinki.  We haven’t flown with Norwegian yet but I am hearing good reviews on their European services.  Flights for 4 of us with bags came to €599 from Dublin to Helsinki.

I totally could have done better on price but I panicked at booking.

I ended up booking the LowFare+ tickets. In hindsight we definitely didn’t need to.  The LowFare price was closer to €300 so learn from my mistake and don’t panic. Do your homework and only pay for what you need (we will all have free checked baggage and probably won’t use it).

“The Polar Express”

Ok it’s not REALLY the Polar Express but it might as well be!!

An overnight train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi

At this point I still have romantic notions of the 4 of us sleeping soundly in our two berth cabin but I’ll let you know!

Follow Corrina’s advice on how best to book the train from VR.  She was spot on and we booked out train for €236 return for two adults. Kids under 10 go free with a paying adult but you can’t book it online.

You must ring VR to add the kids to your tickets after – customer service at VR was fantastic and English speaking (00358 203 32033).

©Visit Rovaniemi (Rovaniemi Tourism & Marketing Ltd.).

The train is basically two nights accommodation too.  I have heard that the overnight special price isn’t available for all dates in December but we lucked out.  Train tickets can only be booked 60 days in advance. Having booked flights & accommodation in early September I was worried about the train but there was no reason to be.  Also there was really no reason to get up in the middle of the night to book train tickets as soon as possible – plenty of cabins were available.

I’m told breakfast on the train leaves much to be desired so my master plan is to pack us each breakfast packs with cereal, juice cartons and fruit to get us through the morning.

Also – Consider train arrival times in Rovaniemi.

Some trains arrive quite early in the morning.  I didn’t want to book a train that would leave us standing in the cold waiting for things to open. I imagine the kids would be cranky and cold and not the romantic Christmas welcome to the Arctic Circle I’m envisioning.

Rovaniemi Accommodation

We booked in September and by that time many hotels that were in our price range were booked out.  Visit Rovaniemi has some pretty cool looking accommodation that is worth checking out.  We booked Airbnb which has its benefits when travelling with kids.  Check out my top tips on landing the best Airbnb for your family.

The Lapland Experience

©Visit Rovaniemi (Rovaniemi Tourism & Marketing Ltd.)

As you can imagine we are in the thick of narrowing down and planning how we will spend our time in Rovaniemi.

We of course will see the main man himself at Santa Village and visit Santa Park as well.

The kids are looking forward to all the outdoor activities and getting up close with some reindeer.  Even though ThisIrishDog is a husky they have their heart set on a fast paced ride through a winter wonderland pulled by huskies.

ThisIrishDad and I nearly went for a Northern Lights Cruise for our honeymoon.  Seeing the Northern Lights has always been on our bucket list and we CANNOT WAIT!

The more I read about Rovaniemi the more and more I want to do.  I can’t wait to check out some of the local cultural activities on offer!

The kind people at Visit Rovaniemi have been helping us develop our itinerary and we are so appreciative of all they have offered us.  Full reviews on everything we do coming once we

return!

A Day in Helsinki

The overnight train arrives in Helsinki too late to catch the flight back to Dublin that morning.  Perfect excuse to spend a day exploring!  I’ll let you know how we spend our time.  We used booking.com to find accommodation close to the airport with free shuttle service for our early flight.

Don’t want to visit Helsinki? Norwegian has direct flights to Rovaniemi from Gatwick Airport. The fights from Cork meant an overnight in London for little savings so we’re taking in Helsinki while we can!

Other essentials..

Well, it is the Arctic Circle so it’s cold!!! I’ve been stocking up on thermals and tights and all kinds of layers for all of us.  Lidl, Aldi and Decathlon.ie all have offers on winter gear. The kids and I hit Lidl last week at opening time and got everything we needed for all of us.

After much debate we told the kids last week and I am so glad we did.  They are buzzing with excitement and the build up is exciting.  We’ve gone from episodes of Fuller House and RescueBots to the VisitRovaniemi YouTube Channel in the house!

Cost so far:

Total costs are for 2 adults & 2 kids (ages 7 and 4) for 5 nights.

• Dublin-Helsinki flights €600
• overnight train Helsinki – Rovaniemi return €236
• 2 nights Airbnb Rovaniemi €320
• 1 night Helsinki hotel €169

Total Spent so far: €1,325

*quoted price for 1 night trip for family of 4 from Dublin to Rovaniemi by local travel agent similar date : €2500 +

If you’ve been to Rovaniemi drop us a comment and tell us your best memory.  If you haven’t been and want to visit stay tuned and we’ll help you start planning!

At the start of the summer we felt inspired and created our Summer 2017 Bucket List.  Our list contained some aspirational ideas like camping (because we have never camped before) to the more mundane (like going out for a Sunday dinner). We tried to include as many cheap (if not free) ideas of what we could do together (like have a water fight at home).

Some people thought the idea of a summer ’to do’ list would defeat the idea of lazy summer days and pressure our family into always ‘doing.’

In contrast we found our summer bucket list allowed us to be cognizant of the summer weeks flying by.

We checked over our list from time to time of the summer.

Sometimes it was inspiration for us to get out and find an adventure.  Some days we used it as an excuse to be lazy and camp out on the couch with bowls of popcorn.

More often than not we decided to do something ELSE – something that wasn’t on the list.

Most of all it kept our family together over the summer.  Choosing (or not chosing) from our list was something we did together.  Whatever we ended up doing (or not doing) we did it together.

With the start of school looming next week we sat down to see if we achieved everything we set out to do.

We didn’t complete 100% of what was on our list this summer.  (I’m not sure we even covered 70%) Some of the things made more sense to wait for autumn/winter months. Sometimes we just didn’t want to do what was on the list.

It wasn’t about success rate or ticking off a ‘to – do list.’ Our summer bucket list was meant for a bit of fun and to remind us to make the most of summer any way we chose.

There were other positives about our list that I hadn’t expected.

• The kids loved the idea of sitting down together and being part of the decision-making and planning on how we would spend our time.
• Because it was our family list…there wasn’t any arguing that we were doing what one kid wanted to do more than the other.
• We learned something about each other.  I had no idea the kids wanted to try some of the things they listed.
• The kids learned the benefits of having a plan while being flexible to go with the flow.

While we didn’t complete 100% of our list. Our Bucket List did exactly what we set out for it to do.

It was never intended to pressure us into staying overwhelmingly busy over the summer and it didn’t.

It was meant to inspire us to find things to enjoy together.  And it so did.

Before school let out when the weather was fine the kids and I got a notion for a spontaneous after school picnic.  Not wanting to travel home to get picnic supplies I opted for a quick spin around The Range UK for equipment and the local Spar for provisions.  While it doesn’t take much for me to come up with an excuse for a trip to The Range, the truth is I spent nearly €50 I didn’t need to spend.  If I had been better prepared with an Irish Summer Car Kit I wouldn’t have spent money unnecessarily.

Nonetheless, we had a fab spontaneous picnic at Fota House and Gardens.  While the spontaneous adventures always end up being the best, I realised I could be better prepared for our spontaneity. Drawing inspiration from Simply Kierste I started to think about what we would need to have on hand to be ready for anything this summer.

When we got home I spent some time making our Irish Summer Car Kit.    And while Simply Kierste has it all pretty in a storage box – all I had to hand was an oversized bag from The Range.  So with our Irish Summer Car Kit in the back of the car we are all set for what ever summer throws our way.

Here’s a list of everything in our Irish Summer Car Kit….have I forgotten anything?

Irish Summer Car Kit:

• Spare clothes for all of us.  Especially Mom & Dad.  I usually have spare clothes for the kids but have often found myself holding back so not to get wet or mucky myself   – no more excuses now.
• Wellies or spare shoes
• Jumpers / Raincoats
• Sunscreen & Sun hats
• Picnic Blanket
• Towels
• Bubbles
• Hurleys
• Frisbee
• Soccer Ball
• Wipes
• Baby Powder  (because it really DOES remove sand)
• Loose change to cover the cost of ice-creams because I never have cash it seems
• Plasters

It’s been a few weeks since we put our Irish Summer Car Kit in the car and I have no idea why I didn’t do it sooner.  We have pulled just about everything out of it already and its been so nice to not have to think too hard to ‘pack’ the car before we go off for the day.  I will say though –  that huge The Range bag is a bit of a disaster.  It is too big and tough to find things in. At some point I will put it all in a nice organised box…or probably not – I’ll probably spend the summer rummaging through the big Range bag.

Is there any must have I’ve left out of our Irish Summer Car Kit?