Well, he is coming to Blarney by helicopter tomorrow to be transported in a fire engine to the Woollen Mills! It is an exciting annual event and our children are really looking forward to it. Several of our au pairs in the last 4 years have accompanied us to see him hovering over a field  by the Blarney Castle, descending slowly and waving to all the excited children (and many excited and emotional adults too!). This occasion really marks the start of true Christmas season in the village. I am wondering what will our current au pair Rebecca think about it all.

Rebecca is from Germany and from all the letters and parcels that have started arriving in the last few days, we can see that Christmas is a very important event in her life too. She got the most wonderful Advent Calendar hand-made by her grandmother. You can see it on the picture. Each sock has a little surprise for the 24 days before Christmas Day. The children are anxiously awaiting the 1^st of December so they can see what each of them contains. Of course they wish it was for them! This year, they will have to be satisfied with one of the chocolate calendars from a local supermarket.

Next year, we can be more organised and create a special Advent Calendar like Rebecca’s one. It will be a nice activity for all of us.

When I posted my first blog entry on the 15^th of April this year, little did I know that it will be another 6 months before myaupairbook.com launches. The reason why it took slightly longer is because it is a complex website, I was not in a  massive hurry to launch it till I had my vision completely clear and translated into web pages and some Irish bank institution worked a little slower than expected. But here we are, it is up and running!

I am thrilled with the great work by brilliant web designer Ruth Egan from Fireball Media Group! She has been a real pleasure to work with. Throughout the project we were on the same wave link when it comes to the visual and functional design of my brand new exciting site for au pairs and families! Somehow we did not need too many words in describing how the site needs to look and feel, there was a mutual feeling of understanding what will distinguish our site from other au pair/host families websites.

I believe we have achieved what we set out to achieve at the start – to have a several social media tools incorporated into a really clean and well functioning site. I hope that you agree and if you are going to use our services, I am looking forward to receiving feedback from you. There is always space for improvements!