It has only been a couple of days since the last blog post, but I thought I would send an update to let you know how the first work week is going.

Daycare.
Lily is adjusting great to daycare. On day 3 she was able to sleep quite a bit during the day. All of her teachers are great, very outgoing, friendly, hands on, and excited. Ty is having a bit of a harder time. He is starting to sleep a bit more at school. He slept for almost an hour on Wednesday, but he used to sleep for at least 2 hours back home. Not all of the kids nap in his room, so their is some activity going on around him that might make it difficult. The first 2 days he did great at drop off, but Wednesday was rough. As soon as we walked away he started bawling. We took him with us to Lily’s room and her teachers let him stay in her room for a bit until he calmed down. He was able to go check on her a few times during the week. He loves his sister so much. The good news is that when I pick him up at the end of the day he is playing, smiling, and filthy (they do a ton of outdoor activities).

Work.
Jay is getting along quite well. I am bored, but expect that to end when my actual training starts next week. We should be able to carpool on Friday, which will be nice. We have a good half hour drive to work so I will enjoy having an hour every day to actually talk to my husband. It’s tough to get a word in at home with Ty saying “dad” every 10 seconds. 🙂

Home.
We haven’t done much more to the house, as our weekday evenings are crazy busy. I am looking forward to the weekend to do some more settling. We just got word that there are some delays on import inspections, so unfortunately our air shipment will be a bit later.

Fun.
Tonight is trick or treating. As Halloween isn’t a huge holiday here, I had to decorate our mailbox with purple garland to indicate to kids in the neighborhood that they can stop by our house for treats. We packed skittles and starburst in our checked bags, hopefully the kids will like it. Ty is going to be a fireman and lily is a fluffy pink bunny.

Food.
I tried my first jam daisy. Not sure if this is an Aussie favorite or not, but it looked good in the cookie aisle. It is a light, crumby cookie with strawberry jam in the middle. Looks like a flower. It was quite tasty.

Jay picked up Chinese takeout Tuesday night. $57 later, we had some of the most delicious Chinese food ever. He got plenty to take for lunch a few days, which makes the lunch packing process a bit easier. We will definitely be doing that again for future month ends. I cooked maid rites and fried potatoes Wednesday night, so had a little taste of home. Didn’t taste exactly like what I am used to, potatoes must be a little different, but was still pretty good.

Music.
It has been quite enjoyable to listen to the radio here. I found 98.9 and haven’t ventured away from it because I don’t think I have heard the same song twice, and about half are songs I have never heard before. It seems as though you don’t have to be nearly as strong of a singer to get a record deal here. Perfect example is “Pardon my Passion” by Mary G. You tube it, but I am fairly certain “Mary” is a “Mark” dressed in Mary’s clothing. I have no worries about that, but his/her voice is terrible. And the lyrics are, well, interesting. But Mary G is on to something because both Jay and I keep singing the chorus.
Local country isn’t all bad, though. In fact, I quite like a lot of it. One great one I heard yesterday was “Dancing on the Darling”. Catchy tune, good lyrics, and after listening I learned that the Darling River is one of the longest rivers in Australia. So music is educational!

Weather.
Most days have been sunny and 75-85 degrees. Perfect. On Tuesday we experienced our first Queensland storm. Everyone moved their cars under cover in the branch yard to protect them from the possibility of large hail. They say it can get as large as baseballs. As the storm rolled in, there was a flurry of activity in the office, much like before a blizzard back home. The rain came, POURED for maybe a half hour, then left. No hail, no high winds. Kind of a let down after all of the fuss.

Words.
Stubby (beer), good on ya (good job), how ya going (how are you doing), whinging (pronounced winjing is whining), loo or toilet

I forgot a couple things.

Driving.
I did it!! I drove on the left side of the road, on the right side of the car!! My first attempt was to an easy destination where there wasn’t much traffic. It is challenging to remember to look for oncoming traffic on the right, and maneuvering through the 2 lane roundabouts is not easy, but every time I get behind the wheel I get a little more comfortable. I even turned the radio on for part of my 30 minute commute to work.
Thank goodness for map apps on my cell phone. They tell me which exit I need to take to get off the roundabout. Very helpful. However, they do require you to enter the correct address. I found another Bonny Babes daycare last night…unfortunately not the one my kids were at. :).
All in all, driving on the other side hasn’t been as terrifying as I originally thought. Thanks to Bret for giving me the advice to put the passenger in the ditch. I think about that every time I get behind the wheel. Jay and I are getting a 1 hour driving course on Friday, so hopefully that will fill in any gaps we have.
I think it will take me forever to get used to unbuckling my seat belt on the right side, and turning on my turn signal on the right side.

Things to do.
When we drove down towards Surfers Paradise, jay was super excited to see that the Gold Coast 600 road race was going on. He rolled down the windows to hear the cars. We will definitely have to check it out next year.

Random oddities.
Yogurt comes in giant containers. Milk and salad dressing does not.
My Starbucks insulated coffee mug does not fit in the coffee maker at work.
Water heater is outside the house.
The dryer is not vented outside the house, so we have to put a fan in front of it and open the sliding door. Most people hang dry clothes outside. Laundry takes 3 hours.
Syrup is not located anywhere near the pancake mix in the grocery store.

Wowsers! It has been a BUSY few days! Every waking moment has been jam packed with activity. The days and nights are kind of a blur for me as I think back over the week, but here are a few highlights

Shopping.
I can’t tell you how many times Jay or I have been shopping, or how much we have spent, for that matter. Everything is SO expensive here, I am kind of in a state of sticker shock. For example, a “cheap” plastic dish drying rack without a utensil holder or drop tray is $25. I wouldn’t pay more than $7 in the US for a similar one. I think Jay’s spreadsheets are going to implode. :).
The shopping is interesting. There is a “mall” nearby with everything we would need for a home, and conveniently most of the names of the stores make total sense. Pillow Talk sells bedding. The Bed Store sells beds. And so on. So we have managed to find most things on the ever growing shopping list. IKEA was an interesting experience for Jay. Thank goodness we had a ginormous van to shove the huge boxes for our “dressers”. Shopping carts have swivels on all 4 wheels, so pushing them is a workout, especially if it is heavy, or if you are trying to maneuver 2 at once (see previous comment about how much $$ we have spent).
I ventured out to the grocery store on my own. The fruits and veggies looked familiar, but that is where my food recognition ended. I did my best, spent a bloody fortune, and still don’t really feel like I have anything for dinners. I guess that isn’t much different than home, though. 🙂

Sleeping.
. Ty is finally starting to get over his jet lag – he hasn’t been up at 2:00 ready to party. But he has had a hard time laying down for his afternoon nap (and then after fighting it forever he has an even harder time waking up from nap). The sun comes up at 4:30 am here, so he hasn’t slept much past that time. Early bird gets the worm, I guess.
Jay has used the swimming “cool” as Ty calls it as a bribe to get him to take a nap. Problem is that when he wakes up it is dark out and a bit chilly. So I am a wimp and have yet to swim. Jay has for sure made note of that… I guess I am a fair weather swimmer. Ty hasn’t really been in the water much either. But he likes to stand next to it with his trunks and life jacket and throw stuff at dad in the water.

Home.
We are very fortunate to have found such a beautiful home. As we get settled in it is starting to feel more like home. Will be nice to have our air shipment arrive so we have more items from home. I love watching the boats cruise along the canal.

Daycare.
We took the kids to their new school on Thursday to meet their new teachers and friends, and to let Ty’s brain start to process where he would be spending most of his time. He jumped right in and started playing, and didn’t want to leave. When Monday morning rolled around, he went right to his classroom, gave us am extra hug, them went off to play with his new friends. Such a big boy!
Lily was just as easy, but she generally speaking just rolls with whatever we throw at her.
At the end of the first day, they were both happy when I arrived to pick them up. Their teachers said they did great. Ty was a bit of a crazy animal when we got home, think he was exhausted. Lily hadn’t slept much at school but her teacher said she was happy and content all day. She slept for 8 hours straight when we got home.
Ty was filthy – they play outside a lot. Both of their teachers sent us emails recapping their day. Sounded like a success!

Work.
Jay had a busy start to work as it is year-end, but he said everything went well. He got home around 7:30, which seems pretty good for an accounting manager at year end! My day was a little slower, mostly because my boss is the lady that jay is replacing, and she was tied up with training him. The guy I am replacing is in the USA this week, so I spent the day doing online training, getting tours, and meeting people. What bits I did hear about Order Fulfillment sounded interesting, so am anxious to dive in.

Food.
So I have to pack lunches for jay, Ty and I. This might be the thing that pushes me over the edge into the Big Dipper. Our evenings are filled with cleaning bottles and lunch containers (cannot wait for our air shipment with dishwasher baskets to arrive!!), cooking dinner, making lunches, bathing babies, and THEN we can go to bed. For all of you parents out there that do all of this on a regular basis…kudos! Hoping I don’t forget to send lunch someday. :(.
I did discover the Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolates. Yum. That might save me from going over the ledge. I might have had more than one last night. Better than booze…
Sausage is only available in links, as far as I can tell. Ground sausage for breakfast or pizza doesn’t seem to exist? Will keep looking.
Pizza Hut is definitely not the same as the US. Cheese pizza was OK, weren’t crazy about the other flavors.
Ice is a hot commodity for me around here. They don’t seem to put ice in their drinks. If the packed lunches don’t push me over the edge, the lack of an iced water might. No ice in the office. :(. But they do have a super fancy coffee/cappuccino machine.
We went to a nice restaurant on Sunday. Ate outside, they had some pretty water features, lizards under the table, and a bouncy house. We will definitely go back.

Fun.
While we spent most of the past few days working our tails off, we did manage to make it down to the beach on Sunday. It was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, and it is about a half hour from our house. The sand is super soft, the waves are constantly rolling in (Ty had fun walking out further and further then racing back to dry land when a big one rolled in. It was about 80 degrees, but really windy. Thankfully I had found a wind tent for lily, so she spent her time shaded and blocked from the breeze. She snoozed. Ty found sea shells and played with his sand toys. We were there for just over an hour and I got a little sunburnt where I missed sun block. The sun is no joke here! Looking forward to many more hours on the beach!

Words.
Heaps, bits and pieces, mate, just a tick, cheers, brekky, no worries.

All in all it was a good, successful first week in Australia!

First of all, huge thank you to Jessi and Mark for hosting a party for us to say “see you soon” to many of our friends and family. If I thought saying goodbye to Treasury was hard, it was even harder the night of the party. I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for the emotional roller coaster that was to come that night. It started out like any other party – super fun, and then quickly turned heart breaking as people started leaving. I knew it was going to be difficult for us to leave the country, but I hadn’t fully considered the pain we were causing our loved ones. I decided quickly that night that “goodbye” sounded way too final, and since we are really only gone 18-24 months I decided that “see you soon” is much easier to say. As difficult as that night was, we are so thankful to have had the chance to see everyone one last time. So, Jessi and Mark, we are forever appreciative of giving us that opportunity. *hugs*

It was such a strange feeling walking through my house in Davenport one last time. My eyes were scanning all of the rooms to make sure I didn’t forget something important – either to squeeze into one of our 6 nearly 50 pound suitcases, or to put in storage. I did a lot of sorting, organizing, and purging over the past several weeks to prepare, but am certain that there is something that slipped through the cracks. Anyhoo, after I was reasonably certain we were all set, we loaded up the rental Tahoe to the brim, pulled out of the driveway, and shut the garage door one last time. At this point, I had said all of my goodbyes (not fun at all) and was filled with a mixture of excitement and an occasional wave of anxiety. Ready or not!

We caught the 5:50 PM American Eagle flight from Moline to Dallas on Monday, October 21. That day also happened to be our 7 year wedding anniversary. What a gift from Mr. Shearer! Ty was really super excited. So excited, in fact, that he couldn’t eat. More to come on this later… Lily was her usual chill self. Lily didn’t make a peep on the entire 2 hour flight to Dallas. Ty was a big boy and sat in the single seat behind Jay. He loved looking out the window. About halfway through he needed a little extra entertainment so he played Umi Zoomy math games on the iPad.

We had a 2 hour layover in Dallas, which was just enough time to burn off some energy before getting on the HUGE Qantas airplane at 10:00 PM. We had the 4 middle seats in the back row of our section. It was perfect for us. Jay on the left, then Ty, me, and Lily in her infant car seat (which was a lifesaver). Qantas was a great airline to fly with. The food was delicious and the flight attendants were the most friendly I have ever encountered. Ty even gave one of our attendants a hug when he got off the plane (she gave him lots of milk and he is a sucker for a nice cold glass). My only beef with Qantas was that despite the fact the I called numerous times in advance of the flight to try to reserve a seat with a bassinet for Lily to sleep in, they told me there were none available. You can imagine my frustration when we got on the plane and found that the seat with the bassinet was not occupied by a needy mother and her infant, but by a big dude and his wife. Nonetheless, our seats were quite perfect for our little family of four so I quickly got over my anger. Plus, I was putting into play our motto for the trip – “just roll with it”.

All was going well. We got served a yummy dinner right after we reached cruising altitude, but Ty was a combo of too excited to go to Australia and exhausted, so he didn’t eat more than a bite or two. He couldn’t get comfortable enough in his seat to sleep, so he crawled onto Jay’s lap and about 4 hours into the 15+ hour flight he puked. My apologies and deep gratification to the Qantas blanky that captured all of it… Add onto the fact that his tummy was obviously upset, the poor growing boy had major foot & leg cramps. So he spent over half of the flight on dad’s lap. Meanwhile, Lily is still sleeping peacefully, oblivious to everything around her. Ty got sick one more time a few hours later, but then finally got some sleep. When he woke up just before brekky (breakfast) was served, he was a totally different child. He devoured his meal and was a million times more happy. He was starting to get a little stir crazy and voiced what everyone was thinking at that point. “This is taking FOREVER!” I had some time to think on the flight, and as I looked at my beautiful baby girl all snuggled up and cozy, my son cuddled up with his hero, and my hubby of 7 years, I got a little misty eyed. I thought I knew what love was 7 years ago, but I had no idea how much more I had in store for me. Love my sweet little family!!

We landed in Brisbane a little after 5:00 AM, rolled through Customs in the shortest customs line I have ever been in, and managed to fit all 6 pieces of luggage on 2 little carts. Keep in mind we also had a stroller for Lily. 2 adults + 3 things to push = an interesting hike to the rental car, but we made it. Thanks to the friendly Customs guy that helped us maneuver our way through the zig zag of ropes.

We get to the rental van and the nice people at Hertz had pre-installed the rental car seats for us. Sounds great, but after I attempted to secure Lily into hers for 15 minutes without success, Jay came to my rescue and had to tear apart the straps and redo them. Made me feel better that I wasn’t a complete idiot. :). We got the van loaded and after a quick drive by the daycare and a stop at the realtor’s office to pick up the keys, we FINALLY made it to our new home, probably around 9:30 AM.

Talk about a feeling of being overwhelmed… I walk into this beautiful home, dead tired, stinky, wander my way through it and think “holy cow it is going to take a lot to get settled”. So I am a bit of an anal, obsessive person and I like things put away where they belong. We had rental towels, dishes, and bedding in the home, but they hadn’t been washed. And we didn’t have laundry detergent or dish soap… And we had 6 suitcases full of clothing and other random items, but no dressers or hangers to put them in. My brain immediately went into over drive and as my mom would say, I got into one of my modes. Go mode. I started making a list of immediate essentials and sent Jay to the store (you are crazy if you think I was going to venture out on the wrong side of the road on my own so soon). Ty and Lily stayed home with me and when I wasn’t entertaining them, I started getting settled.

Ty went down for a nap around 2:00 and when I woke him at 5:00 I carried him downstairs and he immediately fell back to sleep on the couch. Jay and I called it a night around 7:30 or so. Lily continued to be a perfect little baby.

Night one was ROUGH. Lily woke up to eat more than normal, and Ty woke at 2:00 and was ready to party. After trying to force him to go back to sleep, I went to the TV room and after failing to figure out how to get the DVD player to work, settled on watching Happy Days. It was either that or infomercials… We played cards (Spot it and Memory) before his tummy growled. Kid had slept through dinner, so of course he was hungry. I have him a midnight snack of yogurt and cheese. And then Lily woke up again, so all 4 of us were up. What do you do in the middle of the night in Australia? FaceTime your family back in the US. :). It was great to see Mom, Steven, and Brooke’s smiling faces. Around 4:00 we tried again to go to bed, but Lily woke up and the sun came up around 4:45 so we said the heck with it, and got up to cook brekky.

The boys got in a quick, slightly cold swim before the cable guy showed up. Lily had a bit of a fit – I think she is exhausted and hungry as my system hasn’t adjusted to the time difference so she is getting less to eat during the day (apparently my body thinks it has several hours before she will eat again). And then the battle for nap time began with Ty. One would think that Ty would be so happy to lay down and go to sleep (lord knows I would be), but nope, had to be a battle. Finally at 1:30 PM he laid down on the couch and fell asleep.

So now both kids are sleeping, laundry is still going (lots of stuff to wash up and each load takes about 3.5 hours), and Jay is out fetching our internet box and storage units for our clothes. I am feeling so blessed with how well things have gone, all things considered. As soon as I publish this blog I am going to lay down and close my eyes. Hopefully I will get a few minutes of snoozing before the fun begins again. If not, though, I will just roll with it. 🙂

I knew I was an emotional person, but all of these goodbyes are really getting to me. This week some of our bestest friends surprised us with a going away party with a lot of our Quad City friends. I was totally surprised, and instantly got choked up. I didn’t think I would have the time or the energy to plan a proper goodbye in town, so Jay and I are very grateful for our friends that took it upon themselves to plan everything without me having to put an ounce of energy into it. Really going to miss them.

And then today I had to give my goodbye speech to my co-workers in Treasury. Again, lots of tears. I didn’t make it through my first sentence without shedding a tear, and cried throughout the whole thing. It wasn’t a very composed speech, but it came from the heart. I know I am so fortunate to have had the pleasure of working in such an awesome department for 4.5 years. Since many of my blog readers have gone through Treasury over the years, but weren’t at the goodbye presentation today, I wanted to share what I had to say. I am really going to miss Treasury!

Here’s the speech, and yes I realize that it is kind of cheesy…

A few weeks ago I was shopping at Wallace’s and I saw this adorable sign that said, “just when the caterpillar thought her life was ending she turned into a beautiful butterfly.” That phrase struck a chord in me, and if I think back about my life, I could apply those words to describe many situations I have found myself in. I think that the first 8 years of my career at Deere, I was a caterpillar.
Many of you have probably heard me say this, but for those of you that haven’t, I came to treasury kicking and screaming. I was terrified of everything about the place. It was finance, and by golly I was an accountant. It was full of workaholics, and some of the smartest people in the company. I had no idea what a derivative, a yield curve, or a conduit was. Pretty sure I didn’t even know what commercial paper was. But I was kind of stuck. I could either live in Waterloo without my husband for an unknown period of time, or I could suck it up and go work in Treasury. So, on April Fools Day in 2009, I officially became a treasury employee. I literally thought my career was over, because I was most certainly going to fail. I even asked Steve Holmes, one of our former Directors, what my backup plan would be if things didn’t work out. The thing is, nobody in treasury was going to let me fail. Everyone, in a way, was building me a cocoon. Over the 4.5 years that I have been here, I feel like I have grown more as an employee and a person than I ever thought imaginable. Thank you all for helping me spread my wings.
I am looking at this next chapter in my life in much the same light. Am I nervous about packing up my husband and kids, leaving my home, my friends, my family, my dog, and my Treasury behind and move to the other side of the world? Absolutely. But I would be a fool not to give it a whirl.
And of course, if anyone wants to make the 24 hour trip to Australia, you have a place to stay. 🙂