Parents.💑

Do I have a couple of good lookin’ parents, or what?!  Mom and Steven had a fantastic time visiting my brother out in Wyoming.  Next time, we are all going with.  This girl needs the mountains… 

 Relo.📝

I am trying to attack this whole “move my family from one side of the world to the other while at the same time selling and buying a house stateside” in a calm and logical manner.  I am trying to take one day at a time.  I am trying not to let my self-diagnosed OCD take over too much and make me crazy.  Trying…  Oh how I wish I could just snap my fingers and WA-LA!!  we are all settled in Des Moines.  *sigh*. Every night we spend time making a list and checking it twice – only I haven’t even started thinking about Chrismas shopping, other than that I have to do it all online this year.  We make late night phone calls to people assisting with the relo stateside.  Then we wake up in the middle of the night, and give in to the temptation to check our phones to find out what new info has come through email.  And then we wake up and do the same.  And then more early morning phone calls.  I have been trying to keep it all organized in a One Note file (amazing software if you haven’t tried it before), which is helping a bit.  What info to send now, what to send later, who to organize to do what, how much to list our house for, how quickly will it sell, how am I going to get a U.S. Notary to sign sale documents when there isn’t a U.S. embassy in Brisbane (finally got that sorted!), what job will I be doing, who is going to do my job here, how am I going to teach that person everything I have learned in 2 years, what house are we going to buy, who is going to list our house, who is going to help buy a new home, who can do a bond cleaning in Australia, what do we need to pack in our checked bags, what do we need to send in our (tiny) air shipment, how are we going to get Brumby home, where are we going to live until we find a new home, what school will Ty go to, what daycare will Lily go to, what are we going to put into storage, what are we going to store at Jess’s house, what repairs need to be made to our Davenport home, when are we having Christmases with everyone, what, when, who, where????!!!!!  The only thing I know for certain is the why…because it is time to go home.  It will all come together.  But I can’t guarantee I won’t go a little crazy before it does.  Apologies in advance…

And on top of it all, work is a teensy bit crazy.  We have testing going on that is pulling my team and I away from our normal work for 2 weeks, we had an employee on leave for 2 weeks, and I was trying to find a suitable replacement for a team member that got a new job – so I’m training someone new, as well.  And I’m leading a project to try and get Six Sigma Orange Belt certified.  So yeah, I might be a little bit overwhelmed at the moment.  Breathe.  Thankfully my team is awesome and have handled it all like champions.  I’m really proud of them.

Nanny cam.📷

This was the second week of the spring school holidays.  Ty went to vacation care a couple days – on cooking day and scooter day.  Em kept both kids entertained the other days.  Not surprisingly, her social calendar is always jam packed.  Play dates, swim parties, sanctuary cove, they didn’t sit around much.  When they were home, Em had a stack of fun new activities to keep their brains working and them all entertained.  And she kept up with the laundry, housework, and cooking.  Have I mentioned before how thankful I am to have her in our lives?  I cannot imagine how hard these next few months would be without her.  Look at how much fun my kids had with Auntie Em this week! 

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   
School.🍎

I had to choke back some tears this week.  I sent a note to the Junior Admin office at Ty’s school, and I copied in the lady that I got to know fairly well from calling every fortnight for 8 months checking to see how Ty’s progress on the St Stephens wait list was going.  I wrote a nice little note about how sad we are that Ty won’t be continuing his education at St Stephens, and that we hope that Ty’s departure can make another child’s family as happy as we were when we found out we could enroll Ty.  I got a lovely email back and had to choke back the tears.  The first near-tear of what will be an emotional few months ahead.

List.🏡

Thank goodness for awesome in-laws!  On basically a moment’s notice, Jay’s parents packed an overnight back, some DVDs, and hopped in the car on a 5 hour road trip to our home in Davenport.  They stopped and picked up a Caseys pizza for dinner.  

Side track…I am literally salivating at the thought of a piece of Caseys pizza.  Yes, a gas station DOES make the world’s best pizza.  Back on track…

We had arranged for 2 realtors to come to the home to do a market analysis and determine the most ideal list price for the home.  The appointments happened in Iowa while I was “sleeping” in Australia.  I didn’t sleep much at all.  I don’t know why I was so anxious about it – I suppose because it is the first major step in this whole process.  It is getting real, people.  I got updated from Kirk and Sherry at midnight, 3:30 AM, and again at 6:00 AM.  They took me on a FaceTime tour of my own home to see how they had staged everything.  They are amazing.  The house looks amazing.  Someone is going to be really lucky to end up in that gem of a home.  

Neighbors.👥

Speaking of amazing.  Let me just take a minute to give a shout out to a couple people that have made sure the house stayed amazing while we have been away for 2 years.  First, our neighbor and friend, who Ty calls Mr. Paul.  He has mowed our lawn, pulled our weeds, trimmed our fence line, shoveled our snow, checked our house out, kept an eye on our renters, COUNTLESS TIMES.  I know that at times it was quite stressful for him.  Best neighbor ever.  Another reason why whoever buys our home is getting a gem – bonus!! Awesome neighbors!!

And then Briana, the worlds best cleaning lady.  I can say she is the world’s best because I am on the other side of the world and I have experienced the world’s worst cleaning lady.  She has done monthly cleans for us (when the house wasn’t rented), she has been our eyes on the ground when renters have moved out to make sure everything looked just like how it was when we left, and she has somehow, miraculously, kept it looking spotless.  Even after the potheads moved out.  Life lesson – don’t let the Harvard and Princeton degrees fool you.  Apparently they don’t teach cleanliness and respect for other people’s property at those schools.  Picture a pot smoker.  Do you generally speaking consider them really clean people?  (Sorry if this offends any potsmokers reading this blog – just going off of experience and observations here…). If there are some clean pot smokers in the world, the ones that were living in our house for 3 months were NOT the clean type.  Poor Briana almost cried when she walked in the house after they moved out.  Apparently they had 2 big dogs living there, and they did not pick up a broom or run the vacuum a single time while they were there.  She had to empty the vacuum canister 6 times on just the main floor.  And she went through 15 buckets of water to mop the floors.  Normal for us was 3 buckets.  Nasty.  So yeah, she is definitely the world’s best cleaning lady.  QC friends, let me know if you want her info.

Other neighbors have chipped in, as well.  Mike has done some random yard work for us.  Tim and Kathy are taking care of some maintenance issues that need to be done before we sell the house.  I’m really going to miss the Leaf Lake neighborhood.

Garden.🌴

Saturday we decided we better tackle the gardens.  We hadn’t done much to clear out dead stuff since last spring, and apparently we shouldn’t have waited that long.  We spent 5 whole hours on the gardens.  Em risked her life by clearing the bushes along the shark infested canals.  She was fearless about climbing back into the overgrown palm leaves to thin the dead stuff out.  We pulled weeds, we cut stuff, we raked, we trimmed, we mulched.  And we didn’t die. How do I know?  Because I can feel the pain.  This might take a while to get over…  Check out the size of our rubbish pile.  This doesn’t include the 2 big bags of rubbish that Jay and Ty had already taken to the dump.  Incredible.   There is a cute little bird that loves what we did to the place – he has made himself at home when the sliding doors are all open…

    
    
   
Pool.🏊🏻

The best part about doing yard work at this house, is that when we finish the work, we get to jump in the pool to cool off.  It was finally warm enough for Jay and the kids to get in the big pool.  Em and I stayed in the hot tub – for the warmth and the jets on our aching bodies.  I am really going to have to figure out how to get a pool in Des Moines…

Swag.⛺️

Em got to use her new swag for the first time this weekend.  She went to one of her horse friend’s 50th birthday party and camped out.  She is a brave soul.  No way would I sleep on the ground in this country – too many things close to the ground waiting to kill you…  She had a fantastic time at the party.  I love that she has made such great friends here – and I love that they can get a laugh like this one out of her. 

   
Movie World.🎢

Sunday morning Jay and I took the kids to Movie World.  It is so nice to be able to have a season pass to a theme park that is 5 minutes from the house.  We spent a couple hours wandering around, the kids rode a few rides, we had lunch, and came home.  When Jay got home from the gym, the boys jumped in the pool to cool off.  Summer is definitely coming! 

    
    
    
 Grand Final.🏉

I have to admit that even after 2 years I don’t understand the difference between the 2 rugby leagues here.  One of the 2 of them had their championship game on Sunday night – Broncos vs Cowboys.  Jay likes the Broncos, so we all do too.  :). We met the Coen’s for dinner at the tavern and watched the first half of the game.  The kids and I were not that interested in it, and Em was exhausted from the night before, so we went home and called it a night.  Jay and Brian had a great time, even though the Broncos lost.  

Boat. 🚤

Monday was Labour Day in Queensland, so we had the day off.  It was going to be a perfect boating day so we asked Walter, the guy that will be replacing Jay when we leave, if he wanted to go for a boat ride.  Twist his arm…  We went up to Jumpin’ Pin first.  The kids fell asleep, so I stayed on the boat with them while Em, Jay and Walter hiked over to the surf side and played in the ocean a bit.  When the kids woke, we played in the sand and water.  When the tide came in, Lily LOVED splashing around in the shallow water.  Ty was pumping yabbies with some other kids.  We decided to have a late lunch and went to Tipplers for a bite to eat, before heading back home.  Beautiful day.  In the words of Auntie Em…BEACH HAIR, DONT CARE!

   
Netball.🏀

Em and I played netball Monday night, in what was quite possibly the worst showing ever.  We lost.  I hate losing.  Serves us right for having the sun steal all of our energy…

Term 4.

Ty started Term 4 on Tuesday.  I can’t believe he has nearly finished a year of school!  This term he gets to go swimming one day a week with his class.  We also signed him up for tennis lessons twice a week.  Should be a fun term for him!

G’day mates!