I am never moving again.  Ever.  Never ever.  

Well, until another exciting opportunity arises that I cannot resist…

I suppose moving is a bit like having a second baby.  You generally forget the crap you had to go through to bring Thing 1 into the world and decide to go for Thing 2.

So here’s how the week has gone.  Monday Jay went to work.  Ty is signed up for art classes with Miss Betty all day every day this week.   

 I packed.  And packed. And packed some more.  10 suitcases plus a few carry ons.  All lining the walls in the old toy room.

Our air shipment pile is looking good.  I am fairly confident everything will fit.  Fingers crossed!  I have a “last to pack” pile of more stuff I can part with without too many tears, but would love to send home if possible.  

Almost all of the items that we sold to people at the office are gone – only exceptions are the bean bags and pool chair for seating.

A couple boxes of clothes and shoes packed for Fiji.  Several bags of clothes and toys for The Sisterhood.

I think I sat down for 5 minutes on Monday, just enough time to stuff a ham sandwich in my mouth. 

 Our neighbors, Alicia, Taj, and Hudson stopped by Monday night to see if the kids wanted to go over for one last play.  Alicia has been such a sweet neighbor.  All of our kids play so well together.  I am going to miss them.  She brought over a thoughtful little gift – some Aussie tea towels and 2 picture frames – one with Lily, Taj and Hudson, and one with Ty and Taj.  I’m sad to think about the fact that those kids won’t be growing up together, cruising down the Coomera river on their tinnies in 10 years…  Alicia kept the kids at her house for quite a while, even fed them dinner, which gave us adults more time to do some uninterrupted packing.  One last play…

Roo.

We are sadly unable to take Roo, our concrete kangaroo, home with us.  She was prohibited from being sent home in the back of the ute, which was our plan when we bought her.  And she is just too heavy for me to feel OK about air shipping home – after working in supply chain for 2 years, I am fully aware of the cost of air shipping stuff, especially heavy stuff.  I was exhausted so I put the kids to bed while Jay and Em loaded up Roo on the buggy and abandoned her in the front yard of the Coen’s home.  Like anytime you abandon a family member in a foreign country, it was sad and difficult to leave her behind, but we are confident she is in good hands. 

    
 Rental.

Tuesday morning Jay stayed home (thank god) to assist with the rental furniture removal, more packing, and helping watch Lily.  Em’s back is a hot mess so she does what she can but we are trying to get her fixed up before the long trip home.  We watched the boys pack up all of the things that we have looked at and used for two years, and put it in a truck, never to be seen again.  Kind of sad…  The beds, the couches, the chairs, the TV (lily wasn’t happy to see those go…), the fridges, the dishes, the pots and pans.  Gone.  By 2:00, the house was nearly empty, the only remaining items were the things to go into the air shipment and donations.  The house echoes when we talk.  Empty.

Tiger.

We handed over the keys to Tiger, our beloved buggy.  This was not easy.  He was sold to our new neighbors, who I have determined are weird.  The wife has been friendly over text messages, which was how the deal went down, but they have not said two words to us otherwise.  Not the time that Em and I tried to strike up a conversation with the dad about his sweet mustang when he was in the garage.  Not the time that we tried to save their dog from either being eaten by bull sharks or running away when we noticed that he snuck under the fence.  Not the time that we went out to the dock to watch a beautiful sunset and they shut their sliding glass door when Lily shouted a few times. Cold and unfriendly.  And far too wealthy.  I feel guilty sending Tiger to the dark side…  Lily doesn’t understand – when she sees it in the neighbors driveway, she says “Me see Lily buggy”.  I sure hope Santa brings her a new buggy in the US. 

 Sanctuary Cove.

We moved into our first of several temporary homes on Tuesday afternoon.  It is a beautiful holiday home in Sanctuary Cove – very comfortable and fitted with everything we need.  It even has a buggy, Netflix and video games, so Ty is stoked.  We got settled in and went to the pizza and wine bar on the buggy for dinner.  It will be fun to take advantage of all that Sanctuary Cove had to offer this week. 

   
Shipment.

The packer showed up at 10:00 on Wednesday morning to put all of our air shipment items into boxes.  He had quite the process – lined up 7 or 8 boxes and just started shoving stuff in.  Like a giant puzzle.  After getting incredibly stressed about how many boxes we could actually fit into our 2 containers, about 50 phone calls and text messages, and wanting to break down and cry multiple times, Beau finished the packing and sent our stuff on its way.  Wednesday wins the award for the most stressful day of the year.  I am never. Ever. Moving again. 

   
After Beau left, I loaded up the THIRD SUV load of stuff for the Coen’s to take away.  This does not include the countless piles of “free stuff” that we have been taking to the office every day.  I swept out the garage and moved all of our suitcases to the garage so the cleaners could do their thing on Thursday.  Miss Steph and Mr Kyson swung by the house to pick up some things for daycare and the Sisterhood charity.  Jay came home from work and stuck around for the painter to finish patching up a few spots on the walls.  And loaded up another car load of free stuff for the office.  By the time I got back to Sanctuary Cove, I was BEAT.  I am never. Ever. Moving again.

Nanny cam.

Meanwhile, Em and Lily were hanging out at the beach-like pool at Sanctuary Cove.  If you recall, this is the pool that we got kicked out of a long time ago…but since we are “residents” this week, we are not breaking any rules!  Yay!! 

   
Beam.

Linda came over to pick up the balance beam for Charne.  This is how we move things in Hope Island… 

 And this is all we have left…   

 Breakdown.

Jay and Emmy cooked tacos while I put my feet up, sipped a glass of wine, and let a heat pack work its magic on my poor aching shoulders.  At dinner we were rehashing the stress of the day and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.  When I thought about how hard I have worked over the past two months to part with SO MUCH of our belongings, and STILL was pushing the limits on our allotted space, the pent up stress finally got to me.  I was crying and Lily came over serenading me with “Let it go” and gave me a kiss and a cuddle.  Love.  

 Boxing.

After dinner we went for a quick little buggy scoot around the marina.  Jay finally got to see some boxing kangaroos.  They actually grunt when they are fighting.  Awesome.  On our buggy ride, we were throwing out ideas for names for my new car.  Kanga.  Hammo.  Snapper (pronounced “snappah”).  I am leaning towards Snappah.

That’s enough for now.  More fun to round out the week…  I’m going to bed.  G’day mates.