Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Down Under!

Hi, we live in a hotel!!  Sounds fun, right! Well you are right it is awesome! Someone comes in everyday and takes out our *rubbish, changes our sheets, gives us new clean towels, and fluffs our pillows!  However, hotel life can get pretty boring! So to keep busy I highly recommend some of the following options.

Races in the halls! I'm sure this is not bothersome to anyone!
 
Buy your kids expensive toys to keep them entertained!  Maybe next time I won't let him choose one that makes noise! 
And of course the lovely iPads! Don't leave home with out them!

 
Lots and lots of playing UNO.  Just a side note…the UNO cards were $9 at the local grocery store! Wowsa!
 
Lastly, we end our night with a photo shoot!

Here is the lovely view from our balcony hotel room. We are about 20 minutes east of the city. 

I need to be better about taking my camera out with me during the day so you can see more of the suburbs. Boston can not get over that they have no mountains.  He just keeps saying, "but Mom why do they not have mountains!!!"  He also is so sad that we will have no snow come Christmas.  Me on the other hand is pretty pumped about it!  I am sure on Christmas and stuff it will be so odd and I will hate it!
The kids started school today and they really liked it.  It is very different than at home.  Lillie is in *prep school.  There are about 20 kids in her class.  However, they have 3 teachers.  She goes all day which is different than at home as well.  Which I picked her up from class her teacher told me that she was smothered all day and the kids loved listening to her talk because she had an accent!  She made lots of new mates! Boston, is in grade 1.  However, they do grades 1 and 2 together but they have 4 or so teachers and about 35 kids total in both grades.  They do more of groups of 3 and 4 at a time for main subjects like literacy, math, and science.  For things like art, *music, and swimming they go as a group.  He met some new friends as well.  He is pretty excited about the uniforms that they get to wear.  He wore his jacket all day with pride!  He also asked if when he come home in two years if he could bring it home with him! :)

So to my mothers out there!  We are alive.  I would not go as far as to say we are LOVING it!  I think each day will get easier and easier.  I have now not only driven but today I drove all by myself!  It is little things like that that make me realize not only CAN I do hard things but that i AM doing hard things.  However, as cheesy as it sounds I feel the Lord looking out for us.  Just when I want to give up a song comes on the radio that reminds me of something good from home.  Or, I get an e-mail or someone face times us.


We had church on Sunday because we are a day ahead of  the states.  Church was really good.  We are in the Wantirna South ward.  We meet at a pretty big meeting house and directly behind the church is the Melbourne Temple.  That was really neat for the kids to see.  The temple is so beautiful.  The Bishop invited us over for dinner.  We had spaghetti with meat (*lamb) balls.  Yummy, right?!  The family was so nice and sweet.  We really felt very welcome by his family.  My favorite part is probably that his oldest daughter like to babysit! Wahoo!!!  Anyway, I know this post was long but I just wanted to fill everyone in on whats going on down under!

Our daily Aussie Slang
*rubbish:  trash
*Prep School is just like kindergarten just a different name for it
*The music classes are awesome here.  Boston can either start learning piano, guitar, or drums!   
*lamb- the lamb here is actually quite good!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

13598 kilometers or 8450 miles or 7342 nautical miles


What do all those numbers mean? You mean you don’t know?  Well that is the exact km or miles or nautical miles (no clue what that even means) between Salem and Melbourne, Australia!  So please all you marathon runners…come and visit me…won’t you?

Melbourne, Australia

It has “un”officially began!  I can hardly believe it!  We put our house up for sale on KSL on July 5th!  On July 18th we received an offer, countered (cause that is the game you have to play), and then counter offered (blah), and ACCEPTED!  It all moved really fast after that!  Between packing, sorting, yard selling, trips to the D.I., and of course the dump we made it out of our first home!  August 17th is a day I will never forget.  Such a bittersweet day for me.  It was our first home.  We built this house, it was our house, I brought Lillie and Paxton home to that house as sweet newborns, I cried in that house, I laughed in that house, I met some of the best friends in that house!  I learned so many great life lessons in that house!  Birthdays were celebrated, milestones were reached, and anniversaries celebrated! My kids had amazing friends, our neighbors were amazing, and it was just all around amazing!  My heart still aches a little when I think of it and I know that it is not mine anymore! 

Moving on.  Literally.

We are now the newest residents of Woodland Hills.  We are the  “30 year old” married couple that lives with our parents.  Rock on!  We were watching the news when they did a segment on how the rates of married people that are living with parents are going up and up!!! We all kinda sat there and then it donned on us….uh that’s us!!!  On the bright side this is only a transition period for us. 

We move down under on October 2nd!  I can’t believe it.  In less than a month I will be on to our big “ADVENTURE!!”  ps if you see me and you are smart you will not call my Australian escapade an “adventure!”  If you’re smart!

It is so weird to feel so many emotions about one thing.  It is kinda like having a baby.  Excited, nervous, scared, and at the end of the day you know your whole world is going to change.  My heart aches already for things that I haven’t even left yet.  It aches for my kids as well.  We are losing grandparents, aunts, sisters, cousins, uncles, brothers, friends, school, neighbors, and well everything that we have known.  When I get overwhelmed, like anxiety attack overwhelmed all I have to do is look at my sweet husband.  I am so proud of him.  He has worked so hard to be where he is at in his career.  He has put in hours of hard work, tons of traveling away from us, and the list could go on.  He is always my biggest fan.  Always.  When I have my highest of highs or my lowest of lows.  I know that he will be there to tell me I am beautiful and the best mom ever.  So in the end I feel so honored to finally be there for him.   Even if that means packing up my cute little family and going 8,540 miles away from everything we know.

So, as we are about to go down under!  Please join us on this experience! Aw, who am I kidding! This ADVENTURE!  It should be fun…

Until next time mate!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Pax's ParTay!

















2nd 1/2 of Life

I did a post back in September with the first half of Pax's short year of life and so now...sadly...onto the 2nd half!  
October
November

December
January
February


March


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Surf's Up

Provo Beach Resort!!!
one word.....FUN!!

Owe!
Ouchie!
That's going to leave a mark!
Look at us...bruise free!
Got a hang of it!
Boo ya!




Right on!
Totally tubular!

Now this is how us girls like to surf!
Dry!
Ouch Free!!!









Happy Birthday Jared!
Love you lots!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

~My Little Pony~

I seriously can't believe my little imaginateer (yes I just made that word up) is 4!  Wow, do I just love this little girl!  She is so fun and comes up with the craziest things! I honestly don't know what I would do without her sweet spirit in our home.  She is a very easy child who usually just goes with the flow!

A couple weeks ago she decided that she loves loves loves "My Little Pony!"  So we went with it and she loved it!


Patiently waiting for her friends to come! 
How cute are her little friends!


She kinda took charge of her own party.  She told them they needed to get a crayon. Color. Tell her their favorite My Little Pony. When it was time to open presents and so on.  I kinda felt like I didn't need to be there.  She had it under control.

My two cute little helpers!


The Decor...always important!!

Getting ready to open presents.....
(is she not the cutest thing in the whole world)

Love her expression!!!

oh....giving hugs of thanks!  
We had such a fun little day with her and her cute friends!  Girls are just SOOO much different than rowdy boys!  However, tears were shed because feelings did get hurt!  So I guess some things just always stay the same! ;)