Round trip to Oz

Heigh-ho!

We decided to take a rather last minute, quick house-hunting, school-searching jaunt to Australia. When I say quick, I mean lickety: I was there for all of 3 1/2 days. (And I think it's going to take me at least twice that long to recover! I've been back four days and I'm still staring at my ceiling for a good portion of the night and dragging all day. But it was worth it.)

Sadly, I left G there to start his new job and came home without him. Sigh. We saw houses and made decisions and bought supplies for him for the coming months. As I left I had the odd feeling that I was dropping off my husband at college: the errands, the setting up, and the farewell all had that same melancholy tinge from last fall with Lauren. We will miss him dearly in the meantime but he is occupying himself with traveling around to the different offices he will oversee and getting to know his new role. August, come quickly!

On a brighter note, we loved Canberra, Australia, all of it. We found a great home in a lovely neighborhood called Yarralumla (with the bonus of being deliciously fun to say), across the street from a park and a stone's throw from the lake. It's tremendously comforting to be able to picture where we'll be. G will be able to ride his bike to work and we're less than 10 minutes from church, schools, and just about everything else. That right there is a game changer, folks!

I'm breathing a sigh of relief now that Maddy and Sam have each been offered a place at the schools we were hoping for, the ones that came up most often highly recommended from helpful friends-of-friends and G's work colleagues. Maddy will attend the Canberra Girls Grammar School and Sam will attend Canberra Boys Grammar School. Walking around them both, I felt like I was entering an Australian version of Hogwarts. When we were there, the boys were preparing for a Music Festival that is a competition between the different houses (3 points Griffindor!). It will be so interesting to enter the world of uniforms and houses and cricket and chapel and tutorials.  I know the transition won't necessarily be easy in those first few months but I'm grateful that my kids are up for giving it a go.

Canberra Boys Grammar School

Canberra Girls Grammar School

Now that we've crossed house and schools off of our list, I feel much more at ease with the looming changes. As long as we have a place to feel at home and my kids are (hopefully, forseeably) happy, everything else is just details and will work out in the end. That's true, right? Humor me. Or, I should say, humour me.

p.s. I'm thankful for my mom's willingness to fly out to care for M & S at the drop of a hat (even though she had just visited us here that week before!). My kids loved it and it made the whole thing possible. Thanks, Mom! xo

The kids are all right

When we first brought up the possibility of our Australia adventure, the kids' initial responses were pretty characteristic of their personalities.

Lauren: Cool! When do we find out for sure? Can I come? Can I have one of our cars here at university?

Maddy: (in the middle of G's sentence "my company has an opportunity in Australia-"): YES! Let's do it!

Sam: (quiet, measured look on his face): Hmmm. I don't know. I'll have to think about it.

Keep in mind that we have always talked about how great it would be to live abroad as a family. And that we love to travel and have tried to emphasize experiences over things. On top of all that, we have a pretty strong lineage of wanderlust and adventuring. So, while this opportunity came kind of out of the blue, the concept is not too earthshattering for our offspring.

Even so, as we've absorbed the reality of the enormity of this change, of course all of our initial responses have gone through stages of both tempering and leavening. Sam has gradually warmed to the idea and now is enthused and even predicts he'll want to stay through high school. Lauren remains upbeat and inquisitive but I'm sure she has moments when it feels like we'll be far away (I know I do).*  Maddy has had some sad moments of leaving-itis (e.g., student body elections for next year) sprinkled amidst her excitement. She kindly demonstrated the progression of her emotions:

As I told my parents and sibs recently, it definitely feels like that metaphoric roller coaster ride, complete with adrenaline and the occasional leaden lurching stomach. Weeee...oh no no no....weee! But it will be good, all in all. We'll learn a lot, explore new things, and figure out everything else. Mostly we feel upbeat**, encouraged, and calm in the knowledge that no matter what, we have each other. That will stay the same.

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*L posted this about it on her blog.

** How can you not feel upbeat about Australia when you listen to this?

Crikey: A year with two springs

We have some pretty crazy news. It's part of why I've been so radio silent around here; mum was the word and it is nigh to impossible for me to keep these kinds of things to myself. 

We are stunned/anxious/giddy to announce that we are moving to Australia! G has the opportunity to head up legal there for his company and it's just too tempting an adventure for us to turn down*. We'll live in the capital, Canberra, a small city about 3 hours south of Sydney and are signing the final papers this week (so, truth in advertising, it's more like a 98% chance at this point but I can't hold back any longer).  

We definitely have mixed feelings about leaving our good life here: people, neighborhood, & schools we know and love dearly. It feels a bit like we're playing Let's Make a Deal and we have a lovely, known option of our current life revealed by Door #1 and a mysterious, unknown option behind door #2. We say "Chuck, we'll take our chances with Door #2!" and the audience kind of gasps. Time will tell.

At the moment we're mostly focusing on the good parts of this change: Hosting visitors who will have to tarry a good long while after traveling all that way. Having two springs this year. Exploring a part of the world we've not seen. Warm, sunny Christmases. Possible Aussie twangs in our speech. Saying "shrimp on the barbie" and "crikey" and "g'day mates." Taking up surfing (a bit of a stretch, since we're an hour inland).  No US presidential election commercials on tv. Oh, and two words: Hugh Jackman.

As you can imagine, our heads are spinning a bit at this point. My lists keep multiplying and having lists of their own. This is what we've figured out so far: G will head there in early June and we'll join him by September. He'll come home in between to help with the move and we'll visit family&friends in the west. Or such is the ideal plan at this point, subject to the tinkerings and hammerings life is sure to contribute to it. 

More soon, mates.

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*You might remember that we thought we might go a few years ago. This time 'round they approached G about it and the process moved (mercifully) quite quickly in the last few weeks.