Summit

The day after Christmas we headed to the Snowy Mountains & Great Dividing Range for an overnight adventure to climb Mt. Kosciuszko, which is the highest peak on the Australian continent. (And, just to be clear, it's the tiniest of the seven summits and probably the only one I'll ever scale. And the overnight was in a motel, not huddled on the side of the mountain in tents.)

What a glorious day. Walking under blue skies, a light breeze, and sunshine with those five dears was a highlight of the year for me. We've been separated so often this year, it felt like such a blessing just to be together, chatting and laughing and teasing our way up a mountain. I wanted to stay there forever.

It put me in mind of this quote, which I have posted before but can't resist doing again:

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know"
~Rene Daumal, Mount Analogue

And so, today we descend from mountain peaks and joy-filled holidays to mountains of laundry and putting away Christmas (and sunburns!). Soon Lauren will leave and it will be four again. But. We will remember the summit and hopefully will conduct ourselves in the lower regions by the memory of what we saw higher up. And we'll get there again, eventually. 

Calm and merry and bright

Our first Aussie Christmas...'twas good!  All is calm, all is bright kept running through my head all day and that perfectly sums it up, with some merry thrown in. We reveled in the day, including:

family together (including second cousin Craig who's in Oz doing an internship and L home from uni, hooray!),

a great Christmas brunch (not pictured: G's aebleskivers and bacon),

thoughtful cards and gifts (this was a card Sam made for Maddy),

time to enjoy them,

good books and reading,

playing with our new toys,

an epic nerf battle (and pajamas all day),

and music,

lots of music (can you tell G loves his new acoustic bass?).

Sending all the best to you! I hope your day is joyful and hyggelig. I'm really grateful for the chance to connect with you through this simple blog, for the family and friends who check in on us here and for the new friends I've made over the years. And also for the therapeutic aspect of having an outlet to write plus the chance to document a few of the joys in our lives. Thanks for meeting me here now and then.

Well, today's Boxing Day here and we're off to see the Les Mis movie and then on a bit of a roadtrip adventure. More soon.

May your days be merry and bright!

advent tree

As the movers carried our Christmas tree box into the house last month they called to me, "you Americans sure like your Christmas trees, don't you?"

Yes. Yes, we do. We brought an artificial tree here, unsure whether fresh pine trees would be available or affordable (turns out not really, on either count). We didn't bring many of our holiday decorations but I was adamant about the tree. I placed her in the kitchen bay window the day after Thanksgiving, gently yoking her with the laden task of making us feel holidayish in the midst of a heatwave*. 

And it's mostly worked. Well, the lights worked with the adapter for about 15 minutes. They burned manically bright and then, a few minutes later, Sam called "Um...the lights are flickering!" and by the time I came into the room they had dimmed and some had gone out. But no matter.  Just her green presiding presence--almost matriarchal--makes me feel grateful and full hearted. 

She's not fully dressed yet, our tree. We're waiting to fully decorate her until we are all five here together, which will be about December 20th. In the meantime, I decided to use it for a simple advent tree for the kids (especially since apparently I didn't feel as adamant about bringing our old beloved playmobil advent set). I rounded up some craft paper envelopes, plain old labels cut into flags, and a mix of goodies and fun activities as contents to reveal each day. (Never mind that I missed the first three days or that the later day envelopes don't actually have anything inside yet. Baby steps.)

 She's a work in progress but, as I'm feeling keenly lately, aren't we all?

*Over the weekend it was 97 degrees. That was when I had epiphany #45098: The first Christmas took place in a warm climate, too. So I decided to just embrace it, move on and get festive.

We gathered together

When I was young, my dad periodically oversaw some international university students and we sometimes invited them to our house for dinner. One year we invited a man from Africa to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, along with our friend Aldena, an older woman (and quite a character) in our neighborhood who often joined us for holidays.  

Midway through the dinner, Aldena politely asked the man, "So what do you eat for Thanksgiving in Africa?"

The man paused for a moment and then replied, "Well, we don't have Thanksgiving there."  

"You don't?  Oh, my.  Really?  I can't imagine." Aldena was aghast and very disappointed in the continent of Africa and their apparent unthankfulness.

All of this is just to say: of course Australia doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, the holiday marking that feast when the indians graciously gathered with and welcomed the newly arrived pilgrims to the American continent. It's just a regular old work and school day here...but that didn't mean we were going to ignore one of our favorite days of the year.  So we pulled the kids out of school for the day, went to a movie matinee in the morning (Skyfall, which opened yesterday here), came home and made lemon meringue pies and stuffing, and then joined friends at their house for a gathering of expats and Australians. It was a terrific Thanksgiving feast with all of the traditional fixings. (Which was no small feat, really. It's harder to find turkey here. Or shortening. And canned pumpkin is non-existent.)

See the guy in the red ^? He is my second cousin, Craig. I'd never met him but I knew from his last name that we were probably related and sure enough, his dad Chuck is my mom's cousin so our grandmothers are sisters. He's doing an post-grad internship with Major League Baseball here in Canberra. (Maddy works for him there.) We were happy to have a family connection here. Such a small world.

Also? Kathleen, the dark-haired woman at the head of the table looking right at the camera, is a long-lost cousin on that same branch of the family tree (we just figured this out a couple of weeks ago). She is my mom's second cousin; her grandfather was my mom's grandfather's brother, both Brockbanks. So here we three are, halfway around the world in the same city, in the same ward, at the same time, from the same family tree. Lovely!

This year we're the new arrivals on a new continent. There's so much to be thankful for, especially for close and faraway family and friends. Love to you all. And Happy Thankgiving!

Low key Halloweening

 

Happy Halloween! It isn't a huge deal here but the US embassy has a party this afternoon and our stake has a youth party tonight so they'll be well Halloweened. Hats off to M&S who came up with pretty terrific costumes from what they had on hand + a quick trip to the store. (Maddy would want me to add that she is not shorter than Sam; I just took the photos from different perspectives. Sam would want me to add that it's getting close, though!) 

May your Halloween be as cozy and crazy and spooky as you want it to be. Shuffle through some leaves, light a jack o'lantern, and definitely have a Reese's peanut butter cup for us!