Christmas in July

It was exactly 1,752 hours (or 73 days) since we last saw our belongings being hauled off on this truck...

...when another beautiful truck finally pulled up in front of our new house.  It was like magic...well not really.  More like a bunch of work!

Moving day was stressful to say the least, but I have never been so grateful for the huge mess that quickly ensued.  It literally took all day (9am - 5pm) to unload the three trucks that 

contained our things.  And, we learned a lot about how 

an overseas move works.  

First, the company moving us came to our house in Houston and packed everything and inventoried it.  

Then our container left the Port of Houston by train to Long Beach, California and was loaded onto a ship to Singapore and eventually made it to Brisbane.  Overall, our beds, couch, plates, clothes, etc. travelled more than 8,348 miles from Houston to Brisbane.  **Sidenote: I love that when I plugged this info into Google Maps it told me to "kayak across the Pacific Ocean until you reach Hawaii".  Sure, right on that.** 

Anyway, upon arrival at the Port of Brisbane, our container was quickly unpacked, checked at customs and taken to our moving company's warehouse.  There it was separated into multiple groups - wood, quarantine concern, and good-to-go.  Quarantine officers then came to inspect the wood and quarantine concern groups before final clearance could be obtained.  Australia is one of the most difficult places to ship items into because of their strict quarantine laws.  Since the country is an island, they have been able to keep many of the animal and plant diseases that have plagued other parts of the world at bay through these restrictive practices.  You are not allowed any food or natural material items.  Plus, anything that has been in contact with soil, animals, the outdoors, etc., must be washed thoroughly.  We were advised not to bring our outdoor furniture, camping equipment, baskets, our artificial Christmas tree, even our knife block.  It took us weeks to go through all of our belongings and weed out the items we thought might pose a risk upon inspection.  We even cleaned our bicycles, which you couldn't have paid us to leave behind! Here the kids are washing enthusiastically.

Needless to say, we were relieved that we didn't hit any snags along the way like strikes, bad weather, or full quarantine inspection.  The kids were so happy to see their toys and beds, you couldn't get them to stop smiling...or playing! It really was like Christmas had come in the middle of July.  

The girls had fun playing in the mess that was the packing paper from all of our 274 boxes.  Yes, that's right...274 items and boxes were shipped.  I liked to have never thought we'd get through all of that.  But we did, and now we feel a bit more "settled in" a phrase that all of my kids have picked up now that we have been using it as the end-all-be-all of this enormous move.  You can't see Marin in this picture.  She is literally buried underneath all the paper!

So, we've pretty much moved in and are ready for the fun to 

start!  Moving across the world is definitely not for sissies!  It's been a long haul of a transition, but it's truly amazing 

what one can learn about their culture, their friends, their family and most of all their priorities and themselves.  

What an incredible blessing that has been given to us.  The enormity of this opportunity for personal growth has 

definitely not been lost on us.  From one living room to another, only certain things truly matter in this life.