I Heart You

Now that our belongings are here, we've enjoyed several days of playing around the house, just like old times.  Caden, the sweet, sweet heart that he is likes to show me just how much he loves me sometimes by bringing me pictures he's drawn, and most recently by filling his Nintendo DS screen with hearts (see below).

  About a week ago he was busy playing with play dough, when he came up to me in the kitchen and said he had something to show me.  When I stopped to ask what it was, he drew his hands from behind his back and showed me the pink heart he had made just for me.  Be still MY beating heart!  Why do they ever have to grow up?

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.  

They Say When One Door Closes...

...another one opens.

Welcome to a virtual tour of our virtually empty new house.

This is our Queenslander.  That's what they call this style of house, which was probably built in the early 1900's.  They were designed to be raised off the ground with high ceilings in order to capture the beautiful breezes that blow through the city constantly.  Not sure how old this house is, but it definitely has that charming old house look and feel.  

The Front

The Back

The Great Room View One

The Great Room View Two

The Rumpus Room

The Bathtub...something I completely took for granted and never will again!  Lots of homes over here don't have bathtubs, I think because of the space restrictions.  I just happen to have three kids that are terrified of taking showers.  You'd think after 6 weeks they would learn to adjust.  Yeah, so did I.  

And a few fun shots of our life camping out at a near empty house.

Hallie crashed on the floor.

Caden & Marin and their new favorite toy: boxes.

Caden's version of organizing his toys in his new closet.

The kids enjoying their favorite vantage point 

on the back upstairs deck.

Lunch, picnic style!

Hallie navigating the staircase.

Belongings are now confirmed for delivery on Monday, July 5th.  Next time join us for photos of a furnished home!  

Quick Note

It's been a few weeks now since I last posted. Truth be told, I haven't much had the stomach for blogging.  I've been too busy, too stressed, or too tired. We are finally in our house and have gotten the good news that our shipment is at port and should be released later this week.  We are expecting delivery this Friday, July 2nd, with a chance that it will be over the weekend or at the latest Monday, July 5th.  What a day of independence for us! It is so very much time to stop living out of suitcases and go back to having things like cheese shredders, trash cans, hangers, extra blankets and familiar towels at our disposal.  It's been a solid two months now since we last saw most of our possessions and it's definitely been a lesson in patience.  It's also been eye opening about what we can really live without!

The kids have been troopers.  Considering everything we've been through to transition to this new adventurous life, they have come through with flying colors...and a couple of tantrums.  I think all three could have been handed an award for most creative, worst timing melt downs over the past few weeks, but generally speaking they have handled everything well.

Cory is enjoying his job and gearing up for the onslaught of work that is landing on his desk.  The company has been amazingly flexible in allowing him to focus on his personal business first and get his family settled, which has been a huge blessing.  That said, his purpose here is to work, and it's time to get geared up.

I promise to myself and anyone following that very soon there will be more to look at and hear about as we finish the last of our to-do list in getting settled: move belongings in, buy car, get kids in school.

Would You Cuddle a Koala?

Well...we did!  Last weekend we packed up the Heitzmann gang and went to check out the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It's a little zoo-type place right here in Brisbane, in an area called Fig Tree Pocket, where you can get up close and personal with the little critters and other native Australian wild life. We found it difficult to start a phrase with the word "lone" and not say "star" afterwards!  Anyway, we walked right in and spotted these guys right away.

The word koala is aboriginal for "no drink" because koalas hardly ever need to drink any water since their main diet of Eucalyptus leaves is 50% water already.  

They even had koala mommies and their babies.

Then we decided to join the ranks of Taylor Swift, Eric Clapton, The Queen of England, etc., and have our photo taken with a furry marsupial. Here we are giving "Bentley" a cuddle.  You can tell the kids weren't as interested in taking the photo as we thought they would be.

Even more fun than meeting Bentley, however, was the sanctuary's kangaroo reserve.  You walk through a gate to 5 acres of open fields and, yes, kangaroos. They have over 130 roos and wallabies just hanging out waiting to be fed and pet. It was an amazing experience and the kids had a blast.

  

They also had Tasmanian Devils, dingos, wombats, crocodiles, and lots more to look at.  I snapped these shots of some of the common birds here.  The Lorikeets are awesome - they are as prevalent here as Mockingbirds are in Texas.  I still get excited when I see one, which I'm sure is ridiculous to locals.  

I've only seen a couple of Kookaburras so far, but they have the wildest laugh.  It sounds a bit like a howler monkey, in case you've had the privilege of hearing them.  Loud and haunting. A fun little tidbit about Kookaburras is that they mate for life, so once they find "the one" the settle down and raise a family.  Reminds me of the Friends episode about Lobsters...I digress.

So that's our latest adventure.  I would highly recommend this stop to anyone new or visiting Australia.  You hear about the koalas and kangaroos as epic symbols of this country, so it's a must to experience them in such a personal setting.

Happy Birthday to Daddy!

Cory celebrated his thirty-something birthday (yes I know which one it was) on May 27th.  We had already agreed that it wouldn't be a spectacular birthday in terms of "things", but special nonetheless. 

The kids and I went to a bakery nearby and picked out a birthday cake.  Marin, the big girl, carried it home all by herself.

Then they each worked on a birthday card for daddy during the afternoon.

 

We had everything set up for him when he got home from work.

The kids couldn't wait to give him their personalized cards...

...or to blow out the candles.  

And so our family's only spring birthday is over and we have to wait until September to eat more cake :(

A Surfer's Paradise

A few weekends ago we were dying to get out of town, so we headed in the obvious direction of a place on the Gold Coast called Surfer's Paradise.  And yes, it does look a bit like paradise, only with high rises.  We arrived in the middle of the day and were surprised how much it DIDN'T feel like winter when we got to the beach.  Unfortunately we came dressed like city folk and were not prepared at all for the kids to play on the beach.  Here are the few pics we got before Hallie was drenched in saltwater and covered in sand and we had to head out.  That said, we will definitely be back with our swimsuits and shovels!