Oh The Places You'll Go...

Hey, it's Mom here! Well, on a friend's blog it says '2 months' since our last blog update. Could it really be THAT long? I mean, we have only packed up, traveled around the world, visited friends, found a rental house and 2 cars, Daniel started his new job....we really have been slacking, haven't we? I invite you to grab a coffee/water/Coke/your beverage of choice and maybe a snack too, sit back and walk through the last couple of months with me...this is going to be a long one!

After the last blog everything really started getting into motion! We had our combined lawn sale with some friends at our house. We got rid of the majority of our things and generally had a good time since 4 of our friends came to sell their stuff too! Carly's friends Nate and Laney were there for a little while at different times so she was thoroughly entertained, even though she was not quite sure why about 50 people descended on our driveway in about a 30 minute period of time! This was our second lawn sale in Alice Springs and they are something of a legend. They start sometime around 7 or 8am and only go for a few hours or until you feel like shutting up shop. We 'started' at 8am but people were arriving at 6.30 and almost everyone was gone by 8. We could have said 'no sales before 8am' but then we might not have sold our stuff, so we just had to suck it up!

That next week (6 weeks before leaving), I got in a fender bender backing out of my friends' (June, Craig, Sawyer, Grayson) driveway. We just didn't have enough going on at the time so I thought I would spice things up. I was backing out, looked both ways and continued backing out when I realized there was some pretty loud crunching of metal and my car had slowed significantly! The only thing I can figure is that he was in my blind spot at the precise moment I looked. We were all fine though a bit shaken. The other guy's car was totally fine but my poor car had not fared so well. One side of the back bumper was dragging on the ground, the trunk was all dented in and would not close and instead of a 'protege' it was now just a 'rotege' 'cause the 'p' had been a casualty of the accident. June and Craig came outside and took the girls in while I talked with the guy I hit (he was totally not worried about his car). Sawyer and Carly were happy to have more time to play and June made sure I was all ok while Craig taped up the 'blue car'. It looked pretty ghetto by the time he was done with duck tape...I think he secretly enjoyed decorating the car! We filed a claim with insurance and got a couple of quotes to get it fixed. The main quote came back at $7,500 to fix the car, but the car was only worth about that much. It took the whole rest of the time we were there (up until the day we left) for everything to come through. They wound up writing off the car and writing us a check, which was the best outcome considering the circumstances.

The prep for moving was pretty monumental, as it always is. Several of our beautiful friends looked after Carly a few times so we could get stuff done around the house in preparation for moving and after that for cleaning. Thankfully, Raytheon paid for our stuff to be packed or it would have been total insanity. The movers came bright and early Tuesday morning, worked the whole day, came back Wednesday morning and finally left at about 5.30pm that day. The house was pretty full of boxes and then very empty feeling! A few times when the guys were packing, Carly exclaimed 'that's my toy!' or something similar but she listened and at least tried to understand when we told her they were just putting it away for us for a while and we would get it back. We walked into the house after being gone for half of the day and Carly just looked around and exlaimed 'whoa! lots of boxes!' Kate did well with the whole thing, of course. She was still very transportable and slept a fair amount of the time which made it not too bad. Certainly, packing up and moving overseas is not something I would recommend to someone else with a 2 1/2 year old and a 3 month old!

The next day we went to our friend Rachel's 1st birthday party at the Telegraph Station and then we started cleaning for our final inspection of the house. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned then worked for hours out in the yard to pull weeds, mow, weed eat, trim bushes, etc. On Sunday (the inspection was Monday) we realized we were going to need help and got a couple of the young men from church around to help us (thanks Josiah and Jono)! The yard probably looked better than it ever had before and the house was pretty spotless. Of course, Monday morning we were taking one last look and realized Carly had colored on the wall with pen in a few places. Why did she have to pick the morning of our inspection to color on the wall for the first time!? We got the pen off with time to spare and passed the inspection with no problems at all. We breathed a huge sigh of relief after that was done, 'cause even though we were still living in the house for 2 weeks, we didn't have to clean again or mow or anything. Yay!

We slowly met with friends to say farewell and had friends come 'shop at the Hendersons' to get rid of food from our pantry, toiletries and cleaning supplies that could not be packed. We took our other car in for service before selling it to our friend Cliff. We celebrated with our friends Beth and Hermes on their engagement. Our friend Brian Carlgren arrived from the USA on May 15th. Qantas had some tickets that were much cheaper than normal so he booked a ticket to come over while we were still there and to help us travel back with all of our junk in tow. Brian saw some old friends, hung out and rested a little, helped us sort out our stuff, run around doing errands and then became our pack mule during the trip back.

Our official church farewell from Alice Springs Baptist Church was on May 17th. This was a highly anticipated event, at least for me. Initially when we were in Alice, it was only for 2 years with maybe another 2 after that. Then we extended for another 2 and a very surprising 2 more after that. Every time someone would be farewelled (a lot 'cause it's a transient town), I would think 'that's going to be us one day'. Because we loved living there, loved the church, were so involved and enjoyed friends and the lifestyle, I knew this would be very hard. Daniel and I prepared something to say ahead of time...well, something for HIM to read since I was pretty sure I would lose it completely if I tried to do it. He did very well, said what we wanted to say and kept his composure, all while holding Kate and his piece of paper at the front of the church! I was pretty impressed that I didn't tear up until the end, when people gathered around to pray for us. It helped that Carly was walking circles around me and talking while Daniel was talking...she was pretty occupying, bless her!

We had a farewell with Janelle, Kim and June and their kids from Mums' Group, complete with yuuuuuuummy food, presents and a car cake. Carly had a great time with all of her friends, eating lots of food and playing. Sawyer gave her a little stuffed rabbit which has now joined the ranks with her bear, so she cuddles both at night. We had our last kindergym then our last Mums' Group, which we held at our house for more 'shopping at the Hendersons'. Kate turned over for the first time right in front of our friend June. I didn't see her do it but I saw that one second she was on her back and the next she was on her tummy. Now she is a total pro at flopping back and forth, rolling all over the place, scooting herself and everything!

Daniel finished up everything at work. Before Brian came, Daniel realized he had a few days of extra vacation up his sleeve. It worked out very well so he was able to take off some time that last week to hang with Brian and help with all the last minute preparation. He had a 'shout' at the bar at work, a combined farwell with another guy who was leaving. I know he enjoyed working at Raytheon in Alice, was challenged by it in his different positions there and learned a lot. But he was also looking forward to the new challenge of working for Apex Capital Corporation and the relative freedom of working outside the classified world (i.e. you can carry a cell phone all the time).

That night (the Friday before we left), Daniel had a guys night at the Indoor Sand Volleyball place and I had a girls night at my house with some people from church. I know the guys had pizza and chips but the girls were very serious about chocolate, with only 1 item out of about 10 being non-chocolate. We all had a great time, at far too much and stayed up too late. Saturday was our big farewell at the Telegraph Station. Our friends the Grells and Moyles organized it, provided food and drink and even a lovely book for our friends to write messages to us. We had a really great time and still feel so blessed to have friends who love us! Thank you!

We were there just long enough to see our church 'official opening' and ordination service for our friend/the pastor Sam Swadling. In the time we were there, the church embarked on a building program for a bigger facility, went through a time without a youth pastor, moved buildings, went through a time without a senior pastor, had changes to staff and services, etc. Though we have been in that building for some time and Sam has been our pastor for some time, it was really good to see the culmination of all of the work and change in the past few years. Monday our friends Sam, Bethany and Carolyn came to help us get to the airport since we didn't have our cars anymore, we all piled in and waved a farewell to our house, got to the airport late, dragged all our stuff in to check in, hung out with friends who had come to the airport and finally said a tearful goodbye.

The flight from Alice to Sydney was pretty trying with Carly testing the boundaries and throwing semi temper tantrums(she was REALLY tired) and Kate crying with tummy pain a majority of the flight. This was not an encouraging way to start the trip but thankfully this was the worst flight of the whole trip. We got into Sydney, found a taxi van big enough (JUST) for us and our stuff and went to the hotel for the night. Both girls were asleep after the trip and we unloaded all of our stuff and unhooked their car seats with them still inside them and got it all into the hotel room without either of them waking up! The guys went to get food, the girls both woke, we ate and stayed up late re-packing so that Brian could take yet another suitcase for us. Originally we had 5 suitcases but asked Brian to take one with him since he was just going back to Dallas...after just the trip to Sydney we decided we could do without more stuff and gave him another one so we only had 3 for our travels within the USA. We woke up the next morning, took a walk down the street to eat breakfast and have a brief walk on the beach and in the grass with the birds before heading to the airport for the long trek. Picture this...3 adults, 2 kids, 2 car seats, 2 portable cribs, 6 suitcases, a double stroller, 3 backpacks and a portable dvd player. Pure pandemonium. After about 45 minutes at the counter we all got checked in and even avoided charges for the extra bag of ours that Brian was taking back in his name. Went through customs with a very challenging Carly only to be told Kate couldn't currently leave the country because of some visa problem. We waited for about 10 minutes and a customs man came out and told us it was ok. We hadn't eaten lunch but our plane was almost finished boarding so we hurriedly got on and ate some crackers. Hey, at least we didn't have to leave Kate in Australia, right?!

Well, breathe a sigh of relief...this ends installment #1 of 'the trek'. I thought about naming this blog so many different things but 'the blog to end all blogs' did come to mind! Check back soon for the next installment...love from all of us!
Check out the pics (we do have some video, just have to get the time to edit it first)!