I am so embarrassed it has been so long since I've last posted! I guess I have been busy - moving back to Australia, finding a place to live here, moving into that new place and getting settled in, getting Liam registered for school, reading the entire Twilight Saga. All pretty time consuming/important stuff.
The trip back from the Philippines was a long night/day. Our flight left at 8:30 pm, so we had most of the morning to finish up packing and weighing our luggage. I have to brag on myself for just a minute. We were only aloud 4 pieces of luggage (one each) and they couldn't be more than 23 kg. If we went over we had to pay something insane like $125 for 5 extra kg. We were very determined not to have to pay anything extra. I managed to pack each bag so that they were just barely under 23 kg and we didn't have to pay any extra. Of course one of our carry ons was probably 20kg because we kept transferring all of the heavy stuff into that one. It was a small suitcase with wheels and Liam was in charge of wheeling it to check in. I think having him pull that saved us because they didn't even bother to weight it but I am pretty sure I saw them weigh the guy in front of us in lines carry on. So we made it onto the plane without any major incidents. Always a stressful time though.
I really hoped we would have individual tv screens for each seat on the plane (like we did on the flight to the PH) but we didn't. It was the middle of the night and we were all really tired, so maybe it was for the better. It was a smaller plane so we weren't all able to sit next to each other. Nate and Jonas sat in the chairs behind me and Liam. Liam and Jonas fell asleep pretty quickly. I think I might have gotten a couple hours off and on of sleep. Nate didn't sleep much at all because Jonas can't sit still even while he sleeps. Every time Nate would start to doze off Jonas would kick or twist again, waking him up. I still think I got the worst of the plane ride though. Right as we were landing in Sydney Liam turns to me (looking pale and sickly) and pukes all over me. I think it took about 4 times for me to wipe the shock off my face and remember that there are motion sickness bags in the back of each seat. By that time he was mostly done. Thankfully it was a little cold for me so I was wrapped up to my neck in a blanket. So I was able to wrap the blankets and a pillow up inside one of the blankets and walk away with hardly anything on me. I tried to warn the flight attendants about the mess but they just said to leave it there and the cleaners would take care of it. I would hate to be one of those cleaners!
After our flight we had to catch a bus ride to Canberra. We have done it before and it was never a big deal but this time the bus was full. We bought 4 tickets but when we got on the bus there were no two seats together. I walked on with the boys by myself trying to find something. The best I could find were two empty seats, one in front of the other. I was ready to send Liam into one while Jonas and I took the other when a man offered to move so we could sit together. I figured someone would be willing to move rather than sit by them self next to someone else's child. For the next 3 1/2 hours Liam, Jonas and I shared the 2 seats. I am really annoyed that we paid for 4 tickets and only got 3 seats. Nate didn't have much more fun. The woman he was sitting next to took up a large chunk of his seat as well as her own. Then the man in front of him reclined his chair back right into Nate's knees and stayed there the rest of the ride. It was pretty much awful all around. I almost cried when we were a few blocks away from the bus depot just because I couldn't wait to get off. Okay, I was probably also happy to be back in Australia too! :)
Our friend who was keeping our car on her property while we were away met us at the bus depot with a box of food to make dinner and snacks. That was such a huge relief. We were so tired after our travels that the last thing we wanted to do was find a ride to our place and go grocery shopping. We booked a little cabin in town to stay at for the night so we headed there and rested for a while.
We had grand plans to find a place to live the weekend we returned so we had to start making calls right away to set up house viewings. We looked at a few (along with 10-20 other hopefuls) and were starting to get discouraged. There wasn't much listed, probably because it was so close to Christmas. The second night we were home (and for the next week) we stayed with some friends from church. They were leaving to go on a family vacation so we stayed at their house and fed their animals, watered their plants and made sure their trampolines kept their bounce. There was another family from church who was moving out of their townhouse that week. The wife's parents own the townhouse so we made a few calls and were able to move into their place the weekend after they moved out. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 level place. The bathroom and kitchen have both been updated recently. There is a very small backyard and a little bit bigger courtyard in the front. Plenty of space for the boys to run around and ride their bikes and scooters around in circles. And a little bit of dirt to play with their trucks and dinosaurs in. It is quite a bit smaller than the house were were in before and hardly has any built in storage space so we've had to get a couple dressers and things so we have places to put all of our junk. We are still trying to work out where to put everything. For now I keep piling more and more into the third bedroom so I don't have to look at it anymore. Settling in has been a little bit slow but its getting better.
We had a nice, quiet Christmas morning at home and then got together with a couple of families from church for a bbq dinner that night. I am looking forward to an even quieter New Years Eve tonight.
I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas! I am excited to get back to blogging and keeping up with all of your blogs again.
Happy New Year!!
9 years ago
