Happy Mother's Day!

 There are a lot of things I miss from home. I miss Target (we have Target here but its nothing like American Target) I miss happy hour at sonic, I miss NBA basketball, I miss mexican food, I miss my friends, I miss Marley (my sweet puppy) but most of all I miss my parents and especially today I miss my mom! I so wish I could be there to give her a big hug and take her to lunch for Mother's day but I guess i'll have to settle for a skype date.

My mom is the best. She is my best friend. I tell my sweet hubby all the time, that I love him a lot and he is my best friend but sometimes I miss my other best friend, my momma. He always responds with, "I miss your mom too!" Now that i'm a grown up, mature, married lady (I am, right?!) I can assure you I'm pretty sure I was a handful for my parents growing up. Can you say, drama queen?! I have so many great memories and my mom was in all of them. From throwing my many elaborate themed birthday parties growing up, taking me and my girlfriends on trips, going shopping to buy things for my first apartment, teaching me how to sew curtains for my classroom, our many shopping dates, picking her up at the airport when she flew all the way to Sydney by herself so she could help me finalize wedding plans and working with her to surprise my dad when we came home a day early for Christmas. There are so many amazing memories, I could probably write a whole book, but i'll spare you :) I look back now and I'm so very thankful God blessed me with the best parents in the world and the best mom. My mom is not only one of the sweetest ladies you will ever meet in your life, she is patient, caring, strong, creative, organized, stylish, a great listener and great at giving advice and hello, she is gorgeous! Even though we've spent most of the last 2 years living on different continents, I feel like in some ways its made us closer and its certainly made the moments we do get to spend together so much sweeter.

I love you mom. Thank you for raising me the way you did, thank you for taking care of me when I was sick, thank you for putting me in my place when I was a pain in your behind, thank you for always letting my friends come over, thank you for teaching me how to make the best chocolate chip cookies, thank you for teaching me how to be strong and independent, thank you for being an encourager, thank you for never giving up on me, thank you for always pushing me to do my best, thank you for letting me move half way around the world to discover the adventure of a lifetime, thank you for being the best example of a loving, Christian wife, and thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for being my mom.

I'm jealous of those of you who get to see and hug your mom on mother's day. If you live close to your mom, be very thankful. See and hug her every chance you get!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and all my 'other moms' and friends who are now moms!

Me and my sweet momma :)

back at work

 I feel like I was on a roll with my blog updates, but then again I did have a lot of free time while I was off work! I feel like this week was a whirlwind, but i'm thankful its over and the weekend is finally here. Even if I was up at 6:15 this morning with my hubby who has to work Saturdays. I HATE that he has to work Saturdays! I long for the Saturday morning we can sleep in, go have breakfast at the beach and actually spend a whole day together. Instead, now that i'm back at work we're back to have 1 day off together. I'm very thankful for our jobs but I miss my husband and long for us to have "normal" work schedules so we can spend time together. It certainly has not been my favorite thing in our first year of marriage.

Ok, i'm done complaining...back to the whirlwind week.

I guess like in any job when you've been gone for a while you have a lot to catch up on. Thankfully I have a wonderful staff member who was filling in for me and she did a fabulous job keeping up with things in my absence so I didn't have too much work to come back to. But nonetheless there were still emails and phone calls to return, meetings, and trying to adjust to my crazy schedule again. I'm very thankful for my job, but the hours and schedule are hard. I'm sure i've shared this in the past, but I run the Before/After School Care program aka OOSH Care (Out of School Hours). So naturally that means I have to be at work before school and after school...so thats 6:30am-8:30am and 3:15pm-6:15pm, plus all my office hours which I generally do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so on those days i'm at work all day...yes, 6:30am to 6:15pm, if i'm lucky I can try to get away for lunch. Working a split shift isn't always terrible because it does give me flexibility to see friends during the day, do my shopping, cleaning etc but when you live 20-25 minutes away from work that just means you spend a lot of time in the car. The schedule is hard, most days I don't get to see my husband until I get home at night (yes, even though we may work at the same school that doesn't mean I see him all the time!). I guess this week i've just had a harder time adjusting back to my schedule/routine and on top of that I've gotten sick. One of the joys of working with kids, lots of germs! It started out with just a little cough, then I started feeling miserable so I made a trip to the doctor and I have a chest infection. Not what you want to hear your first week back to work. So i'm on antibiotics for the first time in almost 2 years and have instructions to rest over the weekend so I can be good to go on Monday. So it certainly has been an eventful first week back at work.

Besides adjusting to working again and getting sick we've had a lot of other big things going on this week. Even though our Australian visa battle is over, we still have some other big things going on. Not going to go into all that now, but please keep us in your prayers.

good, good day

I am finally a (temporary) permanent resident of Australia!!  Insert (giant) sigh of relief here! I have been impatiently checking my email every 10 minutes all week, praying and hoping for a response from immigration but surprise, surprise rather than communicating by email they actually sent me a large envelope with a letter granting my visa and they even sent back all the pictures, invitations, cards we had to include in our visa application-aka proof of a genuine relationship. The temporary, permanent resident thing probably confuses most people. When you apply for a partner visa it is done in 2 parts, but you apply for them both at the same time. I am considered a (temporary) permanent resident for the first 2 years we are married. After 2 years are up they check up on you, and basically make sure you are still married and then you are considered permanent. Although now being a (temporary) permanent resident I am able to come and go from the country, work without restrictions (yay!), receive Medicare....basically everything of a citizen but I can't vote, which citizens are required to do in Australia.

I can't even begin to tell you how excited and blessed we are! We first started this immigration journey over 9 months ago and even though we will always have to "deal" with immigration issues in our relationship, we are so excited that this huge step is behind us! Personally, I feel like its a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. We've kind of been in limbo the last several months, but now knowing that I can go back to work and having this visa behind us we can finally start to move on an make plans.

Thank you to our many friends and family that have been praying for us. We are so thankful to have such an incredible support system all over the world! Not many people can say they have that, but we can. Know that we have had so much love, support, and prayers during the last 9 months is overwhelming in the best possible way.

I'm so thankful for my incredibly supportive husband throughout all of this. He's had to put up with a lot of stressed out moments from me and a whole lot of tears, but he's been amazing through it all constantly reminding me of God's plan and timing. I'm so thankful God's plan and timing are better than ours. God has taught me so many lessons throughout this experience and probably one of the biggest is to let go! I'm terrible at that, I love to be in control but i'm so thankful he is still patient with me. God has been with us every step of the way from the beginning of our visa journey to now and I can't wait to see what big adventure he has for us next!

pity party of 1

Some days are just hard. Some days I just want to pout. Some days I just want a hug from my mom. Some days I just want to cry. Some days are just overwhelming. And some days i'm just over it. Today is one of those days. I'm not good at staying home and not working. And I'm really not good at being forced to stay home and not work! I'm just used to being busy. I've been off work for 3 weeks today...3 weeks too long. It was nice the first few days. I was able to sleep in, catch up on my to do list but now i'm just ready to be back into my routine.

I received my medical check results in the mail on Friday and I sent them straight away to Immigration in Sydney. So now we wait, or keep waiting. It frustrates me to no end because we've been waiting for 9 months! I understand why they have rules, but that doesn't make things less frustrating for me. I just hope and pray that a decision is made soon. I know it will happen, I just need to be patient.

I saw this on Pinterest today. It put a smile on my face and was a beautiful saying and something I really felt like I needed to hear.

Flat Stanley came to visit

There are so many things I miss about teaching but one of the biggest was getting to do fun projects with my kiddos! We never participated in the "Flat Stanley project" but I certainly wanted to! Flat Stanley from CA came to visit via my aunt in St. Louis and we had fun doing some "Aussie" things. I had a lot of ideas but it rained all but one day while we had him so a lot of ideas got canned. My husband even contributed some ideas! I had to explain the whole "Flat Stanley project" to a lot of people here, most have never heard of it. And my sweet husband loved to call him fat Stanley...not really sure why, but it sure made me laugh. It was a fun mini project for a few days and helped keep me busy during my time off work. Now time to find another "project" to keep me busy!

Here are a few pictures from our brief time with Flat Stanley.

FS enjoying some Vegemite toast and a cuppa

FS learning how to drive a right hand drive car

FL visiting Umina Beach...the 1 sunny day we had!

FS helped with grocery shopping

FS hanging washing out on the line to dry

Welcome to the family

This past week my sweet husband and I were blessed with another nephew! Adorable, Elijah Benjamin made his grand entrance on Wednesday, a few weeks ahead of schedule! We finally made our way to the city today and got to meet this handsome little man. There are many perks that come with being married but gaining 3 nieces and 2 nephews has been one of the best perks! Being an auntie is so much fun and I'm excited that one day (a long time from now!) that our kids will have so many awesome cousins!

medical checks...done!

 Apparently I posted an immigration update too soon yesterday...

When I made my medical check appointment on Monday the earliest appointment they had was 10 days away. Before I hung up with the lady making my appointment I asked if someone cancelled if they could call me, she said it didn't work that way but I could call in a few days and see. Yesterday I was thinking maybe I should just call so I did and low and behold they had a cancelation at 1:30pm and the guy asked if I could make it by then (at that time it was 10:30am) I said of course!! Then began the mad dash as I had to be on the train exactly one hour from when I hung up with him. I threw on gym clothes left the house with no makeup...which I never do! Rushed to work to get some forms printed that I needed to take with me and my sweet hubby took me to the station.

When I arrived at the medical centre it was nothing what I thought it was going to be like. Imagine over 100 people in a very small space, most of which didn't speak English and everyone is trying to move to Australia. An interesting experience to say the least. I had to wait about half an hour, finally got called up to the counter and then began the not so fun stuff....chest x-ray, eye exams, blood test, doctor visit and a few other things. They shuffle you around from station to station with your stack of paperwork. From start to finish it took about 2 hours. I should get my results soon, hopefully! Then those go to Immigration, then our application goes to a case worker and a decision will be made.

I am so amazed at how much as happened in a week! God is definitely taking care of us and blessing us so much. I feel like we've just been waiting for almost 9 months and now all at once everything is happening...SO exciting!!! Keep praying for us, we could have a decision as early as a week or two which would be AMAZING to have all this behind us, but also then I could go back to work!