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!

time for a change

Don't worry, you've come to the right spot!

Since being on "forced holidays" I've been trying to think of a few "projects" or things to keep me busy. Mostly things that are free or cheap because we are temporarily a one income family! For a while now i've been wanting to make changes to my blog but I was also debating on maybe starting a new blog since being married but then again I wanted to keep everything all together so I decided that some big changes and a facelift would do! So now we're www.blfowler.blogspot.com...for the last few years I was writing about teaching and my single, traveling life but now i'm a old married lady and want to include my hubby! I've also opted for a new title. When we got married the top 2 questions everyone asked was "when are we having kids?" and "where are you going to live?" The answer to the first one...not anytime soon and the second one...we don't know. But no matter where we live, we have a lot of friends and family all over the world and I hope we can use this space to keep our family and friends updated on whats going on with us!

On the visa front, I got a phone call from immigration yesterday! I have officially been cleared to have my medical checks! After we get these results and send them to immigration our application will be sent to a case worker and a decision will be made, hopefully! Now I just have to wait about 9 days as that was the earliest medical appointment they had available. But things are moving along! God has had his hand in this from day 1, and in the last week since my last day of work He has been doing big things! We are very blessed and can't wait for the day when its all finalized and I can return to work. Please keep praying for us!

Alright, time to get back to my house wife duties of the day and maybe another project!

big week

What a week we've had! Last weekend was our long 4 day Easter weekend, which was wonderful! We were able to rest up, spend time with family, BBQ with friends, do a lot of laundry, finally finished a book I've been reading for too long, and we even made a day trip to Sydney and visited the zoo! It was a much needed weekend and we enjoyed every minute. Tuesday I went to work for my last day. Its a bit difficult explaining to my kids why I wouldn't be at work for a while...I tried to tell them I would be on holidays, but wasn't going anywhere. That didn't go so well so then I tried explaining that (short version) I can't come back to work until I get a piece of paper saying I could work in Australia again because I'm from America. That actually worked, sort of. One of my little girls said "well, I don't like that!" I laughed and said neither did I! On Wednesday I finally received my FBI background check from the US. What a happy day that was! There are a lot of steps in our immigration journey and I kind of feel like I need to celebrate every time we make even the slightest movement! I already had plans on Thursday to go to Sydney to visit with some of my parent's friends, who were visiting from home so I decided I would hand deliver my FBI check to Immigration and hopefully be able to beg that my application go through faster so I could go back to work. My attempts were unsuccessful, which didn't really surprise me. But it wasn't a wasted trip because I was able to spend the day with my parents friends. It was so nice to get hugs from home and even just to be around people who sound like me! It may sound silly, but you move somewhere were you sound different from everyone else and you will miss hearing things like Y'all! We had a fun day, we did a lot of sightseeing around Sydney and I took them to a few of my favorite places. It was a good day, made a me a little bit homesick but thats ok. Later that evening my hubby and I wrote a formal letter to immigration requesting that our application be processed quickly, which we were advised to do by our lawyer. Apparently applications that are "process ready" meaning all the paperwork is turned in can be shoved through quicker in certain circumstances. If I've already explained that, please excuse me. So, no we wait...or continue to wait because we've already been waiting over 8 months! Its hard not to get impatient and frustrated at times. We are just very worn out and tired when it comes to this process. Everyone tries to give you their opinion or advice, even people who we know have been through it. But everyone situation and circumstances are different and the immigration process has even changed itself over the years. What we really need from them is support and encouragement while we wait. Its just hard because this is controlling so many things in our life right now, mostly my work situation but a few other big things too. So we just keep waiting. I know God is teaching us so many lessons through this experience and I guess the biggest is patience! On a random side note, I'm thinking of changing up the blog a bit. I really wish I was design/computer smart, but i'm not! We have so many things and changes going on, I feel like this needs one too. So we'll just see how it goes!  

Home sweet home

When we went home for Christmas I had so many people ask about where we are living. So here you go, several months late!

We are renting a tiny flat by the beach. When I say tiny, I mean tiny! But it's ours and it's super cheap and our landlords spoil us! We love living less than 5 minutes from the beach. It's not our style but that's ok because one day we'll have our dream home.