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!