It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tis the season for Christmas trees, lights, traffic, holiday cards, gift wrapping, kids with runny noses, freezing cold mornings, Christmas parties, lots of Christmas crafts with my kiddos, scarfs, boots, hot chocolate, and the countdown to Christmas break! This is the busiest time of year and despite the business I'm loving it!

Although this is our 2nd married Christmas, its our first Christmas to have our own tree and all those "other" Christmas things I love...and my hubby could do without!

I'm counting down the days until Christmas break. I love my job and my kiddos but I'm ready for some time off with my hubby and family. I've officially finished my 1st semester of grad school...yahoo!

Here's some of our Christmas decorating. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving 2012

This year my thankful list might be longer than years past. I think the greatest blessing this year was being able to spend Thanksgiving with my family here in the US. The past 2 years I have celebrated with my cousins while I was living in Australia, but it was just never quite like an "American" thanksgiving celebration. This year the hubby and I traveled to Branson, Missouri with my parents to enjoy our mini holiday by the lake. Now, I have not been to Branson since I was maybe 5 or 6 and I had no memory of what Branson would be like so it was a surprise for the hubby and myself! Branson had been described to me as a "country" Las Vegas, I think I would add tacky into that description, nevertheless we enjoyed our time there. We visited the outlet malls, did some sightseeing, ate a lot of yummy food, and spent some time relaxing around our lakeside condo in our pj's! I think one of my favorite things we did was visited Silver Dollar City, which is a theme park in Branson. Most of my theme park experience was from several visits to Disney World, so this certainly different, but it was so much fun. The park was decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights and decorations. We saw 2 shows while we were there and when we came out of the 2nd one the sun had set and the park looked beautiful with all the Christmas lights! Not only was the park all decked out for Christmas, but ALL of Branson was decorated! 

On Thursday, Thanksgiving day we traveled to my aunt, uncle and memar's (my grandmother) house about 100 miles from Branson to spend Thanksgiving with them. It was great to see them and spend time with them. It was the first time Ben had gotten to meet my cousins and get to spend more time with some of my extended family. We ate and ate and ate. It was all so yummy! Then we played some scrabble, a Smart family favorite! The day went by way too quickly, but I'm so thankful we were able to spend it with family. 

Overall our short and sweet 'holiday' was just what we needed. I'm not going to lie I'm not excited about my alarm going off oh so early tomorrow morning and heading back to work. Just four more weeks and Christmas break will be here!

I'm really trying to get better about taking pictures. We haven't had a camera in over a year and I've been terrible at taking photos with my phone and really terrible at taking photos of us! I didn't really even know this until I started getting photos and things together for our interview with Immigration for Ben's green card. We had all of this stuff put together when we did mine in Australia but thats been over a year ago now so I need to fill in the gaps! So here are a few photos from our trip...I did actually take more but they haven't made it from the phone to the computer yet! 

the hubby and I at a scenic spot on hwy 65

at Silver Dollar City...braving the 40 degree temps!

I hope everyone had a blessed and restful thanksgiving spent with family and friends.

November update

 One day I will have time to keep up with my blog, but just to warn you I don't see that day happening until maybe June or July. My plate is FULL right now, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides work, adjusting to our new life, and sorting out immigration stuff...grad school is taking up most of my time. I'm really enjoying it though, so I guess thats good, right? I'll just be thankful next summer when my classes are over and I can feel like I have some "free time" again, although I'm sure by then something us will be going on. My grad program is all online, which is a new thing for me. I'm thankful I don't have to sit in classes several nights a week, but that just means I really have to force myself to do it on my own. I'm thankful for the opportunity to take graduate classes and further my education and for a supportive husband who encourages me to do so as well. I'm also very thankful to live in a country where higher education is encouraged and appreciated because I know it doesn't work like that in other countries.

We are still in the middle of our immigration journey, now in the US for my sweet hubby. We've sent off all of our paperwork and he had his biometrix (fancy word for getting finger printed) last week, so now we wait for our interview. Hopefully that should happen in the next 2 months and we should have our decision! I'm so thankful this process has been much shorter than when we did it in Oz for me, and I feel like its been less stressful! I told my hubby the other day that my new years resolution for 2013 is to not have to "deal" with anything "immigration" for either Australia or the US. I already know that won't happen because we'll have to do a 2 year follow up, but either way I know I will feel a huge sigh of relief when we get his green card because we will both be permanent residents in each others countries and that is HUGE because this has been something we've been dealing with for over a year and a half! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I can't believe we've been in the US for exactly 4 months today! We have had a crazy, awesome adventure so far! I also can't believe its November. The last 4 months have flown by. We get to celebrate my 28th (yikes!) birthday and Thanksgiving this month! And Christmas will be here just around the corner. I'm already itching to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. My hubby laughs at me, but I CANNOT wait! I haven't gotten to put up my Christmas tree in 3 years! And we haven't gotten to have our own tree yet, so I'm just a little excited. Oh, and there will be Christmas cards! Which my hubby tells me all of this is "very American"....well he married an American! If you want to be on our Christmas card list, let me know!

Alright, enough procrastinating for me. I need to change all of our clocks, thank you daylight savings...this is the only time of year that I regret having a 'wall of clocks' as a design feature in our apartment. And I really should be working on my paper for grad school before we head to church. Hope everyone is having a wonderful, thankful November!

Our BIG update!

I guess I have some explaining to do since its been nearly 3 months since my last update.

There is a verse in proverbs that says "many are the plans in a persons heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." I'm beginning to think this is a theme in my life for the last several years, and I'm so thankful for that. Tomorrow we were set to leave the US and return to Australia but we won't be on that plane. About 7 or 8 weeks ago we were in the midst of our travels in the US. We had been spending time with my family in Memphis, visiting friends and seeing the sights in Nashville and then found ourselves in my former town, Little Rock catching up with friends. Long story short, I was offered a teaching position at the school I used to teach at. Not a classroom teaching position but the gifted and talented teaching position. That was something I had always thought about doing later "down the road," when I had taught for a few more years and gone back to school to get my masters. But God had a way of blessing me with my "down the road"a lot sooner than I expected. We had been praying for quite a while for the next season in our life, not realizing that our prayers would be answered while on our American holiday.

I started work just a few weeks later. We bought a car and found an apartment in Little Rock to call home. I enrolled in graduate classes at Harding University to complete my endorsement in Gifted and Talented Education. We are now in the process of changing Ben's visa to a green card. And of course we are trying to tie up loose ends in Australia, sell our cars, cancel phone plans, trying to figure out what to do with our stuff! All not easy things to do from 10,000 miles away. Those are just the major things going on, there are of course a ton of little things that come with starting over. I heard someone say that moving is one of the most stressful things a person can go through. They are right, and try moving across the world when you weren't planning on it! But we're making it. We are overwhelmed by the ways God has been blessing us throughout the last several weeks and months.

We miss Australia and our family and friends there but knowing that God has brought us here gives us such peace. I am so thankful to be doing a job that I love! I love it even more than I thought I would! To be back at my old school has been a wonderful blessing. For some reason I feel drawn to work with those kids. I don't dread Sunday nights anymore and having to go to work on Monday because I love what I'm doing.

Starting over is busy, stressful, hectic, overwhelming, but completely wonderful when its God's timing.

So, there is my explanation as to why I've been MIA for a while. I'm sorry to our friends we haven't been great at keeping in touch with, but we've been more than a little busy! Things are starting to slow down a bit and we are getting settled and into a routine. Please keep us in your prayers over the next few months as we still have many big obstacles to overcome with getting Ben's visa, finding him a job once he has working rights, etc. We also hope to buy a house after the new year so we'll have plenty of room when our Aussie family and friends decide to come visit! (There's your invite!)

To our amazing family and friends, thank you so much for your love and support. I can't even begin to say how thankful I am for my parents and how wonderfully helpful they have been to us as we're starting over. We are incredibly blessed to have so many people that love us, all over the world!

home sweet home

We made it! Well actually we've been here a few days, but with the jet-lag, catching up with family and adjusting to the summer heat I haven't had time to update. The trip was mostly uneventful. We left Sydney Wednesday morning, the airport was a madhouse! We actually made it to our flight when they were calling final boarding. And thats with us arriving at the airport 2.5 hours before our flight! We settled in to our economy comfort seats, totally worth the extra money for those extra 5 inches of legroom! The flight was long but ok, we slept a few hours, and watched plenty of movies. We arrived in LA early in the morning and made it through customs and all that jazz in record time! It was so great to stretch our legs and be able to walk around for a few hours. We boarded our flight to Memphis and we both fell asleep right away and slept most of the flight. We finally made it to Memphis just before 4pm and boy was it HOT!

I'm not going to lie, I think I had blocked out how hot it gets here. It gets hot in Australia but its a different kind of hot. I think adjusting to the heat and jet-lag have really worn us out the first few days. Our first night we both slept great, but since then we've had a bit of trouble. For me I'm awake until midnight and sleep really late, but my poor hubby took a nap yesterday afternoon which meant he had a miserable night sleep. I'm hoping another day or two and we'll be adjusted. I keep thinking (or hoping) that the more times we make the long trip the better we'll get at it and it will be easier. But I've done it many times and I don't think its going to get any easier.

We've spent some time relaxing, doing some shopping, visiting with friends, tonight we even made it downtown for a Redbirds game. Its so nice to be home. Its so nice to be around the familiar, especially after spending some much time away. Australia is where we live and it is home in a way, but the US will always be home to me.

Tomorrow we are off to the lake to enjoy a few days at the lake to celebrate our 1st anniversary! I can't even believe its been a year since we got married! It has flown by! I'll update again once we return from our weekend away!

last day of work

Yesterday was my last day of work. Like my last, LAST day of work. I'm still not sure it has hit me yet. Although there were so many tears, it still doesn't seem real. I still want to check my email and my brain is still in Coordinator mode, thinking of things that need to be done but I just have to keep reminding myself its not my job anymore. I know 18 months doesn't sound like a very long time to be at a job, but in some ways I feel like I worked there for 5 years. I did a lot though in 18 months! It wasn't my dream job, I didn't love every minute of it, but I met so many amazing people, families and kids through out my time there and I feel like I learned so much about myself in the process. When I left yesterday, I just felt overwhelming blessed to have been apart of St Philips, even if for such a short time.

When I look back to a year and a half ago I still remember the day I went in for my interview like it was yesterday! It was a Friday morning I got the call and they wanted me to come that afternoon, I didn't drive so I had to get a family friend to take me. My hair looked all kids of crazy, curly and all. It was summer and HOT and i'm pretty sure I was wearing my least professional dress and sandals but it was just so hot I wanted to be comfortable! I show up, met with 2 lovely ladies and they offered me a job and little did I know about 2 minutes later when I was walking out of the office I would meet the man of my dreams.

I'm blessed. So incredibly blessed to have been apart of that school. When I look back at the whirlwind of the last 18 months, yes there were up and downs as there are in any job, some days were downright terrible, but all the good from the last 18 months more than outweighs the bad. I'm so thankful for all the friendships I made, thankful for the amazing families I had the chance to work with and thankful for the awesome kids I got to know.

So, I'm officially unemployed which should be a terrifying thing, but I have a lot of peace about it. I know that the timing was right and God has a plan for whatever is next for me. I'm praying its back in the classroom, but I know he will reveal that to me in His timing. Until then I am going to enjoy my 3 months of travels with my hubby and some much needed time with my family and friends in the US!

the countdown is on

I can't believe its almost been a month since my last update. I was on a roll! I guess when you book a 3 month holiday overseas, resign from your job, have to move out of your flat and put all your things in storage...you get really busy, really fast! Its just been nuts around here. I can't even believe how fast time has gone the last 4 weeks, which is fine by me because I am ready to be home and hug my momma! We leave in 2 weeks, which means we have 8 days left of work and 5 days until we move out of our flat. I guess I'll have plenty of time to rest and relax once we get on the plane, since it is a 14 hour flight to LAX. I promise i'll try to write a proper update sooner rather than later!