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!

our new adventure

I was hoping I would get around to this update sooner than I have, but lets just say missing almost a week of work because of being sick, after being off work for 4 weeks means you have a lot of work to catch up on! This week has been very busy, but thankfully i'm pretty much feeling back to normal. I still have a bit of a cough, but thats heaps better than I was feeling a week ago, so i'll take it!

I've mentioned in several posts over the last few months about things going on with us and asking for prayers, well here is some more about that! When we got married we moved into a small flat at the back of our friends house. We knew this would be a good opportunity for us to save money, adjust to married life before making a big decisions, etc. For the last 6 months my husband and I have been praying about whats next for us. We love our little flat but its not a permanent home for us, we would really like to buy a house down the track, but we know with buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility. I'm not sure we're ready for that yet because we really want to travel some before we settle down. We've been praying for some time and have really felt like God has closed some doors for us and opened others. We really feel like He is leading us into a new season and we are really excited to see where he leads us. For me a part of all of this was feeling like some doors were closing for me at my job as It was never going to be a permanent job for me because my heart is in the classroom. So as of last Friday I have resigned from my position as Coordinator at Narara OOSH & Vacation Care. I have so many mixed emotions about it. This school has been such a huge blessing in my life. I have met so many wonderful kids and families. The job has certainly been a huge challenge for me but I feel like i've accomplished something and thats a good feeling to leave with. So that is the first part of our "new adventure" as we are calling it.

The next part of our "new adventure"is...we are going to travel!! I'm so excited! I love to travel...obviously or I would most likely not have ended up moving half way around the world. I love airports, stamps in my passport, long flights, packing etc...all those things that most people hate, I love. I'm so thankful my husband is excited about traveling too because I can't think of a better travel buddy. We decided to celebrate our 1 year anniversary by just taking off for a few months to travel, visit family, etc. We don't have a lot of plans. We have booked flights to the USA to go spend some time with my family since its been 6 months since we've seen them. It will be so nice and refreshing to visit with friends and family as apart of our adventure. Other than that, we don't have any set in stone plans yet, other than our return flights back to Oz in September. We are excited to see where God leads us! So, you never know the Fowlers could be coming to a town near you sometime in the next few months!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we embark on our "new adventure!" I will try my best to keep the blog up to date once our travels get under way. So until then its work for the next 6 weeks, then 3 months of traveling...yahoo!!!

sick days

 I tell you what I am ready for a holiday! We have had so much going on over the last several months, especially the last few weeks and now I get sick. Not fair, not fair, not fair! Ok, i'm sorry i'm done complaining. I think I mentioned a few post ago about being sick, yeah I'm still sick. Anyone who knows me well, knows I do not do 'sick' well. I started feeling a little better after starting antibiotics but have not been able to get rid of the cough. So after 2 days of people making comments to me about how horrible I sound I went back to the doctor. Verdict is...I still have a upper respiratory infection and now have an ear infection. Ughh! So now i'm on a new, stronger round of antibiotics including an inhaler to help my cough. My doctor smiled when I asked if I should miss a day of work and then she handed me a medical certificate with bed rest orders for the rest of the week. Not happy!! I've just been off work for four weeks I don't want to miss the rest of this week as well. As I said, I don't do 'sick' very well. I know I need rest but I don't like sitting still, so i'm going to follow her orders and pray I get better soon. I think my poor hubby is ready for me to get better just as much, if not more than me! He is a TROOPER! I'm so thankful God gave me just the man I need. Let's just say he hopes our children are not like me one day when they are sick. He has been so wonderful helping out with things around the house, taking care of me, coming up with herbal tea 'remedies' and forcing me to drink them (not an easy task!), and forcing me to take medicines constantly. I love that man so much. He deserves way more than the bag of peanut M&M's I bought him today! So let the resting begin and hopefully I'll be feeling better by the weekend because we've got a very special little girls 1st birthday party to attend on Sunday!

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.