Wedding, Pregnancy and Wait, What??

Just what is the cosmic message this magazine rack is trying to get across?

The Status Quo: June 2011

While there hasn't been anything major of note happening of late there are plenty of day-to-day events that make up our lives and I thought a post about some of them might be informative.

The children have largely resumed their activities, some as before and others trying new things. Joshua is still working on his creative side, making videos, learning guitar and writing jokes. Elijah is playing another season of rugby with his former club and Mara is, surprisingly, dancing ballet again. Ariana has taken up learning tennis on Saturday mornings and Bryna has continued on with her ballet lessons as well. And Micah, well, he is just enjoying himself and hanging out with his siblings who, needless to say, adore him.

We've slowly been reconnecting with old (I won't say former!) friends in Canberra. It's good to see them again and, in some cases, see how much they have grown in the time we have been away. Some, in the case of the children's friends, have grown up and some, in the case of Fenton's friends, have grown out. All of Gaynor's friends remain as fabulous as the day she met them. Since we now have a place and with our belongings having returned from their own adventures we are gradually inviting friends over to reacquaint them with Gaynor's cooking. And because she's picked up all sorts of new recipes and ideas from her travels, the meals are more superb than ever.

You'd think that a move back to your native country would mean that something like a driver's licence would be a simpler process, right? However, if you are Joshua, and have your licence from California, you are generally back in the Awkward Basket for a bureaucrat. So, despite having passed his California's driving test and driving there for a number of months with a few restrictions -- essentially equivalent to a Provisional Licence in Australia -- the Powers That Be decreed firstly, that he would need to start with a Learner's Permit but could count his start date from his Californian licence. Then after we organised that, with it's attendant classes and exams, they said he'd have to be on it for the full six months before he could take his driving test. We wrote a letter pointing out our case -- we were fine for him to do a driving exam since it is the other side of the road and he'd mostly driven automatic transmission equipped cars in the US -- but they stuck by their second assessment. (Why couldn't it have been the first one that we were happy with?) Of course, his case wasn't helped by the fact that the Californian DMV failed to issue anything other than a paper, temporary licence before we left the US. It did, after all, take them 18 months to renew Gaynor's. :\ Anyway, he's eligible to take the test in October.

Finally, as previously mentioned, housing prices in Canberra are even higher than other major cities in Australia. Despite this, Gaynor and I believe now is as good a time as any to take the plunge into home ownership. Mostly this means we would prefer to put our money into our own home and not someone else's pocket and this is the first opportunity that we've realistically been able to do that. We'll be looking for a house we can fit into -- though it may be a bit of a squeeze -- that will require some renovation work. A single income in Canberra doesn't make this an easy proposition but, then again, we've never really been big fans of 'easy' :) So even though we may end up with a dump, at least it will be our dump.

Mara Expresses Herself via Interpretive Planking

Actually, not so much planking as it is a lay-in protest against having to clean the kitchen.

The 60s Kombi Van of Microwave Ovens

Gaynor's children decorated her Mother's Day gift as a tribute to her hippie tendencies.

First Few Days Back in Australia

It always feels like a major logistical exercise to get the whole family and carefully chosen belongings from one continent to the next but it is such a great feeling to finally arrive and be met by good friends and family. Even tired and in a new time zone the relief is noticeable. Though the flights from Los Angeles to Canberra are not the longest trip we have taken -- Brisbane to Singapore to Amsterdam to Jülich totalled 24 hours of actual travel time from airplane door to house door, not counting any layovers or stops -- they are long enough to give one that awake-and-functioning-at-3am feeling. As we've said before, the children really are excellent travellers, handling the trip very well and now some are older getting fifteen suitcases through the various airports wasn't as hard as it might have been.

Though (Because?) he is tired after the flight into Sydney, Micah insists on pulling his own bag through a busy terminal.

Unlike previous moves, we had actually already purchased a suitable van before we arrived -- many thanks to Gaynor's father for his excellent car hunting and repairing skills. Because of it's shape, family members had dubbed it the Fat Green Wombat. Consequently, we had an 8-seater to get us home from the airport, along with friends and families' cars, and by 'home' here we mean Tamara and Troy's recently completed lovely, new house. They had already generously agreed to a 160% increase in their household size while we found a place of our own. Considering the cousins had never really spent much time in each other's company and being thrown in such close quarters for extended periods, they all got along as if they were old friends.

Having the Fat Green Wombat also meant we were able to easily get out and about house hunting. We knew the rental market would be tough -- we even made an application to rent before we left the US -- but it still took us a solid month to have an application accepted[1]. Even though the house is the upper end of what we felt we could afford, it is in a pretty good location, easy walking distance to a good set of shops and bus stops, and is fairly large. At least it seemed large when we walked through it and didn't have much furniture to put in it. We'll see how long it feels that way :)

Our plan (and hard work) to pack up, leave the house in California and ship our things before Christmas paid off with most[2] of our stuff arriving about two weeks after we moved into the new place. Again, it is like Christmas all over again but you are opening the old and familiar, the known and loved. And because these objects have survived (most of them) moving, now literally, around the world you know they are things we really want to keep. That makes it even more enjoyable. :) So, once again, we have the essentials and will work on replacing a few more of the nicer, but less essential, items over the next several months. Oh, and double thumbs up to Tamara who did a great job of picking up or saving items like dining table and chairs, mattresses and beds, kitchen equipment and even a television to mean that we had many things from the start. Thanks also to some new friends who felt they could donate a no longer needed washing machine (front loader and large -- perfect!) and a single bed.

Finally, even though the Fat Green Wombat is great to get us all around, I decided another motorcycle would fit my daily commuting bill nicely. I mean, being the slave to financial rationalism that I am, it only makes economic sense![3]

Back on a bike -- a 1985 GSX 750 S Katana -- with a few minor things to do but she goes fine.


[1] Technically, we were accepted to rent a house that was not in an area we really wanted to live and wasn't available until March. We applied because we were feeling pressure to find something. In the end, Gaynor took a gamble that we would find something sooner and in our preferred area and she was right (though a bit more stressful at times).

[2] Unfortunately, at least two boxes and half our chairs didn't make it. The shipping company said we could fill out an insurance claim but the deductible is basically the replacement cost and the monetary value of some of the lost goods is much less than the sentimental value. Gaynor is not happy. Oh, and when I say 'half our chairs' I don't mean 'half the number of chair' I mean, since the chairs were disassembled for shipping, the back half of the dining chairs didn't make it. So now we have 8 seats and pairs of front legs. I guess I'll make them into a dining bench or some such thing.

[3] Yes, I already know how dangerous they are -- I have clocked over eleven years as a daily rider, a number of them on the gnarly southern Californian freeways -- but I do appreciate your concern. Seriously.