Updates & First Impressions

1/12/12 - "Omg... They sell scrunchies everywhere here! And way to many people are wearing really short, cut off, fringed jean shorts. I didn't believe it when people told me, but it's true. I think I stepped back into the 80s and early 90s. I just heard a song by Jeremy Jordan that I listened to in jr high and haven't heard since."

1/13/12 - "Holy cow! I drove on the wrong side of the road (our right side in the US) and ran into a curb twice. I'm a driving disaster waiting to happen here. Driving on the other side requires all of my concentration. Plus the windshield wipers are where our turn signals are. They got turned on a lot to make turns"

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First of all, if you didn't know, my mom came out with us instead of my sister. It has been the BIGGEST help. We don't know what we would do if she wasn't here to help while we try getting established here, not to mention helping on the plane ride over. My mom will be staying about 2 months with us to help out. We are sooooo incredibly grateful. Thank you mom for moving away from your life and your husband to stay with a crazy, stressed out family and three young children going through some crazy changes in their lives! We TRULY could not have done it if you weren't here. I can't even say that enough.

Also I can't forget my amazing mother in law, Lona. She has lived across the street from us for the last year and has helped us on a whim countless times. We miss her terribly already! She has been over to help cook, clean, watch our kids, help with yard sales (and has been one of our best customers). She is sending us our first care package to Australia for clothes for our kiddos. I told her and Tom that we need to find adoptive parents while we are here to take us in and feed us like she did to hold us over til we get back. Thank you Honey Lona! My friends are excited to come visit you (Jenya and Laura) while we are away and we hope you all get to come visit. We have some "growing" to do now that you won't be here. :) Love you Mother Green!

The plane ride with the kids for 23 total travel hours wasn't as bad as we had imagined. They did good until about the last 4 hours and then it got a little crazy since we were all pretty worn out by then.

We did however have 12 pieces of luggage (costing $1,100), 4 carry-on's, 1 diaper bag, 2 oversized purses, 4 car seats, 1 double stroller, and 1 single stroller to drag along to the farthest place in the world. It was no bueno and very stressful. My mom tried to take a picture of the craziness we were hauling around, but they wouldn't allow us to take pics in the airport. On top of the large LOAD we were hauling, my mom didn't have a travel visa. I swore that I read that you didn't have to have one if you were staying less than 3 months, but you do. So we were scrambling at the airport in SLC to get one so that she could get on the flight with us.

When we got to Sydney, Australia, we found that Steffan didn't have a Visa and the SLC airport somehow missed that. So the Sydney airport said they were going to fine the SLC airport $10,000 for letting him in illegally. Jeremy had to go and apply for a temporary Visa and was told if he didn't get a Visa for Steffan in the next 30 days they would deport him. (Huh? He's 6 weeks old.)

So Jeremy LOVES his job so far and loves the people he works with. He has officially completed his first week on the job and has spent time going to all of the different offices they have here (which made it a nightmare for me to drive him to all of them on the other side of the road in a new place I've never been and don't know where I'm going). His first impression of everything was really positive and thinks that he will really like it here.

We found out earlier that Jeremy is going to be handling Symantecs largest account... globally the largest! Symantec is a huge company already... I'm so proud of my hubby! Symantec is the worlds 3rd largest software company.

I really like it here too and think it reminds me of Southern California as far as the agriculture and surroundings go. It's very green, not too cold, not too hot and got a little humid when it rained the other day. It's their summer time right now, so all the kids are out of school until the end of February.

Jeremy has already met some amazing people at his work that have really helped us out. There were a few other people that were hired for the same type of position that Jeremy is doing. Each person came from another country. There's someone from Spain, England, Scotland and somewhere else I can't remember. They have been AWESOME in helping us since they already went through the stress pains of making this move with their family. They were on top of things in helping his work secure accomodations for us and trying to make things as easy as possible for us by answering questions and showing us around.

We spent all this last Saturday at one of Jeremy's co-workers, Dennis & Angie. We were there from lunch time until after 7pm that night. They have two little girls, ages 5 and 3 1/2. They were so open and welcoming and very informative with information on where to go, how to do things and how things work here. I was touched that they would spend their entire Saturday just to hang out with us and befriend us. I almost started crying as I thought to myself how grateful I have been for all of the little things that have been put in our path to help us along the way for this Australian adventure. I know that we are here for a purpose and although we don't know how everything is going to land and fall into place, we know that the Lord is helping us every step of the way.

I have realized that we were not growing in our situation. We were too well set up with friends and family and a full, busy schedule at all times. We have now been given an opportunity to start over in every aspect of our life and it all pushes us to be more dependant on eachother and gives us every chance to spend more quality time with our children. Little reasons unfold themself along the way as 'ah-ha' moments for both Jeremy and I. We are always pointing out things saying to eachother, "...and that's why we are here". It has already reminded us plenty of times how we need to depend on the Lord and rely on him for guidance in all that we do. A test of faith? I've never had one larger than this. I know a lot of people think/thought we are crazy, but we know that this is where we are supposed to be right now. I'm sure that the moment that Australia feels like home, we will finally know it is time to return home.

I've committed to myself that I will put every effort into befriending others and they put that effort into befriending us. I can't say that I have always been too great at that and have felt bad for not trying to fit that into my life more. And I know this may sound bad, but I think I've always felt that I don't have time to make new or more friends because I barely got to spend time with my best friends with so much family being around. I never put a lot of effort into friendshipping others and now that I need others to do that I've been feeling bad about it. Especially because others have already done so much for us in only one week of us being here.

We have been to church a couple times. We've had 4 phone calls from people in the ward and one person brought us a gift basket and welcome pack with all of the activites and phone numbers and doctors recommendations, you name it. It was MORE than helpful! We've been invited to lunch, a BBQ, and Teagan has already been invited to a birthday party. We haven't even officially been here 2 weeks yet. It's overwhelmingly nice of people to extend their arms openly to us!

After a couple of days of driving around and feeling lost and realizing that we are NOT on a vacation right now, the lonliness had set in that we don't know anyone here. I can't just call someone to chat or drop by and hang out. So, the fact that we have already been shown so much support has been a tender mercy for sure!

One other thing that must be mentioned is how incredibly blessed we are in America. We have so many luxuries that are standard to us. Most people here in Australia do not have both a washer and dryer. It is hard to find housing with air conditioning and/or heating. The refrigerators are half the size of what we are used to having. And the biggest one, EVERYTHING is DOUBLY expensive here! Australians are much more health concious, because you can see that in what food is available. There is a lot of fish/seafood and fiber filled, omega filled/advertised foods. The food is not the same here. And because of how expensive it is to eat out or go grocery shopping, we have not/will not waste food. It has been humbling in many aspects to see how wasteful we are and have been. And it's not just the food that's expensive... it's everything. Utilities are more, cars are more, clothes, etc. Always remember that America is truly the promised land and has been given many luxuries that are taken for granted. I didn't really understand that until we got here and can see it first hand.

As for the busy last couple of weeks, we have spent time catching up from jet lag and the 18 hour time difference on top of setting up bank accounts, getting tax ID numbers, getting a rental car, (being lost), learning to drive on the other side of the road, not knowing where you are, not knowing what half of the road signs mean, etc.

Driving on the other side of the road and the other side of the car? It is scary beyond reason for the first few days. But now it's not so bad. If I forget for one second that I need to be on the left side, my natural reaction is to vere to the right (not very safe). And it's kind of crazy to see warning signs for crossing Kangaroos instead of crossing Deer.

Things that should be easy, are not. I think we are still trying to figure out the suttle (sp?) differences between English and Australian. So, sometimes we aren't quite sure what we are "hearing" in Australian. We are 'confused' a lot of the time (lol) which might not be too far off from 'normal'.

***Example of this***
Jeremy said, "Oh look, they have a Red Lobster here."
And I said, "No they don't that's called the Red Rooster."

So we decided to go through their drive thru to see what it was like (because we were lost and hungry and trying to find our way back).

He asked the girl, "How do we get to Canberra (pronounced "can-bruh")?" And she said, "Um, You're IN Can-bruh." (This will make sense if you read the Yellow Country Post). Then she said, "Oh, you mean Kambah (pronounced 'Kam-buh')? Which they both sound the same when said. Jeremy just looked at me and said quietly, "What did I just say?"
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The boys are adjusting really well. They are doing better than when we were preparing for the move. We had so much stuff to do to prepare for the move for the last 4-5 months that it has been really hard on them. I'm guessing it's easier now because we actually have more time for them now than we did moving. So, things have settled down for them. We prepared Teagan so much for the move that he hasn't seemed to upset about it. The other two are just too little to really know what has happened. I'm glad that we have been able to Skype with everyone though. It makes it easier when you can see everyone and when we can show people where we are staying.

I want to also post the horrendous time we've had getting here with our shipping company. It's been a nightmare. BUT, I'm too tired and have been posting all this stuff so I finally tell people what our blog address is. I want to really keep all of our stuff updated and documented for our own sake. But until then...

G'day Mates!