First Day of School

I've finally broken down and enrolled Alex in a preschool/daycare here. There is no such thing as mother's day out or any dedicated 2-year old preschool here so a daycare program is my only option. Alex will attend on Mondays and Wednesdays (the same days as Ben) so I'll get some free hours to take care of things like groceries and doctor appointments without all my usual "help". I think the socialization, independence, and new experiences will be really good for Alex as well, but I'm still sad about the thought of sending my baby out of the house two days a week. We've been together nearly nonstop for the entire year we've lived in Australia so it's time to teach my little guy some more independence. He had two trials this week for 1-2 hours and did great so I'm really hoping it will be an easy transition. Here's a picture of Alex on his first morning...he was so excited and kept saying "Alex school!" all the way until he was in the classroom and I started to say goodbye. Luckily the tears only lasted a few minutes and he was happy to see me when I returned.

We've had a rainy few days and have been especially bored in the afternoons. Nothing some mousse can't fix! Alex didn't know what to think about his crazy hair.

Yep, it was worth it!

Ben totally loved it.

Good laughs, good fun. These boys definitely have the thin hair I inherited from my dad. The good news for them (hopefully) is that my dad still has almost all that hair so maybe they'll keep theirs.

Our most exciting moment last weekend was on our walk home from lunch at a cafe a few blocks away. Matt was (of course) watching all the surfers and kept yelling at me to look. I kept walking, assuming it was just more surfing he wanted me to see, but it turns out this was one opportunity when it was worth stopping!

Here's a little closer view of the whale we were lucky enough to watch for a good 20 minutes or so but unable to get a better picture. He was surprisingly close to the surfers and just casually swam around by himself.
This was in view from our house and has made me redouble my efforts looking out the window to spot more whales migrating through! I'm not sure what this one was but know the humpbacks are sighted regularly through November or so. Hope to see more of these amazing creatures.

Gorgeous Winter

My trip to Houston was planned mostly around the arrival of my nephew (thanks for coming at a convenient time for us, little one!) and Ben's school holidays, so a lucky coincidence is that we missed 6 weeks of winter weather here. Last year's winter was horrible - cold, rainy, windy and generally miserable. It lasted from the day we arrived (one year ago today!) until October and I pretty much hated every minute of it. I was extremely happy to miss some very cold weather and big storms while we were swimming and sweating in Texas, but we have had some incredible weather since we returned. It's been sunny and calm nearly every day with highs around 70, lows around 40, and little humidity. Pretty amazing. Bad news for the locals because they depend on the rain to fill up the reservoirs in the winter and are severely low on rainfall, but great news for us because we've been outside all the time.

The boys and I enjoyed the beach a few afternoons because it's definitely too cold to swim so they were content playing in the sand.

This seagull kept a close watch an Alex...I guess he looked likely to drop food at any moment.

Alex took care of that by chasing him away.

The kids enjoyed running up and down the sidewalk.

Big smiles....

...happy boys!

I've walked past this sign a hundred times but just finally read it. Glad they warned me about the water before I walked into it.

We've also been enjoying our favorite parks again, like the lotterywest area at King's Park.

These were lots of fun to climb on.

Today we helped the boys' friend Wilder celebrate his birthday and it was funny watching the kids because they stuck together the entire time. They hadn't seen most of the other kids since June but were more interested in playing together. They've really bonded since they started sharing a bedroom and even more so on the long trip with just one another for entertainment.

As soon as the cupcakes appeared they were right back in the crowd. Nothing stands between these guys and frosting!

Yum!!

Alex's disappeared immediately.

We're finally back on the right side of the clock. It took a week to get everyone sleeping normal hours again and it's sure nice to be able to stay awake past 8pm myself. Unfortunately, the boys picked up a little virus and haven't felt well but a precautionary trip to the doctor yesterday caught the reemergence of Alex's ear infection and I got him started on antibiotics again before he got bad. Hopefully early treatment will keep my little guy happy.

Jetlag

A 13-hour time difference is painful. I can talk all day about completely flipping our eating and sleeping patterns, but these pictures demonstrate it better. Keep in mind my kids don't typically fall asleep anywhere except their beds or the car.

Alex was rubbing his face on his blankies and never got back up.

Not sure how Ben worked this out but he curled up in the chair this afternoon.

We're all still up for several hours each night watching TV and snacking so it's been hard to get through the days. I'll allow regular nap hours but nothing extra and usually get to bed myself the minute the boys are asleep at night.

We have had fun during the day, especially playing mario kart on our new Wii. Alex is also a big fan of bowling.

After he laughs he says "That's funny, Daddy!"

Safely Home

We spent our last evening with Grandma and Grandpa K on Monday and reluctantly said our goodbyes.

One last day with Grammy and Grumpy on Tuesday, eating chocolate cake on the porch while enjoying some rain. I had a panicky morning when I found out our 747 from Chicago to Singapore (19 hours total) had no personal TVs and I rushed around trying to find portable DVD players with super long battery life. I didn't bring the kids' old player because the battery is only good for a few hours so I put all my faith in two new players that advertised 13-hour batteries.

Once that crisis was averted, we spent our afternoon playing at Chuck-E-cheese.

The guys played and enjoyed every single ride.

Wednesday morning we hit the airport bright and early and left Houston at 8am to catch our big flight in Chicago. We made a short stop in Hong Kong and saw a bit of scenery out the window.

Shortly afterward, I got paged several times as the flight was boarding and went to the counter to see what they needed. Turns out a baggage screen had shown a gun (toy, of course) in my checked luggage and I was escorted into a police vehicle on the tarmac so they could search my bag. A little freaky considering I had to leave my kids crying in the jetway with an airline employee while I followed men who barely spoke English and carried weapons. They carefully examined the toy gun, measured it, took pictures, then let me pack my bag up and be on my merry way. Much ado over nothing.

Back on the plane we were doing everything to keep ourselves entertained. The boys both slept well but not much at the same time, which was good because I didn't always have to deal with both of them at the same time often but bad because I didn't get much sleep myself. We splurged and upgraded to economy plus for the extra legroom and even got the bulkhead for the 4-hour leg so Alex had some play space. It was our first time on United internationally and I will never fly them again....the food was cheap and watching bad movies on the main cabin screen for 19 hours was torture. Thank goodness the new DVD players were advertised correctly and the batteries lasted forever for the kids. Had I known I would have brought some movies for myself.

Our last 5-hour flight was on Singapore Airlines and I'll show you why they're so much better, aside from the fact that they have the best cabin service worldwide. More legroom standard, personal screens, Ipod docks and connections, drink holders, eyeglass storage, and a place to hang things. All little things but so helpful on long haul flights.

We arrived in Perth about 36 hours later with all of our bags and cleared quarantine with no problems...I was a little nervous about that too since we brought back lots of food. We were all excited to be reunited with Daddy at the airport and packed everyone in the car to get home. Think these guys were tired?
All in all, the boys were great during the entire trip. It's stressful on them to be out of their own beds and normal routines for weeks and they handled everything like champs. We're happy to be home now but have terrible jetlag so the kids and I are watching TV at 2am. Bags are unpacked and we're taking it easy over the weekend, then Monday we'll pick back up with our normal lives including school and gymnastics and such.

To answer a questions I get asked a lot:
How to I go to the bathroom on the plane? Typically, we all go together. It's crowded and not exactly private for me, but it kills a lot of time and I don't have to worry about anyone crying alone in his seat. We wash our hands a lot, brush our teeth, and generally find entertainment with the faucet. Occasionally I sneak off alone if Alex is sleeping.

Blessings

If you read my last post, you know I'm taking a ton (well, 300lbs to be exact) of stuff back to Perth with me, but that isn't the most important part of this trip. The absolute best experiences of our visit have been spending time with our loved ones here and seeing friends, old and new. Living overseas has made me value my relationships much more than in the past and I feel so blessed to have some wonderful life-long friends from different stages in my life and fortunately many live in the Houston area.

My number one priority of this trip was to see my sister as a new mom and meet my precious little nephew, Reid. Since they live in the Dallas area I didn't get to see them as much as I would have liked but we had two wonderful visits together. I really appreciate Stacey making her first road trip with a newborn to visit us because I know it was a ton of work, as if having a newborn isn't enough work. I'm going to miss that little guy because he'll probably be walking before I get to see him again.

Our next priority was spending time with all the grandparents and we're very fortunate that they live about half an hour apart so we were able to get a lot of quality time with everyone. The boys have absolutely blossomed with all the love and attention they've gotten from their grandparents. It always makes me a little sad knowing the kids could be seeing them regularly if we lived here, but then I don't think the visits would have the same sweet value as a long-awaited trip from across the world. I can't thank all the grandparents enough for their patience, love, attention, food!, and time and for letting us take over their houses for weeks at a time. We're past excersaucers and cribs but we still manage to fill up a living room quickly with toys. Grandpa K generously let me drive his truck the entire time we've been here and that was an absolute lifesaver....a 6-week rental would have been astronomical. We all love Grandma, Grandpa, Grammy, and Grumpy and have enjoyed each and every minute we've had together. Hearing Alex yell "Gampa!" or "Gumpy!" when we pull up at either house pretty much sums up all our excitement.

The added bonus for me was spending time with old friends and meeting some new ones as well. There is nothing better than seeing a friend for the first time in a year or more and feeling like we just talked yesterday. I'm so thankful for those relationships and grateful for the friends that made time to hang out together. I really enjoyed feeling like myself here again...not that I'm a different person anywhere else but to sit with a friend I've known for over a decade and laugh about our old adventures and reminisce about the hard times is irreplaceable.

So now our trip is nearly over, the bags are packed, and I can hear Ben singing "Daddy misses me" during rest time so it's time to get back to the most important member of our immediate family! Matt has bravely held down the fort in Perth and will be picking us up at the airport on Friday morning. I imagine there will be some big smiles on our tired faces when we get to see him at the other end of this trip.

Overall, this has been such a happy, satisfying trip. I feel blessed and loved and content to go back home to Perth.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
-I Corinthians 13:13

Stuff

Ugh...it's that time already! Our wonderful trip to Texas will come to an end Wednesday morning when we get back on the dreaded airplane and fly back across the world, this time through Chicago, Hong Kong, and Singapore to Perth. The kids have spent the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa while I finished up all our shopping, met up with friends for the last time, and Packed with a capital P. Here is the before shot of just our stateside purchases (lots of books, a huge pile of clothes, shoes, toys, bags, purses, car parts, pounds of food, wii accessories, medicine, one tent, and 80 bags of hot chocolate). All are precious because we either can't buy them in Australia or would have to pay twice as much so I loaded up to the max.

About four hours later, here is the result:
Six perfectly packed bags, each weighing exactly 50lbs. I had to jettison several cans of rotel, some salsa, one heavy wooden puzzle, and the wii fit, but we should make it to Perth with exactly our 300lbs of goodies. As long as all of our bags make it intact and nothing spills, breaks, or leaks, it will be a very successful shopping trip and I can hang up the credit card for another 12 months.

Cousins

We finally got a few pictures with all 3 boys together but unfortunately this was the best I could do. Ben was really sweet holding little Reid up and Alex just didn't care at all...he was ready for the pool.

Any idea where these boys might be headed for college? Not that we're trying to convince them that A&M is the best school in the world or anything...

Proud Grammy and Grumpy with all their grandsons.

We really took it easy at the condo but one little guy was more kicked back than all the others while watching TV.

We had LOTS of duck friends. They must have quickly figured out which units had willing kids with food in their hands!

Ben's last bubble bath was an exciting one. He sang this song to his reflection in the mirror so I got the video through the doorway because I didn't want to ruin the authenticity. This boy really likes bubbles!