For anyone not aware yet, my family and I are off on a Great Adventure. We’ve packed up our kids and our lives and we’re off to the USA, the nation that’s captured my heart and my imagination. Two months. For two months we’ll be learning what it us to be the five of us, thrown together in long car trips, hotel rooms, foreign cities with foreign rules and foreign food. Two months to connect again, to learn how to find personal space in your own head, to be grumpy without hurting feelings, to forgive one another, to love one another, to be a family of five, to be a team.
It’s good. Words cannot express how grateful I am for this experience, even as I sit tapping out this blog on my phone on the toilet, supervising a kid in a bath plugged up with a bar of hotel soap. We are blessed.
We are blessed to have eaten Italian gelato (lychee and pistachio flavours) with some of our dearest friends. We are blessed to visit Luna Park,
Yesterday was Fathers Day, the first one since my dad died. I’m acutely aware that we wouldn’t be able to do this if it wasn’t for his death. It’s a bittersweet thought. It’s been a bittersweet year, and much as we have been blessed I need to allow myself the sadness that comes with it.
This phone was my dad’s too. It’s still got links to the strange photos he used to take. My suitcase was Dad’s too, and, I’ve noticed recently, my chin and jaw line. I’m glad I’m taking him with me. And tomorrow morning I’m taking him with me to the International departure lounge of Sydney airport, and off to San Francisco.
Megan Sayer 
Have a great time Megan. Excited for you. 🙂
thanks Amanda, gonna be amazing i think.
Have a great trip as I know you will. Your kids will remember this for the rest of their lives and no doubt learn a lot a long the way. 🙂
They will, I’m sure. I’ve been helping them write diaries each day too. So interesting hearing what impacts them the most.
Remember, we drive on the wrong side of the road.
And if you don’t look and act like Crocodile Dundee, no one will believe you’re from Australia. They’ll think you’re British, which to them means English, which means ‘from London’. (Welshmen don’t exist, but for those who remember Richard Burton. In Scotland everyone wears dresses. Ireland has a male population of leprechauns, and a female population of Celtic Woman.)
Once you’ve convinced them of dinkum heritage, you’ll be asked if you live in Sydney. Sydney covers the continent, except for Ayers Rock, which is occupied by Aboriginals. Don’t even bother with ‘Uluru’. To an American, that’s the little thing that hangs from the roof of your mouth just upside the throat.
If you say you live in Tasmania, you’ll be told, “Oh, I thought you lived in Australia” and immediately asked about Tasmanian Devils.
Anyone who meets you will spend the next few weeks trying to adopt an Australian accent. Please don’t laugh at them. They do mean well. It’s a compliment.
And we do drive on the wrong side of the road.
Godspeed, and welcome, Megan!
Hahaha! that made me laugh a lot. especially the reaction to the British…I HAVE wondered that recently 🙂
Las time I was in the US I was mistaken for a Canadian of all things! Yeah. I don’t get it either.
Oh, I’m excited for you. And I like seeing your family, all ready to go like that.
I wish you the best trip ever, and I hope at least one of your suitcases has wheels. (You’ll get it, I think.)
Thank you!! I’m so looking forward to it – amidst all the feelings of unreality. wow. Tomorrow. It’s really real!
And yes, all our suitcases have wheels 🙂
Waiting to here all your adventures.
Hehe, I’m glad! Looking forward to sharing them with you too!
Safe journey. May God be your family on your great adventure. 🙂
Thank you Lisa!
Tell your kids, five thousand times and more, to look both ways twice before they step off a curb. I came close to being hit a few times in England because I instinctively look left, start out and then look right. It gets more risky as we get more comfortable. And have a great time! We are currently starting down the Pacific coast through Washington and Oregon. Our first time here and loving it. Maybe we will bump into you. 😀
Wow, I can only imagine how I’d feel if I were doing something similar in leaving the U.S. to go to Australia! Hope I can catch up with you by phone this time. I’d love to hear your voice. 🙂
Will be following your blog. Enjoy yourselves, and welcome to our great country!