Saturday Outing

We started out our morning by sleeping the latest by far we have slept all week - SIX THIRTY!!! We all woke and felt well rested for the first time in the last seven days.  We had a great breakfast and headed off to look at a house about 15 minutes north of the city - and about 2 miles from the beach.  The house is an older home with some quirks, but it's hard to complain about it when it has a multi-level limestone patio with fabulous pool, oceanviews, great schools and the whole back of the house is lined with windows that face the ocean/pool.  Mind you, it's not a completely unobstructed view (since we are not millionaires :-)), but it will definitely work.  It's a 2 story home with 3 bedrooms/1 bath & central gameroom type space upstairs, with two family room areas, dining room, Master bedroom/bath, 1/2 bath and kitchen downstairs.  Again it's older on the inside, but what sells the house is the outside.  We have another house to look at on Monday afternoon and then can make a decision.  Given the amount of people that were at the viewing this morning, we then will have to compete with other applicants I'm sure.  However, our realtor assures me that she is confident we are in the best position given we are relocating - as we are "prequalified" if you will.  Such a crazy process to go through just to rent a house! We received word that our container with our belongings should be here sometime around the beginning of March.  I have been told that being reunited with your stuff is like Christmas! Ha!

After the viewing, we headed to Hillarys Marina and Boardwalk, just a short drive away.  We at fish and chips on the boardwalk, bought the kids some new floaties for brunch and swim at Dave and Jane's tomorrow morning and visited the aquarium.  The kids had a great time - well Lainey was a tad fussy and kept complaining her legs were hurting from all the walking we did.  It was a long walk, but ah, got to love the whiny 4 year old. :-)  After wearing the kids out, we headed home, stopped by our local grocer and picked up some ice cream - much needed on this hot day!  Everyone is settling in for an afternoon rest and we'll likely head to the park by the river later. 

I posted more pictures on Facebook, but here are a few from our outing today.  We have some from the beach on Thursday, but we are having a hard time getting those uploaded.  As soon we can fix the issue, I'll post those as well - the water is BEAUTIFUL!  And yes, they do have shark patrol.  They have a tower out on the jetty that lifeguard keeps watch, a patrol boat and patrol by air via helicopter.  If a shark is spotted, they have an alarm they will sound.  We didn't get very far in the water.  ;-)

Love this pic of the kids in front of the Humpback Whale tail!  It's really that big and I can't wait to watch the migration starting in September - going to be amazing!

Sam and Lainey petting a friendly shark - felt like sandpaper

 Area we are looking to rent a house

Lindsey looks happy doesn't she? :-)

I still feel like I need to pinch myself because this just doesn't feel like by life!  I miss everyone dearly, but I am glad we decided to take this leap of faith.  It just goes to show you that you never know what God has in store!

Cheers,

Wendy

What an interesting start to the next several years... I have to admit that while I was watching the plane touch down in Perth, the "what the hell are you doing" thought crossed my mind for a second. And the same thought crossed again when our relocation company forgot to schedule a transfer for us from the airport to our temporary apartment.  Luckily, Sam's new boss and wife (Dave & Jane) showed up just as panic was setting in.   On the drive to the apartment, the only thing I could think was how beautiful it is here.  The parks are immaculate and you can tell this is just like everyone, who knew anything about Perth, said it would be - an outdoor family lifestyle. The weather is fabulous and 90 here feels like low 70s at home-guess because of the lack of humidity or the type of humidity produced in Texas! Our temporary apartment is nice - 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, with a large living room and all the normal stuff in the kitchen.  We have a lovely patio and full size washer with a mini dryer and outdoor clothesline (this reminded me of my Gran because she used to dry her clothes on the line).  We have evaporative cooling in this unit, aka swamp cooler, but it works quite well.  However, you have to forget every time you were told to SHUT THE DOOR by your parents because this type of system requires you leave windows and doors open for it to cool your house. I have to say that I really like it, cool in the house while letting all that fresh Aussie air in!  However, the apartment doesn't have Internet, so my posts will likely be less frequent, unless I find a new favorite free wi-fi spot.  This also means we can't use our home phone number. We are going to work on figuring out our communication options.  Not having Internet in the house is hard! A comfort we are definitely missing!  Our realtor took me to the mall today so we can make the things happen, but we are limited on data until we get into our permanent home. We are doing pretty well for our first few days here.  Lainey only had one meltdown because she was so tired from the flight.  Sunday the kids fell asleep at 4:00 pm and there was no waking them, so we let them sleep and  an hour and a half later we joined them.  Come 2:00 am Lainey was standing at the corner of our bed saying she was not sleepy anymore. (sigh) We all were up really EARLy for Sam's first day of work.  He looked great in his formal business attire, which is something new for him.  I fixed his lunch and he was off to catch public transport into the city.  Definitely as different start to the day for both of us. Sam got home from work at a decent hour (had a great first day), I fixed dinner and we topped off the evening with some play time at the park.  I've done grocery shopping twice.  Dave and Jane kindly took us to Cole's, the local neighborhood grocery store, which is about the size of a Dollar General.  It had everything we needed though.  As expected, the average cost is about $1 more per item than in Texas.  There are some things that cost significantly more -like bananas and laundry detergent.  I'm sure that list will be longer.  They don't have regular Cheetos, rather they have Cheetos cheese and bacon balls! LOL! Cheese puffs with bacon flavor.  I haven't tasted them yet...they smell a bit like dog treats but Lindsey says they taste good!  The meats and cheeses are fabulous!  And they have Diet Coke here after all - I'm still going to try to ween myself off of it though.   I went back shopping Monday morning with the kids. We walked - well Lindsey and I did  and the kids rode in the stroller.  We stopped at a small park that was on the way and Harrison found a new toy he liked - a digger in sand! He was in heaven!  It is so cool and pleasant, especially in the shade. We picked up some soap and food storage items and trekked home.  :-) The exercise was good! It has been a good day.  Our rental car arrived today and I managed to get us to the park this evening without driving on the incorrect side of the road.  However, I keep washing the windshield instead of turning on the blinker.  We are also ready to start hunting for a house to rent, which we will start doing on Wednesday morning  I am definitely ready to settle into something that we can call our own and start formulating some sort of a routine.   For now, the dizziness from the long flight is fading, and I can say without a doubt that I am happy to be here.   Peace, Wendy

Count Down

Can someone please let me off this emotional roller coaster? It has been a really difficult week. The to-do list has seemed never-ending, sleep has been hard to come by, custody issues that never seem to cease, and those little snags along the way that you just don't need, much less have time for. Perhaps I'm letting things get the best of me, but I am beyond tired! However, I'm happy to report that the "positive" list is longer! We received a beautiful blessing and send-off from our Good Shepherd family, my family really came though and took great care of the kids so we can get stuff done (so lucky to have fabulous parents) and loaned me their car for all my running around, Sam's parents helped us work out our storage issues, we sold our trailer to some super sweet people, I really enjoyed my last game of LRC with my Friendswood ladies, and I managed to fit all our clothes in the allotted number of suitcases. I find myself trying to write the proper farewell blog and honestly, my mind just can't even formulate the words. Not that I'm ready to leave, but more that I'm ready to move forward and put this "move" behind us and start living the new adventure. I know your thoughts and prayers will be with us as we step on that plane tomorrow. And after that, prayers for peaceful rest would be great! ;-). Peace, Wendy P.s. I'm ready to start sharing some pictures and promise to get on that right away!

One Day Closer

Well, we have 3 things now that we didn't have when I posted last:

• Visa
• Flight itinerary - leave on Friday, January 20th
• Temporary home address - Unit 3, 77 Gardner Street, Como, WA  6152 

It's been a busy last couple of days since receiving this from our relocation folks.  They are coming on Monday to pack the house and Tuesday will take away our things in a 20ft container.  The house is quite empty already or just when I think it is, I find something else to clean out.  If I've learned anything from this process, it's that I want to live a much more simple life in regards to things when we get to Australia.  We by no means are pack-rats, but it really is amazing the things we keep.  Why?  It's absurd.  Speaking of things, we have a buyer for the travel trailer and a potential buyer (who's 99% sure they want it, but will let us know) for the jet ski.  Still no contract on the house, but I believe that right person is out there.  So all in all, things are working out.

Lindsey is spending time with her friends, we are celebrating Harrison's birthday early so the family can enjoy his special day with him and we are going to say "c-ya later" to our Good Shepherd family on Sunday.  Sam got in a full week of work and so did I, as a stay-at-home mom.  Not too shabby!

I wish I had something wonderfully exciting to tell you, but not yet.  I know the best is yet to come.  We are just hanging on at this point and trying to get ourselves to Friday.  Please pray for our family as we tie up our loose ends here and board our flight on Friday.  Also, please pray for Lindsey's mom.  After speaking (or should I say yelling) with her today, she really needs God to soften her heart.  I've been praying for this for years, but it just might be time to enlist the help of others! :-)

Enjoy your weekend,
Wendy

Humor & Provision

The humorous aspect about this move is that everyone has a statistic on the number of deadly animals in Australia or an actual list. In case you might be wondering what some of those are, allow me to enlighten you. We could die from the following (just to name a few):
Box Jellyfish
Red back spider
Funnel web spider
Great White Sharks
Blue Ring Octopus
Brown Snake

And some species of killer snails (name unknown) Some of those (Funnel web spiders for example) do not live in Perth. However, given the recent death of the Houston man back in late October, we all know Perth is home to some rather large Great Whites. How in the world does a population of 1.5 million people manage to survive? :-) Very carefully I suppose! Wish us luck! :-)

On a more serious note, our visa is still pending and we got word it will be around 2 more weeks. They are coming to pack the house on the 16th now instead of the 11th. Sam was supposed to start on the 16th, which now looks like will be a week later. We are both officially unemployed right now. We have money screaming out the door and no paychecks coming in this month. We didn't plan for this delay - how could we have known? We thought we had given ourselves enough leeway. Well we didn't - again circumstances beyond our control with delays on the passport for Lindsey, office closures for the holidays and so on.

Beyond our control - something will work out. God provided.

Today Sam was asked to do some consultant work up until we leave and he starts on Monday. Amazing! To each of you who have called, commented or emailed recently to chat or wish us well, thank you for your support and kind words of encouragement. You are a blessing to us. And to those of you lifting our family up in prayer, thank you and keep praying. Again, we are headed to a country that contains 80% of the world's deadliest animals (or so I was told), so we will need those continued prayers. :-)

Faithfully,
Wendy

How did we get here?

First of all, we are still on American soil, just in case you were wondering.  We are still in a holding position as we wait for our visa confirmation in order to get our flight confirmations, etc. 

Many of you have asked about how all this came about so I thought it would be appropriate, since this is a start of something new for us, to tell you how we got here.  It really started many many months ago, the beginning of 2011, after many discussions Sam and I had about what was next for our family.  In order to provide stability for Lindsey through her high school years, moving was really out of the question for us - unless it was the right move.  But we knew there was some sort of change we were seeking, so we worked very hard to get our finances in order so that we would be fully ready when God put something in front of us.  Aside from that, our biggest priority and task was to pray.  The prayer was simple really - that we would be ready and open to whatever God had in store.  And I must say, it's not always easy to see what His plan is - because if you are at all like us, you are injecting your own wishes and desires into the plan! :-)  Little did we know, God was about to be crystal clear.

In late August, an executive recruiting firm scouted Sam on LinkedIn and sent him an email.  We read it, thought "cool opportunity," laughed about it - gave it the ole "yeah right" - and then we hit the close button on the email (but didn't delete it).  And the whirlwind began.  There were many thoughtful, and at times tearful, discussions when it came to how all this would play out.  We have had many hurdles in these last 3 months - custody battle to make sure Lindsey could go with us and our family remain in tact, off-loading material goods and a stack of paperwork that you don't even want to know about. When you think about, God's plan might be clear, but the old cliche - it might not be easy - is so true. Our to-do list is still long and that is only the USA to-do list.  I can only imagine what the Australia to-do list will look like.  But if there are any lessons to be had at this point, I'm sure learning mine - I AM NOT IN CONTROL.  I know that God has many many things to teach the Woolard family as we embark on this journey, but as the writer of this blog, I am not afraid to share with you that I'm the first one in the lesson line!  Those of your reading this that know me well, know this move has been the biggest challenge and blessing for all of us, especially me.  I'm glad to report I'm loosening up a little because I truly believe that God has got this! Let the adventure begin!

Many blessings and happiness to you in 2012!

Cheers,
Wendy