This is what one year looks like...

Arrival as a family of three

Last year there was no September 28. Maybe for most of the world's population there was, but not for us. Those of you who have flown across the International Date Line, you know what I'm talking about. It's that weird scenario where you literally time travel and lose a day of your life. Most people get that day back a week or a month later when they fly back east across the Pacific. But not us, we are still here, having been shorted one day out of our 2015. But let's just say, we're not crying over it. The decision to have one day less has been a pretty good one as I sit back and reflect over the past year.

This is the look. Yes, the look that says we've been in transit for about 20 hours and there's still
6 more to go?! How many more times can I watch Cinderella?!

So, SO much has happened. You know, we moved across the world and had a baby, just the typical year. When I meet new people I often get a look of "wow, you moved across the world pregnant." And then I tell them I did it once before too. And then that's when they look at me like I am actually crazy, especially if they've never done anything like it. And then I look at them and say, actually both times it's been one of the best experiences of my life. Has it been easy? Absolutely not. Has it been worth it? So worth it, and then some.

Any expat knows this feeling in the airport too well...

If I could use one word to describe the past twelve months, it would have to be blessed. I have, for what I would say the most part "successfully" played the part of my family's relocation agent with significant help from my husband (I mean, I might have been the one to pack the 30 boxes and 6 suitcases, but someone had to lift them into the car and unload them at the Fedex office for the pregnant lady... among a small fraction of other things that had to be done to get us here). I left a more than full time office job to tackle a more than full time stay at home job with Emma and then a few months later added Morgan to my daily responsibilities (albeit no pay increase). Most days I simply try to take a minute to realize how lucky I am to watch my little Swiss Miss and my little Aussie grow up right before my very eyes. And before my very eyes I observe and wonder if it is possible that their personalities are a direct reflection of which country they were born in too?!

Great friends back in St. Louis wished us well in our new country!

I have made more new friends here than I could have ever imagined. And not just casual acquaintances, but seriously people I can talk to like I have known my entire life. Emma has friends of so many different nationalities, yet she doesn't even think twice about it as she lists off which countries they are from. She loves her new preschool, but still remembers her old one fondly too.

New friendships, new traditions!

Emma is one lucky and very loved girl here too!

Steve once again has plentiful public transit options to get to work (even the ferry sometimes) and is happy to at least not have to drive in rush hour traffic himself. We can drive 10 minutes to one of Sydney's best beaches, possible the best beach for families with young children. And while I like to complain about the fact that we don't have air conditioning or heat, the even better fact is that we live somewhere with such a temperate, beautiful climate that many days, just like today, there is absolutely no need to have either one. In the same manner while my friends back in the Midwest sometimes wonder how we could possibly be living in a two bedroom apartment, it really isn't that big of deal. Sure, would it be nice to have a little more space? Absolutely. But is it a necessary part of life (even with two young children)? Absolutely not. Instead, we get outside, we explore, meet people and experience life.

Sunrise at Balmoral

Looking back on the city from Cremorne Point

But do you know what one of the best parts of the past year has been? Finding a church and community that is better than we could have ever asked for. People that welcomed us, even when we opened our mouths and out came that Yankee accent. People that brought us dinner for two weeks straight after Morgan was born. People that have pushed and encouraged our faith to grow in so many ways. I can say now without a doubt that last July when were weighing the pros and cons nonstop of Steve taking a job here versus two different options, God had a plan in us coming here. While we had been waiting and wanting for awhile to have a second child, we might not have opted to move internationally again if Morgan had come along two years ago instead of seven months ago. God is good and he has a plan for all of us, it can just be so hard to be patient and wait for an answer.

Some of my church family at a night out together

It's hard to say what's ahead of us in the year to come. We are certainly looking forward to being able to travel a bit more and a trip back to the U.S. very soon. And I can't wait to see Emma learn and understand more about living in Australia. We'll keep training her to become as Australian as she can in the meantime - eating lots of fish and chips, calamari, avocado, and maybe we'll add sushi to her repertoire this year. And if all goes according to plan, but to Steve's dismay, I will do everything I can to encourage Morgan to develop the cutest little Aussie accent possible.

Here's a look back at some of my favorite memories in the last few months before we left the U.S. that never made the blog...

Last visit to Minnesota and being goofy with cousins Tabitha and Jake

Bike riding lessons from Grandpa Souders

Saturday morning south city donut traditions

Fanciest (anniversary) dinner ever before we left St. Louis!

Some of the best co-workers and one of the best St. Louis skyline views

We love the zoo no matter what country we're in and often we're more entertained by things other than animals...

Last visit with Grandma and Grandpa Jones - don't ask about Emma's sunglasses/goggle look here

Emma saying goodbye to "Marvin" the giraffe. We had to explain that giraffes can't fly on airplanes.

Last day in our south city house, classic dinner (Chipotle) on the floor of a nearly empty house
(side note... I wonder how many times is safe to eat Chipotle while back in the U.S. for two weeks?)

So I'm thankful today that I'm not sitting in an empty house or "losing" a day of my year or packing and unpacking my possessions that were deemed worthy of making the trip across the Pacific. I'm looking forward to what's ahead and wondering how we got so lucky.

Thankful to be here as a family of four...

...and the views are pretty good too.

Spit to Manly "Hike"

Steve's been chomping at the bit every time we have a beautiful Saturday to go for a hike, and this past weekend we finally got out and did what could loosely be considered a hike. We might be a little generous with that term - far from some of the Swiss hikes that made our list. But when a four year old is involved, we'll get pretty lenient with that term. The seven month old, that's the easy one, they love coming along for the ride. It's that older one that needs to be bribed and coaxed and given an occasional ride on the shoulders.


We set out to accomplish half of the Spit to Manly walk, which is just about a 10 minute drive from where we live and that's exactly what we did. Early spring temperatures in Sydney are just about right in my book, but we still knew we would be pushing our luck to do the whole 10k, so we settled for about 5k.

Beautiful little hidden coves

For those of you "not from around these parts" the Spit to Manly walk is another one of those iconic Sydney walks. While the Bondi to Bronte walk we did last fall was a coastal ocean walk, this one is along the interior of the harbour. It starts along a very well-trafficked lift bridge in the area with a beautiful view of Middle Harbour, a marina full of gorgeous boats and winds its way past the quiet Clontarf Beach before opening up to a slightly larger area of the harbour and views all around Mosman and Manly and some beautiful national parks in the area.

Starting point on the Spit Bridge

Little hiker getting a momentary lift

Impressive erosion

Time for the family selfie!

The colors of the water here were stunning around every bend and we passed the time with the little hikers by counting stairs, going lizard hunting (we saw at least 7 or 8 of good size), and watching Emma and Steve do their impression of the running lizard. I haven't decided whether I wish more that we had captured the lizard running on camera or Steve's impression of it running.

We saw several of these guys up close sunning themselves

Hopefully we'll be back soon to finish the rest of the walk and I'm sure a bribery of ice cream at the end will become standard to these outings. But whose complaining about that?

View from part of Sydney Harbour National Park

Some of us love milkshakes while others are happy with a bus card in the mouth too!

2 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 7

We're practicing our maths over here (and by we, I mean Emma). Yes, for those of you who speak American English, I said that correctly, our maths. I can't say it. I'm sorry to every Australian, but maths is just not a word I can adopt. I can say a lot of other things like rubbish bin, have a go, pram, etc. but maths isn't one of them. It's so funny to me how we speak the same language but we choose to reverse simple pronunciations, like the letter "a" or reverse our pluralization of words. But maths is not really supposed to be the topic of this blog. It is actually supposed to be about Morgan! And Morgan is now seven months old - seriously how did that happen? And as a result, as Emma has been learning how to add basic numbers together, now we're working on what adds to the number seven.

Anyways, sweet Morgan, sweet, sweet Morgan. Seriously she is as good as they come most days (someone please knock on wood). The first six months with Emma seemed at times to be full of long sleepless nights and short napping days. While we still have some sleepless nights, the days are flying with number two! It's hard to believe we have a sitting up, army crawling, belly laughing little girl. 

My rosy cheeks baby.

Morgan got to visit her first Australian animals up close in July.

Daddy and flying baby.

Rolling baby = stuck baby.

Almost sitting up!

I did it!

I'm so BIG!

And so exhausted...

She is an absolute joy and most of the time it is an absolute joy to watch Emma and Morgan interact - except when I'm telling Emma not to crush Morgan, pull an arm or leg out of socket, or insist that she pick her up. We've only had one close call of Morgan almost falling off the bed and have since learned that Emma is not ready to "babysit" Morgan on the bed. No need to stress though - I made a diving, rug burn save and all Morgan could do was giggle as I caught her in mid-air and Emma told me "wow, that was a close call." And I rolled my eyes and made a mental note that no in fact Emma is not trustworthy for the 30 second turn my back while they're both on the bed. Lesson learned.

First sister smiles caught on camera!

So much love...

...and more.

Giggles.

Oh my heart, big sister reading to little sister.

And just when they look cute together, it all goes south.

But they don't hold grudges against each other (yet that is).

First big swing together!

Don't worry, no one was hurt during this filming...

Over the past few months we've watched Morgan transition from a roller to a crawler and now a sitter-upper. She has a fetish for needing anything and everything in her mouth. Emma definitely never cared like this for things in her mouth. You name it and she shoves it in there. And you can guess what that means for me most days - having a panic attack that something small is going to end up in those tiny fingers. As for now she just enjoys stuffing a spare (clean) diaper in her mouth while she's on the changing table and has to be in charge of my key ring the minute we are getting ready to leave the house and the entire time we are gone. Today when she didn't have the key ring while sitting in the stroller she made a swap and instead took off her socks and stuffed them in her mouth. Wonder how many people walked by on the road looking at her before I noticed it... And when she gets really bored well she just takes the easy way out and starts gnawing on the kitchen table or licking the carpet - just awesome. Oh by the way, she actually does really like food too. This girl might be stealing food from Emma's plate soon, but actually Emma wants to eat all the food (purees and all) that Morgan is eating too, so I'm not sure which way it will go. Regardless, while Morgan loved her green foods to start, that love is quickly disappearing as she finds there are things that taste better in the world!

She loves spoons (regardless of whether or not they have food on them!)

And feet in her mouth...

...tables are pretty good too.

She likes food in her mouth too.

Best mama/baby gift ever - mega key ring! She screams at me when I take it away from her!

And this girl LOVES to laugh and I LOVE to listen to her laugh. She is so happy and she will laugh at just about anything and everything her big sister does, no matter how obnoxious I perceive it to be. She loves just to laugh at herself too. We routinely hear her laughing to herself while laying in the crib. How I wish I knew what was going through that little mind of hers. 

But I know it's time to watch out - she's moving and she loves it. Lots of trouble ahead for all parties involved I suspect. But mostly a very happy Morgan to live, learn and explore. I better not blink or she's going to be one before I know it!

Not every monthly photo shoot is a happy one.

Not sure how Elsa barbie ended up in this one.

Snap a quick photo before a face plant.

Emma gets jealous when all the photos are about Morgan.

Oh these monthly days are becoming more fun!

 Not her best crawling, but you get the idea...

She makes me so happy!