That was the ongoing joke when we made last minute plans to escape to the town of Orange over the long Labour day weekend in early October. Emma and Morgan couldn't stop laughing hysterically over the idea that we were going to a town called Orange. Orange is about 3.5 hours northwest of Sydney. While Orange and the surrounding region is well known for its food and wine, oranges are not grown there, but rather apples more predominantly. I guess the same person that appropriately named the nearby gold mining town called Lucknow did not name Orange.
But really we were all excited to getaway for a few days with some good friends and explore a region we haven't seen much of. While multiple times we thought we probably should have cancelled the trip between over half the family being sick just prior to leaving, to the car breaking down on the side of the road, we still managed to have a pretty great weekend away. And used it as an appropriate time to recount terrible travel tales with our friends.
We arrived late on Friday night. It's one of my favourite ways to travel. You wake up the next morning to the sunrise unsure of your exact surroundings. But then, on the good trips, you find them to be better than anticipated. While most accommodations were already booked 10 days out when we made our booking, I think we did alright by finding the Turner Vineyard Motel which sits perched atop rolling hills covered with vineyards. And when you're in Australia it gets even better and you wake up to kangaroos hopping through the vineyards.
We also woke up to some beautiful smiling faces.
It was a good thing our Saturday schedule was packed full (before the car broke down on Sunday). We explored the neighboring heritage-listed village of Millthorpe, which had a main street lined with antique and boutique shops. A pre-lunch stop at Heifer Station Vineyard was the perfect choice to make both adults and kids happy complete with a petting zoo, sand pit and plenty of area for the kids to explore while adults do, well what adults do at a vineyard.
Cute little entry "gate" to Millthorpe, proud to say a friend's dad helped build this!
First signs of spring
Who knew a 50 cent purchase could make someone so happy!
All the kids.
I need the designer of Heifer Station Wines to come to my house.
The weekend crew (minus me).
Freshly sheared!
Charley kept putting herself in with the chickens.
Morgan doing what she does best, making herself happy.
My favourite sign on the trip!
We have our friends to thank for making sure pretty much everything was planned and really we just tagged along. Most importantly they made sure we had good food stops. Lunch on Saturday was at the Agrestic Grocer before we headed into the actual town of Orange to explore with stops at a nostalgic milk bar (for my American fans think milkshakes & candy shoppe) and small art gallery. We made pit stops to prepare for the picnic we were planning to have on Sunday and dinner at the hotel with kids while our friends headed out for dinner.
As alluded to unfortunately Sunday didn't quite go according to plan as we planned to daytrip to the town of Dubbo (still about 1.5 hours away from Orange) to go to the zoo. We made it about 20 minutes before the car broke down. Much to our surprise the girls handled it shockingly well. I guess when you have ipads in hand whether the car is moving or not, it doesn't much matter and the idea of missing the zoo in 37 degree celsius heat wasn't totally terrible. And Charley thought sitting in the front seat pressing all the buttons on the car was great while batting away all of the flies that are a sure sign of spring in Australia. Thanks to NRMA, the tow truck driver (who was somehow related to the mechanic - remember small country town), the taxi driver, the Hertz rent a car man (that didn't have a rental car to "fit" all of us), a hotel receptionist who took pity and gave us a bottle of wine while we twirled our thumbs at the hotel, and the nice mechanic who came in on a Sunday (as we were doomed to be stuck if he didn't as Monday was a public holiday) we managed to get the car semi-repaired and back to us by mid-afternoon.
Happy as clams in a broken down car.
A picnic outside our hotel room really wasn't too bad.
All smiles before she ran through the grass and stepped on a bindi weed.
We made a quick stop at the Orange Adventure Park before meeting back up with our friends (who had visited relatives for the day instead of going to the zoo) at beautiful Nashdale Lane Wines. It felt like the whole day wasn't a total waste as we relished in the extra sunshine that comes with the first day of daylight savings time and stopped by Lake Canobolas as well before heading to a pub to catch the "grand final" NRL game that was kind of a big deal to most of Sydney.
A quick lesson in chess.
Charley packs the love on Morgan when she catches her snoozing.
Nashdale Lane Wines. So simple. So good.
Future wine connoisseur.
Kids play area at the pub on steroids. A recipe for kids to run reckless while parents drink.
The weekend went too quick by the time we headed back Monday mid-morning. On the recommendation of our friends we had to make one last stop at the Racine Bakery for some amazing pastries before getting on the road and saying a quick prayer that our car would make it back to Sydney. Thankfully it did just that.
Racine Bakery delights.
Happy souls.
Telling jokes seemed to be a theme for our trip.
Country New South Wales surprised me. It still feels a little anti-Australian to not have a beach, but I'm starting to understand there are some pretty great areas of Australia that don't rely on iconic stretches of coastline and beaches. Unfortunately because its not on the coast this area of Australia could really use some water right now, so keep it in your prayers.
Now I better start asking our friends when and where they are planning the next trip for us.
Spoiler alert: Parenting is tough. In case no one told you, just when you think you start to figure out a tiny fraction of this thing called parenting, you will realize you don't have any part of it figured out.
Every time our family has grown by one of these beautiful little girls I have grown to understand a little more that raising them is pretty darn challenging. They are each their own little person. Yes, ours all look exactly alike. Pretty much triplets separated by a few years time, but oh how different they are and oh how differently they need to be parented.
Lucky for me we have just embarked on two weeks of school holidays, aka two weeks to spend every minute with all three of them, aka two weeks to test my ability to parent all three of them differently all the time. Thankfully now as we round the corner towards the end of Emma's second school year I have a better grasp of how I think these two weeks will play out (well I think, but let's be real they will probably throw me a curve ball this go around). This first week, especially the first few days will be particularly challenging, with bickering, complaints of "what are we doing today?", moping around the house with boredom, and testing all of the boundaries. Near the end of the week most likely we will start to settle into the holiday lack of routine and enjoy more of our time together; argue less, create and laugh more. But for now the end of a busy day one has come to a close and I'll prepare myself to wage battle for day two. I'll look at the gorgeous family photos we had taken back in May when I knew I would want to capture these fleeting moments, no matter how challenging they are.
I remember now that they challenged me on this day. It was mothers day and they doted on me for a few minutes when we first woke up but as the day wore on and our photo session approached they stopped listening and prepared to run carelessly around the beach. More or less flirting with our photographer in an attempt to get her to photograph themselves more than their sisters; according to their own plans for this quick photo session.
But just like in life I should just trust God that he's got it figured out and the photos are going to turn out just how I want them to (well plenty of them did NOT turn out that way, but plenty did too). It surely won't be according to my plan but we will get there trusting that our way is not always best, and often not best. And instead we should just take a deep breath and prepare for the ride because He's got our back even when we stumble and fall and ultimately knows just the right way to get us to where we need to go. I'm going to try to remember that tomorrow by escaping out of the house before they can poke me awake with some question that is surely NOT how I envisioned my day beginning. And I'm going to be excited to hear the "mama" when I open the door upon my return home. And I'm going to try to remember how cute they are, and the beautiful moments captured in these photos before I think of anything else.
Like I said, there were plenty of photos that did not turn our exactly how I envisioned. This last one is still one of my favorites. This is real life. We wanted that one last perfect family photo before the sunlight was too dim and no one was having it. Tomorrow will look like this at some point and there will be pushing and shoving and sand being stuffed in a mouth (maybe not sand, but something stuffed in a little mouth). And we will sort it out one challenge at a time.
That was the ongoing joke when we made last minute plans to escape to the town of Orange over the long Labour day weekend in early October. Emma and Morgan couldn't stop laughing hysterically over the idea that we were going to a town called Orange. Orange is about 3.5 hours northwest of Sydney. While Orange and the surrounding region is well known for its food and wine, oranges are not grown there, but rather apples more predominantly. I guess the same person that appropriately named the nearby gold mining town called Lucknow did not name Orange.
But really we were all excited to getaway for a few days with some good friends and explore a region we haven't seen much of. While multiple times we thought we probably should have cancelled the trip between over half the family being sick just prior to leaving, to the car breaking down on the side of the road, we still managed to have a pretty great weekend away. And used it as an appropriate time to recount terrible travel tales with our friends.
