31 December 2012 - New Year's Eve 2012

31 December 2012 – still in Sydney (back to Kurmond)

Woohoo!  New Years Eve!!  We had a final pack-up day today.  We collected our final things from Rouse Hill then went to Windsor to get our final things from mum’s.  All was packed into the car and taken to our caravan at the Turner family home.  We dumped a few things in the van and decided it was too hot to proceed with packing and went for the slushy machine instead.  This was set up in preparation for our New Years Eve celebrations.  We enjoyed our New Year Eve with good friends and got chatting to many other lovely people.  The Turner pool was full with what I would guess to be about 30 children, followed by a bit of back-yard cricket and lazing about in the heat of the day.  Jodi and I helped (or more like hindered) Josh with making jam donut shots and then in the wee hours of the morning the boys were trying to outdo each other by talking up the number of push ups each of them could do (not that any were performed… onya Jas).  There were lots of tents already set up for the kids to sleep in, and we had 5 kids in the caravan with us by the end of the night.  I would have to rate this as one of the best New Years that we’ve ever had and can’t thank the Turner’s enough for allowing us to spend the night at their house with not only their friends but many of our own.  We had a fantastic night followed by a lovely recovery day on the day after.  Welcome to 2013!!!

27, 28, 29, 30 December 2012 - still in Sydney

30 December 2012 – still in Sydney

Today was lovely time spent with my sister, Toni and her kids at their place.  We just sat about and chatted while the kids ran amok and enjoyed one of their last play dates together for a while.  We had a bit of lunch and hung around for a few hours before heading back to Rouse Hill.  We met Josh’s brother, Rodney, and kids here and all the kids went for a quick dip in the pool before going out for dinner at the Brewery with Rivo and Buttzy.  It was another day full of “see ya laters” but not “goodbyes”.

29 December 2012 – still in Sydney

This morning, Josh finished off setting up the car including the playstation for the kids in the back of the car for while we are on our travels.  While the kids were spending time in the car testing this out, I just spent some alone time in the pool and cleaning up the house.  Late this afternoon, we went to Sue & Steve Corey’s house in towards the city for a bit of a catch-up dinner.  The kids fortunately had 2 other young boys to play with and they all got stuck into the new combined adult & child version of Trivial Pursuit that they’d gotten as a Xmas present… hours of fun!  We returned home at a reasonable time (around 11.30pm) and all went straight to bed.  The Demamiels were back from Melbourne by this time and they were exhausted and all in bed.

28 December 2012 – still in Sydney (Rouse Hill)

Another quiet day hanging about at one of our surrogate homes at Rouse Hill.  This time it was my mum that came to hang out with us.  After having a swim with the kids this morning, then a bbq for lunch, we again hit the shops for more window shopping (it’s not like I can buy lots of stuff to take with me).  It is days like today that I’m going to miss just hanging out with family/friends but on the flip side, I have so much to look forward to….

27 December 2012 – still in Sydney (Rouse Hill)

It was a fairly quiet day today, simply up to the shops for some food and then back home to wait for the Monteleone’s to come for lunch and do a child swap.  There was more swimming for the kids and then back to Rouse Hill shops, this time for some clothes shopping.  All in all, a very quiet but enjoyable day.

24, 25, 26 December 2012 – still in Sydney (moving back to Rouse Hill)

26 December 2012 – still in Sydney  (moving back to Rouse Hill)

As we had clothes in various places by this time, we again had to rummage through all our stuff to repack once again!  Once this was done, and Xmas gifts all packed into the car, we headed to the Turner’s house to try and pack up our van a little in readiness to set off (yes even the caravan is spread out amongst our friends whom are all storing stuff… haha).  We spent a little while there trying to fit things into the van and catching up with the Turner clan, before heading  to the Garton’s to drop off Xmas presents.  It was a short stop off before then heading to the Monteleone’s to drop more gifts off here too.  Silly season…….  We had a great dinner with Nat & Jo and the girls by which stage the kids were all trying to arrange sleep overs.  After a lot of time consulting about how this would work, we left Zoe at their house and had in our car our Sami and her little friend Carissa.  I don’t know how but even by the time that we drove from East Kurrajong to Rouse Hill, we still had two little girls both bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Thankfully, they did actually go to sleep just before midnight.

25 December 2012 – Still in Sydney (Xmas Day)

Merry Xmas everyone!!  Santa came to my mum’s house last night – I just don’t know how he knew where to find us??  But we are extremely glad he came!  The kids opened presents and then waited for more family to arrive…  It felt like an eternity to them but I enjoyed the laziness of the morning.  Around lunch we headed to the Scheffer household to do loads of eating and more present opening.  Even though the weather was cool, it was still a great day with family.  Thankfully the kids did not get fuel vouchers for Xmas, but everyone took into consideration the room available in our caravan and tried to accommodate accordingly.  One big event down (Xmas) and one left to go (New Years Eve) before we start on our adventure!!

24 December 2012 – Still in Sydney (Windsor for Xmas Eve)

Josh went to work for his final day today and cooked up a great Xmas lunch at the dealership to celebrate his final day.  Meanwhile, Zoe, Sami and I packed our bags again, this time to leave Rouse Hill and head back to my mum’s house for Xmas Eve in order to wake with her for Xmas morning.  I did some last minute shopping in the 38 degree heat of the afternoon, only to walk out of the shops to find the weather had dropped to 24 degrees – what the??  A big storm had hit and this was the start to our cold snap, being Xmas!  Before picking Josh up from his final drinks with work mates, the girls, their nan and I made a lovely gingerbread house.  It definitely didn’t turn out like the picture on the box but we had lots of fun trying to get it right and lots of laughs.  After dinner tonight, we did a drive around the neighbourhood to check out all the Xmas lights, finishing at North Richmond.  You just can’t find better in the Hawkesbury than North Richmond for the lights.  Not even the rain could keep people away.

23 December 2012 – Still in Sydney (Sydney Harbour)

We had a special invite for today, a maiden voyage on Rod and Edwina’s boat out in Sydney Harbour.  We met them at The Spit just in time to climb on board and take off.  Zoe and Samantha were actually very excited to get back out on the water (thankfully) and the weather was perfect for the day ahead.  After throwing anchor not far from Taronga Zoo we had a bit of relaxing to do before jetting off again, to meet up with other friends of Rod & Eddie’s out too on their boat.  It was a lovely day with a fantastic bunch of people!  Towards the end of our afternoon, the ladies in the group had decided to swim over to a rockface to jump off the ledge… not much dutch courage required when you’ve been drinking all afternoon.  However, when push came to shove standing on that ledge, it was much harder than originally thought.  If it wasn’t for the difficult climb to get to the ledge, I think I would have tried to climb back down instead of stepping off the edge.  Fortunately I made it to the surface after taking my leap of faith and swam safely back to board the boat.  It was quite late when we said our farewells back at the mooring so we fed the kids something quick for dinner and then headed for North Sydney to check out the city lights one more time before our big adventure.  We live in such a beautiful city but I’m sure we will discover many more places to match those currently surrounding us.

22 December 2012 – Still in Sydney (Rouse Hill)

We spent today recovering from our Demamiel Xmas drinks of last night which finished around 4am.  It was a very lazy day around the yard and in the pool and watching our friends pack their bags.  They were preparing to head to Melbourne to spend Xmas with family whilst we house sat and fed their animals.  It was a bit of another home away from home which helped us out in our homeless situation.  We had an additional child (Hannah Turner) come join us for today and we hardly noticed – love kids that amuse themselves!  I would say that our own kids are really going to miss having their friends around but I also hope that they make lots of new friends on our travels.  Time will tell!!