Moving again and so much more

For those that know me well, you know how our little family moves all over this Great Southern Land!  And as the end of the year draws near, we are moving yet again - but this is the last move!

15 odd years ago, we quit our jobs, sold my car, decked out Kevin's Ute, packed up the house and heading off to explore Australia, with the promise we would be back in 12 months - who were we kidding!

The more we explored the more we found to explore! Along the way we got engaged, then married, had two beautiful daughters, met some of the most amazing people and made lifelong friends!  Now we are going home!

Not home to NZ or PNG for me, but to Cairns, my Aussie Home!  My Mum and Dad, Sisters, Kevin's Mum and Dad and Sister along with Brothers-In-Law, Neices, Cousins, Friends, God-Daughters and Uncles and Aunties - all live in Cairns, so it is Home in every sense of the word!

We are excited and scared, no more moving for this little family, Cairns has changed a lot in 15 years, but the people are still the same!

Now we have to find a house to be our home, no easy feat!  We have been looking and looking and looking and hopefully soon the right one will find us!

The next few weeks will be insane!  Packing, travelling and hardest of all - saying goodbye to our sensational friends, especially our neighbours, we surely were blessed the day we signed the lease on our little Adelaide home, it will be hardest to say goodbye to these wonderful people, but they know they will always have a place to lay their heads in Cairns!

So during the coming weeks I thought I would document our move, this will be our 5th in as many years, and a lot of people ask how I do it, well its a family effort, but as it is one of the most stressful things in life I have learned some coping tricks over the years and thought I would share. 

Life will be chaotic, so this documenting will not be regular, but I will try!

Mojo

Many years ago I started to blog about my creative outlet - scrapbooking!! As well as life in general for our family.  It seemed like a good way for our families to follow us as we drifted around the country.  But, I got lazy, I started working fulltime and then I even lost my Mojo!  OH NO I hear you scream!

But ...

I think I have it back!!!

Thanks mainly to this awesome and inspiring shop I discovered not far from where I live in Adelaide.  I wandered in there a couple of weeks ago - full of flu and really just wanting to see what new product was out there (not like I need to add to my overflowing stash), but what I got was a big smack on the back of the head!

This shop is so well set out, it is inspiring just wandering around!!!  The staff are soooooo friendly and it was all too too nice!  So I got a few supplies, came home, sat down and scrapped!  First time in almost 2 years!  And I loved it, I really loved it!

The layout may not be perfect and the techiques were a little rusty, but all in all I was pretty happy! I even went back to attend a monthly scrap challenge group and am now busy planning my layouts for that! (will keep you up to date)

So to Mandii & Tracey at Paper Flourish - THANKS!!! Hope to be seeing more of you!

http://www.paperflourish.com.au/index.html

Check it out - just beautiful!

Apple Picking in the Adelaide Hills - what joy!

Morning,

I just wanted to share some of the most fun I have had in ages!  After a word from my amazing friend Helen, who is a wealth of knowledge on all things "Adelaidian", I headed into the Adelaide Hills on Saturday morning with my two Darling Daughters and one of said Daughters' BFF's!

We drove through wonderful winding roads, skirting the edge of streams and little farms, some of which had the most amazing stone cottages on them - that will have to be an exploration for another day -all the while enveloped in a misty rain.  We even found a castle, well at least what remains of a castle.

After only 20 minutes or so we found our way to Summertown and Hollidays Rd and an old apple grove.  We were met by two kindly farmers who explained which apples were ready to pick and we were off!  The kids were so excited and were running everywhere, I just sort of stood there, with a lovely gobsmacked look on my face and inhaled the scent of wet grass and fresh apples!!!!  Glorious indeed.

We spent the next hour picking apples and exploring the grove, we found the older trees had "knitted" together in one section to create something out of a fairytale, just magical.

The Fruits of our labour!

If you are interested in picking fresh apples then head up to Hollidays Rd, Summertown - the easiest way is just to follow Greenhill Rd all the way to the top, once you get to Summertown, turn left into Hollidays Rd and the Apple Grove is on the Left about 500 metres down the road.  They are open on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 11am through till July.

Enjoy!

Now I am off to make some apple sauce, jam and pies ....



Settling in to SAHM status

So it's been the better part of a month since I gave up full time work!  And I have been really busy!  Helping out at our girls local school, catching up with mending, ironing, cleaning etc at home, I haven't really had a free day for weeks - and I love it!

Get to see my girls every afternoon without them and me being so tired we can barely hold a rational conversation and I have been cooking up a storm!

Now that I have caught up a bit, it's time to tackle som projects around here - so I am going to start documenting my progress here on my blog!