Different Plans

Sunday morning, 9:30am.

The house is quiet, I'm still in bed in my PJ's with a cup of tea beside me.  Toff is at work.  The kids are at Jen's house.  And Alyssa is in Bali renewing her valid-for-one-year-but-you-have-to-leave-the-country-every-three-months visa.  I was supposed to be with her. We were supposed to have a whirlwind 48-hour rock star trip for shopping, massages, and cocktails by the pool.  But at the airport yesterday I was informed that it's probably best if I don't leave the country, as I probably would not be allowed back in.  Apparently my electronic permanent visa did not automatically get transferred to my new passport with my new name.  Since they have both my names (maiden and married) on file I assumed all would be good......I was wrong.

So Alyssa set off on her own and Toff pulled a u-turn to come back to the airport to pick me up.  Instead of 5-hours on a plane I spent 5 hours serving pies and coffees. (A rare treat in itself - a plane trip without trying to keep anyone entertained or quiet?!? Oh how I was looking forward to that in and of itself!)  Instead of a $6 massage I took a warm bath.  Instead of exotic food and exciting night life, I went out to dinner with my husband and was home in front of a movie by 9pm.  How differently things work out for us sometimes!

I think sometimes of me in a different life.  When I'm driving a kombi van down a street shaded with arching pine boughs on the way home from work, I think of other-me reading a book on the train into work in a big city somewhere.  When I'm sitting in front of our bakery talking to our customers, and telling them where I come from and what I'm doing here, I think of the same conversation happening in a conference room in Virginia, or over a bar in Oregon.  I picture myself with a closet full of short dresses and high heels.   I wonder what other-me might be doing when I'm standing in my kitchen cooking dinner for eight.  And then the window closes, other-me goes back to her life, and I smile as I look around at mine.  I like what I see.  I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to call here home, and to call what I spend most of my days doing "work."  (Which, in case you were wondering, most often looks like 3-hours with the kids in the morning before Alyssa wakes up to take over, then it's off to work where mostly I just try to keep a multitude of people happy, play with ad and t-shirt and poster designs on my computer, or run various errands to the shops.)  And the kids!  Oh, how I have wanted these little children to call my own for most of my life!  And they're here!  I got them!  And they are gorgeous and difficult and easy to love and hard to cope with and just everything and more that I thought I was getting when the doctor said "you're pregnant!"

So maybe Bali didn't work out, but at least we learned that I have visa issues now, and not in June when all five of us are boarding a plane to go back to America! And maybe other-me is leading a fun solo life somewhere, but this-me is leading a pretty fun family life right here.

Here are some photos:

Play time in the rumpass room - when I become chair, food dispenser, toy, jumping apparatus, and boo-boo fixer.

Story time with Dad - Meggie is still learning how to sit still and listen.

Autumn morning at the beach!

Eating sand and splashing in waves is tiring work for Naked Beach Baby.

Sometimes Trip sleeps so soundly that I have resort to being obnoxious when I wake him up from his nap otherwise he'll sleep too long and not go to bed when it is actually bed time.....I may learn to regret this later.

Date night in the city!  Every February Adelaide becomes the Festival Capitol of the World!
Live shows and impromptu beer gardens on every corner!

This little boy so desperately wants to be a big boy.  He begged us to let him go on the ferris wheel - but it actually goes quite high and quite fast.
"Next year," we promised him, "the sign says you have to be three!" (<--- Parents are such liars!!!)

...instead of the ferris wheel Trip went on this trampoline "with a seatbelt" he says.
It was the best $10 we have EVER spent!...
...We thought he would be really good at it, considering all you have to do is JUMP....

WRONG.  He wouldn't bend his knees!  "Bend your knees, Trip!" "I am!" he yelled, "I aaammm!!!"
*giggle giggle*
As his legs stayed locked so straight that it looked like boards were strapped to them!
ohmygoodness, he had us all crying from laughing so hard!

Alyssa and Jen on our adventure to the city - nice coordination, ladies!

Trip's newest obsession is taking every single pillow in the house and stacking them all into one giant pile.
 And then he insists that you sit on it to be "safe" and he'll yell at you if you try to leave.  He had all five of us on this very pillow pile.

Autumn is definitely beginning to descend on us, but we'll sneak in a few more evenings at the beach for the season!

And if you are one of those people who are related to me, and are worried about me sending my 18yo niece to a foreign country all by herself:

She'll be fine!!!  I have no doubt that she will come through okay - she might be a little scared at times, but she will come back from this with the biggest feeling of empowerment for having done it all herself!  

xx Cara