An American Holiday

I remember how excited I felt the first time I went on an airplane. I felt so excited as it began to accelerate down the runway, hurtling towards liftoff. I was 9 and my family was flying across the country to visit my uncle and his partner who lived in California. I remember the feeling of anticipation as the engines revved and my body was pushed gently into the back of my seat. I remember looking over and seeing the wide eyes of my sister as she tried to stay comfortable with the idea that we would soon be higher than we had ever been before - certainly higher than the high dive at the local public pool, which you could at least climb the ladder down from if you decided, "no thanks, this height just isn't for me."

My kids have flown internationally twice now, and they are still both too young to remember any of it.

I like to hope that this means that they will be great travellers when they get older. Most likely, they will probably hate travelling and feel annoyed at their parents for dragging them across the world a few times over.

While travelling with two kids under three for a travel experience involving three flights, one of which is 13+ hours, isn't….ideal, it is a necessary evil if we want our children to meet their American family (and we do - I love my family!).

We are lucky enough that we can make this work for us and our work schedule. I can round up most of the projects I have going, and put new ones on hold until I get back, while Toff can organise our other staff to cover the tasks he has lined up, and still keep tabs on things via the internet. It is a huge investment for us (especially as the kids insist on growing - as kids do - and require their own seats on the plane!) but it is part of our lifestyle that we knew we had ahead of us when we chose to marry and start a family with someone who had a whole life on the other side of the world.

I never feel like I made one big "I'm moving to Australia" decision. It was, "let's go to Australia for a year to travel," which turned into "hey, we've always wanted to get married on a beach, let's choose our favourite beach in the whole wide world" which just happened to be Port Willunga, and then, finally, it turned into "oh, hey, we're pregnant…WOW. Let's stay in Australia because of the healthcare system." Now, after we fell into this whole bakery thing, we feel that it's the best place to give our family a stable, consistent upbringing for the next X years. The whole process has occurred naturally over a few years, which has made the move much more comfortable for my head and heart.

When I chose to be with Toff, I knew that at some point I was probably going to live in Australia for at least some amount of time, but there were two things that I really didn't want to have to miss out on - the weddings of my friends,  and my high school reunion. Because we made that a priority, we've been able to make it to four out of six weddings we've been invited to around the globe (which I feel pretty proud of us for!), and our most recent trip this June was so we could make it to my reunion.  I'm not entirely sure when, but at some point growing up I started really looking forward to going to my ten year high school reunion. (Hey, I've never claimed to be normal!)

We got to spend time in Virginia with my family, go to my reunion while my mom and dad babysat the kids (something they are happy to help with whenever they have the chance!), and also drive up to Maine to visit with most of our other family members - and then back to Virginia for one more weekend at the lake to catch up with a few more lovely faces! We'll touch on those later - for now here are some photos of the first section of our trip:

Breakfast in LA where we stopped over for a day to break up the 30 odd hours of travel!

We spent our LA day exploring Redondo Beach.

Lemonade! Not really available in Aus, it's one of the food items we look forward to the most.

Trip impressed the crowd of 50+ who were watching these teenagers make a music video for their dance school -
just saw his opportunity and stepped right up to take his turn dancing!

Our welcome committee - aka Granpa, took us to Denny's
I must admit, we do love the cheap diner experience a little bit :)

Trip got his own motorcycle at Memay & Granpa's
Also: he always asks where Sophie the boxer is when we talk to my parents on Skype.

Relaxing vacation lego time :)

Back deck at my parents house, the fairly ordinary, nothing special times we have to catch up on
whenever we get a chance to visit!

Little baby girl practicing her balance.

Bodo's Bagels! Another "must visit" when we go to Virginia.
Also: Alyssa, our Aus nanny for 9 months, spent a lot of time with us too!

My children at (one of my) childhood homes.
Sweetness.

Brewery visiting with my brother and sister.
Beautiful, sunny summer day.

Charlottesville Farmer's Market
Fun for the whole family! 

Memay & Meggie

My cousin, Kylie - our nanny in a few years, I reckon :)

My Aunt Amanda and her son, Gabe drove up for an afternoon to visit with us!

We obviously went to the playground because for the kids enjoyment……...

The event! All dolled up for our HS reunion!

Some of my favourite girlfriends from high school - we took many photos exactly like this before school dances!
Except this time, Mimi & I were married to our dates ;-)

Reunion! Taylor organised it all (well done, dude!) and is already planning the next one :)
Also: as you may imagine, after all these weddings we go to, come the babies!
Coro is having the next baby!
(It was so nice of her to be pregnant while I was there! ;-) I love seeing baby bumps - and there is nothing sweeter than when the bump is on someone you went through teenage-hood with! )

HS friend, Brooke (who is coming out to Aus to visit us with my sister this summer! Squeeeeee!!!) and her dad cuddling Meggie.

Meggie, Granpa & Coro at the post-reunion brunch my mom hosted for us to have one more chance to see each other.

Summer days out on the porch swing.

Meggie is a good eater, and scored this entire hamburger when her brother decided he didn't want it.
(see next photo)

Sad toddler face! Trip didn't want the burger, I think he hurt his hand, but this image for what it implies is priceless!

Toff, Alyssa, and Kiki having a "we're on vacatiooonn!" drink the night before we drove to Maine.

Such a sweet, summer experience - and this is only one fourth of our American holiday!  Coming up soon: a weekend in Rockland Maine and a "Down East" camporee at my grandparents, as well as even more photos from Virginia!

Since my kids won't remember these trips, I'll be sure to capture as many memories for them as I can. 

xox

Cara