I have a lot to write about: the Melbourne Cup and the 5 days in the Campervan…I’ll get to that. But now that it’s November, what I want most to say is this: WE’RE GOING HOME NEXT MONTH FOR OUR FIRST VISIT! NEXT MONTH!

I can’t believe it will be FIFTEEN months that we have been here and not seen our family and friends. I am so excited to see everyone FACE TO FACE and not through a computer screen (yea, I’m referring to YOU Skype, I’m not your biggest fan, ya big tease.)

Yea, so I’ll get back to you about the other stuff this week

I was never big on horse racing, in fact that only time I was anywhere close to a racetrack was at my Senior Prom, which was held at the Garden State Racetrack (which is gone now and turned into a massive shopping center.) Last year at this time, we had just arrived in Australia and everything was new to us. When I was asked if we were going to the races, I wasn’t sure what races they were talking about and a  facsinator was a foreign concept to me. This year we are attending the Melbourne Cup and are getting all dressed up, and I’ll even be wearing a Fascinator. It sounds like it will be a good time, and definitely a lot better than the last time I was at a racetrack.
Check back for photos after Tuesday!

Today was the first of 3 events for Cameron as he transitions to “prep” (kindergarten.) The 2010 “preps” met at the school’s playground for a half hour and then we joined in on the weekly assembly. It was so adorable to see him mix and mingle with the other kids and I even got a bit teary thinking about how my first baby will be starting “real” school in a few months.

Thankfully he knew 2 boys from kinder and 1 from swimming so he was off and playing with them. I can’t wait to see how cute he will look in his navy uniform!

This is my first experience with school as a parent, so I don’t know how kindergarten is in the US, but my first impression was very good. They will match each kid with a year 4 child as a buddy to show them the ropes of school. There are “peer moderators” on the playground that will help solve disputes and it just seemed like a great school atmosphere. The school kids ran almost the whole assembly, speaking in front of all the kids, teachers and parents. I was very impressed with the whole presentation. One thing I have to do some work on: learning the Australian Anthem, and teaching Cameron as well.

Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free;
We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil;
Our home is girt by sea;
Our land abounds in nature’s gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;
In history’s page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross
We’ll toil with hearts and hands;
To make this Commonwealth of ours
Renowned of all the lands;
For those who’ve come across the seas
We’ve boundless plains to share;
With courage let us all combine
To Advance Australia Fair.

In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.

I just looked at the calendar and it reads “October 20.” This means that it is LESS THAN TWO MONTHS UNTIL WE TRAVEL HOME.

I REPEAT: IN LESS THAN TWO MONTHS WE WILL BE GOING HOME FOR OUR FIRST VISIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Can you tell I’m a bit excited?) I’m thinking I won’t even notice the jetlag because I’ll be so pumped up seeing everyone and everyTHING! The restaurants, the stores, the people! (normal hairstyles, normal clothes – it will be nice to see NORMAL)

—

Happy __ Birthday to my sister, my “second mother”, my best friend in the whole entire world. I’ll stop there, we’ll save our tears for when we see each in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS!

—

Craig’s mom (Grammy) arrived for a visit on Friday and it has been great! The best was when I went to pick her up from the airport, I had Cameron with me (he was supposed to be in school). When we saw her come out from the customs door, he yelled ”Grammy!” and ran to give her the biggest hug. It was so sweet to see how happy he was.  The boys are eating up all the extra attention and we love having her here. Another bonus - the weather is awesome! I hope this means that Spring is here to stay. Since we will be missing almost 2 months of the summer here, I’m going to try to enjoy all the outside time I possibly can.

To whoever decided it was a good idea to domesticate animals: having our 2 cats here with us just makes our family complete. Even though we have been dealing with PJ’s health lately, they brighten our day and put a smile on our faces. I especially love it when I find one of the boys petting them or “talking”  to them, Cameron seems to understand exactly what PJ is saying when he meows.

To the National Geographic channel on television: I never was much of a science girl, but lately I have loved watching shows with the boys about volcanos, dinosaurs, space, ships and skyscrapers. I just love learning things along with them.

To Google, Wikipedia and the internet in general: for answers to questions I just don’t have. Thank you. What did our parents do without resources like that?

To the powers-that-be: for making sure my friend’s pre-term baby is safe and healthy. Thank you thank you thank you.

To my friends and family that call, email and keep in touch with us: you know who you are and it means more than you could ever know when anyone reaches out to us. I know we are the ones that moved clear across the planet, and I guess I should make more of  an effort  to call, but when the red phone rings and it isn’t a telemarketer, it makes my day!

To my fellow expats, bloggers and real-life down under friends:  for listening to all my complaints, comparisons and questions, and for making me feel so not-alone in this adventure.

To Ben & Jerry’s: for bringing your delicious ice cream all the way to Australia. Although it is not yet in Melbourne, I hear it has made it to Sydney. I cannot wait to inhale an entire pint the first day I see it in the freezer at Coles, and I am not kidding – I will be eating directly from that container of “Coffee Heath Bar Crunch” for dinner that night.

To Melbourne Australia: for making us feel at home here, and for making this such a great place to live.

*School holidays are over, Term 4 has started & I can’t believe how fast this school year has flown by. After the next break in December/January, Cameron will start prep at a new school; I can’t wait to see how adorable he looks in his navy blue uniform!

*Grammy is coming next week for another visit, we are all so excited to see her, especially the boys!

*We will be leaving for our first visit back to the States in a little more than 2 months, I can’t even tell you how excited I am!!

*I’m running a 5k as part of the Melbourne Marathon Oct 11th & the weekend after, Craig is doing the Around the Bay in a Day ride (yes, you read that right, 250 kms!)

*Craig & I went to a disco party this weekend, if you are my friend on Facebook, you have already seen the photos (No I wasn’t wearing a wig, but Craig was.)

*We just had to change our clocks for daylight savings, so we are now 15 hours ahead, until the 1st of November when the East Coast changes their clocks back, then we will be 16 hours apart.

*My sister has a big birthday coming up (let’s just say she’s not turning 21.) I had this crazy idea that I wanted to fly in to surprise her. I had this whole plan in my head about just showing up at her front door, she would probably have fainted, but it just isn’t feasible. If I lived on the same continent, maybe. So Steph – let’s celebrate when we see each other in December

I was guilty of thinking people who took on accents of foreign countries, or even other parts of their own country were pretentious.  While living in Salisbury Maryland for 4 years, I may have said “y’all” a handful of times, but it never became part of my everyday vocabulary. When Madonna all of a sudden had a British accent I thought “who does she think she is?” But now I see why it happens. I have lived in Australia for over a year now, and these words just have a way of making their way into my conversations. It could also be because of the kids, and the words they say, I don’t want to completely confuse them. After a few months of spending 2 days a week at daycare, Jake switched from saying “diapers” to “nappies” all on his own. So now I say “nappies” just to make things easier. We have some hybrid words like  ”trash bin” instead of “rubbish bin” whereas we used to say “trash can” and I find myself going back and forth from “trolley” to “cart” I just can’t make up my mind on that one.

So this is my disclaimer: when we go back to the States in December, bear with me. I don’t want to completely confuse my kids by switching back to “American English” I want to keep some things consistent for them. I can’t help it if I say “sorted”, “heaps”, “massive” and ask you ”how did you go.” I am not trying to look cool or anything, trust me. It was hard enough to get used to all these new words when we moved here and constantly think about what I am saying, it will be interesting to see how it is the other way around.

(funny, I just did spell check and it did not recognize “nappies” or “bin” haha!)

We are currently on “school holidays” for 2 weeks, in between Term 3 and Term 4. Each state has the exact same schedule (I think this is a brilliant idea) so all the schools are closed at the same time and there are heaps of activities for kids. So far we have only gone to an indoor play centre, but that has been enough so far, seeing that I am just finally over being sick. This place is huge – my 2 boys could easily play for hours separately and never once cross paths. But these brothers, who fight at home over almost anything – they played together the whole time, and got along perfectly! Even though as I sat drinking my tea (when in Rome!)  I got a little lonely seeing all these other moms together gossiping, hanging out while their kids played, and there I was all alone, it dawned on me that at least my kids are getting along and having fun.

Which brings me to today – Thursday. We had planned to meet some friends  at a playground in the morning, but our plans quickly changed when Jake’s thumb got closed in the backdoor. Yes – I had to open the door to get my kid’s finger out of a door. My stomach still turns at the thought of it. Needless to say I was a bit upset, almost as much as he was. We decided to go to the doctor instead of to the hospital to see if they thought it needed to be scanned. The doctor did suggest we get a scan to be on the safe side, and thankfully it turned out not broken. It is just swollen and bruised – poor guy. But to top off the entire day, Jake decided it was time to pee on the potty. That just made my day.

While spending a lot of time on the couch this week (being sick sucks!) I have been thinking alot about all the things I look forward to eating, seeing, doing, when we go back to the States in exactly 3 months (OMG THREE MONTHS!) First and foremost it will be amazing to finally see my family – I know I am going to be stunned at how much my niece and nephews have grown in the past year. But after I get over seeing the people, the food will be next. I can imagine myself walking into Pizza Fresca, or any pizza joint for that matter, while inhaling the smell, and drooling over the crispy cheesy hot pizzas like it was the jewelry counter at Tiffany’s. And not that I have ever been to jail or know anyone who has, or am I for one second comparing living in Australia like being in jail, but after being away from all these foods for over a year I will be like a man just let out on parole – only to have to go back in a short month later. And don’t get me wrong, the food here is awesome, delicious and fresh, but there are some things I just miss. Watch out restaurant owners, Dunkin Donuts workers and employees at Old Navy – because when I enter your stores, I may hug you, dance down the aisles and fawn all over your products.

In a related subject, I was wondering how it will be for the boys – having fishies again, and things like that – will they even notice the difference?

Some years go by and don’t stand out in our memories, nothing significant happened to shine a brighter light on them in the files of our brains. For example, I can’t tell you anything specific about 1986 except that I was in 6th grade and we went on a class trip to Mt Misery. Honestly there is nothing else I can recall from that year. Other years though, like 2000 when I got married and 2004, will always stand out from other years since I had my first son and earned the name “mommy.”  2007 is right up there too when Jake came along and brightened up our world.

And now 2008 – 2009 will always be the time we moved to Australia. The year we took a big breath, puffed out our chests and said “let’s go for it.”  We weighed the pros and cons, took inventory of all our possessions, deeming what was important enough to come along, and what would be packed away in boxes and sent off to storage.  

Looking back on this year in our lives, I wondered how it was for other people. So I sent out a short questionnaire to a handful of my dedicated readers to find out how their year went and what changes they had. I also wanted to find out what they thought of this here blog (thankfully nobody told me to shut it down, but I did get a request for more pictures, which I will definitely try to do!)

Here is a sampling of what has been going on in some of my readers lives (names & identities withheld for privacy) and the answers to the questions.

—I asked them if their last year went by quick or not. Everyone said it did go by fast, some related it to having kids and being so involved in daily activities, another because of a big birthday approaching, and another said the days go by slow but it seems the months and years fly by.

—I asked if it felt like we have been gone for a year, or if it felt shorter. The answers were pretty split, half saying it doesn’t seem like a whole year has gone by, and others feeling like we have been gone for longer. One reader said it may feel longer due to the seasons being different and because so much has happened in our lives. One is able to benchmark the years because of her job but still feels like we have been away for more than a year. My favorite answer is that it seems like we have been away for less than a year but that it took forever for us to get our cats (it sure did!) We obviously didn’t see everyone right before we left so some of my interviewees haven’t seen us for more than a year.

—I asked them if they had any major changes in their lives over the past year: 3 had new babies, 1 got pregnant, 1 moved to a new house, 1 changed jobs, 1 had a child start preschool, 1 realized she now has a teenager (yikes!) and overall people realized their kids are growing up. A lot really does happen in a year!

—My next question was what do you think the Duffy family “missed” in America over the past year. The most common answer was “The election of President Barack Obama.”  Others did not think we missed anything since we can still find out all the news and such from tv and online. Others mentioned that we missed family & friends, which is always a given!

—In order to get some feedback about how they feel about this blog, I asked if they felt they were kept “up-to-date” and if they got a good feeling for what life was like for us living down under. Everyone said they felt they were kept in the loop, and 1 even said she felt more involved in our lives then when we lived closer. They said they have learned so much about life for us and 1 said even though they wish they could visit, they feel like they have a good idea of what our everyday life is like.

I started this whole weblog as a way to keep my close family & friends up to date with what is going on with us. Also for them to feel like they are along on this journey with us. It has turned out that I have been able to help others in similar situations, complete strangers,  and this was something I never even thought of. It makes me so happy to be able to help people out in a situation like this – it is a bit overwhelming when relocating to the other side of the world.

At times I still can’t believe that we have been here for a year, we missed so much back home, and our family missed us for sure – but it still is only a year (so far) and in the grand scheme of life, it is a pretty short time.

Boys at the beach