here is our journey

hello!!! (its been a while) ...

here we are - we made it. we're now on the other side of our historic move to WA.

it's nice to finally be able to touch base again. the last few months have been an incredible journey... in the literal sense, yes we did journey and it took us roughly a week to drive here with a few memorable stops along the way. more of which i'll share with you in a moment.

yet physically getting here was really just the beginning, and past three months (yes, its been three already!!) have been a crazily busy time of settling in, unpacking, organising and re-connecting with friends and family. now that i'm back doing the things i would normally do (i.e. blogging, among other internet-based, time-wasting things) i think i can safely say that i have officially settled in. it doesn't take long!

in eamon's case it only took a few weeks - oh to be a toddler! it wasn't long before he was running around in his shorts and t-shirts and thongs following his nana + pop around the place. i hope he doesn't forget tassie altogether and something jogs in his memory when we go back there to visit one day :)

we've been having a brilliant time catching up with friends and family - sometimes i have to pinch myself to make sure that i'm not dreaming! its wonderful having them all so close after the long distance for those five years. you can't really top having your mum living only twenty or so metres away - its very convenient for child-minding purposes! oh and for other reasons too of course - cups of tea, chatting, 'borrowing' ingredients for cooking/baking, ironing (oops did it say that? no, she doesn't do my ironing... not yet anyway).

and now that my dear sister is getting married (!) we are especially glad that we are here to join in all the planning + fun.

life generally, is 'normal' and we are very thankful for that. some things here have changed, but mostly things are quite familiar. living here now with a family, though, is quite different compared to how life was as a relatively single person five years ago. we are looking forward to an exciting next couple of months, also as we step into the holiday (and, in our family's case, the birthday/wedding) season.

anyway.

here are a few pictures from our journey here. we had a great drive which all went very smoothly. afterwards ben and i both agreed, that as much as we enjoyed the experience, we wouldn't be taking a long trip like that again in the near future. its a long drive for a toddler and by day seven we were running out of ideas on how entertain the little guy! i really think the dvd player saved our sanity most days! but we did see lots and there was something really special about driving across the SA-WA border into our new home state together as a family.

these photos are from day one and day two! more to follow :)

we said we would - and now we are!

that pretty much sums up the last six months (or more!) of our family's life.
lots of long chats about which state we'd rather live in.
lots of procrastination.
MORE procrastination.
and then a decision (HOORAY).

and then all that follows a decision to move states.
organising...quotes...phonecalls...packing...de-cluttering...shipping the child off to baby-sitters...more packing...throwing lots away...late nights...early mornings...socialising...having fun (oops i don't think that one belongs here).

but here we are - we've made it! with the packing all done (if not, its too late now!) and ben in the car with little mate, revving to go, there's nothing more to do.

what a feeling! so excited and nervously thrilled about what's to come, yet a little sad and sentimental about what we'll be leaving behind.

dear little tassie - we will miss you. and all that you've brought us over the last five years. its been a full and happy time; we've made some incredible memories that we can't forget.

for me, tassie is where it all began - my life with my darling husband, and our life as a little family with our boy. tassie - you have brought us SO much, so thank-you. thank-you for just being you - i have really learned to love this place - seasons and all!

to our dear friends and family in tassie - thank-you all so much for the blessing you are (and will continue to be) in our lives. will miss you a lot - so there'll be plenty of visits i'm sure :)

now, as we pack up the life that we know and head west, my heart breaks for what we'll be leaving behind.
but every part of me is excited to start a new one, filled with the promise of family, friendships and more good times.

xxx

busy (making memories)

over the past few months life has taken a rather busy turn - the most obvious cause being our preparations for our relocation to WA.

Less obviously, we have been spending our time trying to experience and re-visit our favourite places on this dear little isle before we leave. when we made the decision to leave Tassie we had no doubt in our minds that we wanted to see some more of the pretty place we've called home for the last five years. so we made a bit of a list...

...and we've accomplished an unbelievable number of scenic adventures over the last few weeks - a weekend away at our dream tasmanian destination cradle mountain (that one was kid-free - yay!), a day in the snow and an afternoon at hollybank forest reserve just to name a few - and have just been loving every minute of it. and when you know that its probably going to be your last time at these places for a while, you really try and make the most of it. and autumn/winter are really not a bad time to explore this place :)

king billy walk - cradle mt lodge

cradle valley

a snow-streaked cradle mountain

eamon at the snow, arthur's lake

arthur's lake (edges were frozen!)

eamon at hollybank forest reserve

the avenue, hollybank

feeling a little boxed in

with the big day looming (only a mere two weeks away!) we are pretty much living in box 'city' these days. during the day we are packing boxes and by night i dream about packing boxes. i would say at this point that we have got about half of it done - but how can you tell really?

i never thought i would enjoy the packing side of it so much actually - but i suppose it comes rather naturally, being the organisational freak that i am! its kind of satisfying putting things in boxes, fitting everything in until it reaches the top and then sealing it shut - done! maybe i am weird :P

the not-so-fun side of it has been trying to keep little mate happy in all of this. he is seriously not impressed that mum AND dad are home all day but don't have a whole lot of time to spare to hang about with him. poor little dude. we have tried including him in the packing 'game' and that lasts for a little while until he gets bored again and the whinging starts all over again. bring on next week when the worst of it should be over by then! in the meantime, patience, patience, patience! x

photobat family portraits

yippeee! our family photos have arrived on the batblog!

photobat, a launceston-based professional photographer, is nothing short of amazing. we 'won' this photo session as part a promotion he was running at the apron design market back in april. but, as i expected, we fell in love with the photos and ended up with many more than we intended. oops.

however, we aren't mourning too much, as we now have some incredible shots of our little family as it is here in tassie at this point in time. now you can't really put a price on that can you?

ben always tells me i'm a marketer's dream... well, maybe i am, but i think the location of the photos - hollybank forest reserve - did most of the work this time. the trees are so tall. the air was so crisp and delicously scented with pine. the leaves were a carpet on the ground, crunchy and light, perfect for throwing into the air and watching them gently fall. yes it was rather cold down there but i really wouldn't have had it any other way.

anyway, i'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. mmmm i can still smell the air. thanks again photobat, we had a rather wonderful time in the forest :)

if you would like to see more of our photos or more of photobat's work, see here x

so i sewed !

its been quite a while since i've been on any sewing adventures!

the other day it was levi's birthday (can you believe he is already one!?), and, inspired by a similar bag i'd picked up at the niche market back in april and a pattern i adapted from make it perfect, i set out to make a toy bag of my own (for levi - i mean). what better way to stash all those loose toys.

anyway it turned out great! time to make some more i think!

here he is in on his birthday in his brand new swing, which he loves :) - such a yummy hunny bum levi - love you lots!

sneaky preview

hooray! the photos from luke have arrived!

a couple of weeks back, sharene, sylvia, leanne, leonie, sarah and i had some photos taken at the (always-beautiful, especially this time of the year!) cataract gorge as a birthday gift for sharene.

as was to be expected, the autumn colours were splendid, and although it was freeezing down there (you can't tell from the photos) we had an absolute ball of a time - a little picnic, a few drinks, some amazing brownies from sharene - and we had the perfect recipe for a great lot of girly fun.

all in all, a great way to celebrate a birthday i think.
we all agreed that we definitely need to do these things more often (not with a photographer every time of course! although that would be nice...)

and, bonus for us, we all now have some fantastic photos to keep too! ...which works well, as a few of us, including sharene, will be going our separate ways later this year :(

anyway, happy birthday sharene - and thanks for the memories :) xxx

all photos by luke hesketh @ ljhphotography.com