Normal, fun with a surreal offset

During the first few weeks in Australia our life felt busy. With the cancer diagnosis striking a family member it now has us lifting on all fronts. It feels a lot like how daily life was before we left Seattle: busy and complex.

Hectic. Lots of competing priorities. A desire to keep core family time intact, but failing to do so. A desire to build on the time I have experienced with Whitney and our daughters, but that too wasn’t successful this week.

So, we wrap up November grateful to be on this global experience together. Grateful for the memories and time we are sharing together and with our broader family. Grateful for the flexibility this time is affording us to help.

I am noticing the contrast of our experience over the past 3 weeks compared with the previous few months. The impact on our family member as the fight(back) with cancer began, a blur of doctor visits and bureaucratic processes, more cleaning and repairs on an aging house, and exploring options that we will soon select from to change our 2020 travel plans.

Two fun things this week were our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night. It was a day late because we were attending to appointments at the hospital on Thursday so we went with the “it’s still Thursday in the USA”! The second is Whitney and I had lunch on Tuesday two weeks in a row at the Yankalilla Pub so we can connect and watch Monday night NFL football 🏈 live!
The kids are up and down. Baby Hazel started to legitimately scoot this week so it was awesome to be a part of that. Nora is swimming a lot (indoors!) and doing a 4 hour block at child care once a week. Wishing we were exploring the region more with Nora during the day, this is by far one of the biggest impacts of the pressures on our schedule. Scarlett is wrapping up the school year for the second time this year! Lots of Australian experiences with this one including a field trip to the beach next week and lots and lots of Christmas themed events.

Some photos of the positive aspects of these last 10-days. Thanks for all the awesome notes and help from our family and friends around the world.