You know you are way behind with your blog when friends who aren’t on social media begin sending you emails asking if you are okay!  It has been an incredibly busy couple of months and trying to figure out where to begin the catch up has been daunting!  I really wanted to begin where I left off which was with the incredible experience at 90 Monkey’s yoga teacher training with Amy Ippoliti on the Sunshine Coast, but I think I will instead begin with where we are this week and over time reflect back on some of the incredible events from the last two months.

Our girls are now both officially on summer break!!!  Yahoo!  We are a little bit turned upside down with summer beginning in December though.  How can it be summer and almost Christmas?, My Facebook and Instagram news feeds are full of friends wearing sweaters and boots yet our store windows here are full of cute sundresses!  People are planning their Christmas Day barbecues!  As has happened often over the past six months, just when we start feeling like we are sort of assimilating into a new culture something happens and we realize ‘nope, we are Americans in Australia’.  We ran across this sign on a walk the other day and it epitomizes things seeming familiar but still scratching our heads which is how our life as expats seems some days!  STOP or GO?  It’s like we just don’t quite understand how things work yet!

This week’s episode (in addition to the Christmas in summer thing) came in the form of an automated speeding ticket for going 3 miles over the speed limit – THREE MILES PER HOUR!  I drive like a little old lady and I still think this is excessive.  As Americans, we think 5 miles over is totally acceptable and if you live in Atlanta, GA you know that if you aren’t going at least 10 miles over you will be run over going down I-400!  Clearly we have a lot to learn and many adjustments in our thinking to make!  Our other reality check moment came as we began gathering quotes for the bond cleaning of our rental house as we are moving to a new house a couple of days before Christmas.  We were in sticker shock with quotes of $1,200 for a bond clean.  Since I have mad cleaning skills we decided to undertake this ourselves.  Wish us luck!

Sophie has recently been accepted to internships with two start ups doing technical writing.  We are thrilled for her but it will also mean we won’t have quite as much time during summer break to explore all together as a family.  We had one day this week to explore together so we made our way to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens at Mt Coot-tha.  It was beautiful!  Lawson and I have decided we will be using these gardens as one of our “outdoor offices” once things cool down a bit!
  
  
  
  
  
We also had the opportunity to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery recently!  It was such fun!
  
  

As we head into this crazy week of prepping for a house move and getting ready for Christmas, we are determined to stay chilled and try to not get so behind in our blogging ever again!  As always, thanks for joining us on this journey and for all the kind messages and emails checking on us!  Have a wonderful last week before Christmas!