Market Days and Toilet Training

This week is still a bit of a blur. I was sick one day and spent the whole day in bed. The thing about being a mother however is you never really get to have a sick day or a day off. I still had to get up and make sure kids weren't destroying the kitchen in the process of cooking themselves dinner and I still had nappies to change and bed time routines to follow through on. Lucky for everyone it was only a one day thing and things went back to normal the next day.

Lili my sensitive little child had a hard time this week during school work. We have been learning about Ancient Egypt and mummies. I think I have scared the poor kid for life. We also learnt about paper making and she ended up in tears because of the trees being cut down. It was altogether a pretty traumatic. Lili is very excited about having a new baby. She is quite concerned that the new baby might "beat her up" like Ammon. I think a new baby will be good for Lili. She is a such a good little mother and loves to try mother Ammon however he is not all that in to being bossed around by his sister. A defenceless newborn will be perfect for her to smother with love.

On Saturday we went for a drive to a market out in the bush. It was really really cool. The kids loved it and we loved it too. We were smart and brought our lunch with us to eat in the car before hand otherwise we could have easily spent waaaaaay too much. We did buy several incredibly good sweet treats. Lili purchase a  cute felted bag for church. We have a Little Critter book called "Being Thankful" where Little Critter gets a Thankful Rock to help him remember to be grateful. Lili and Auron saw some pretty little rocks which they purchased from a very eccentric old man selling healing crystals. These are their thankful rocks.

Ammon has been toilet training this week. We have been a bit hit and miss with it as we haven't been as persistent as we probably should have been. At one stage though he threw my phone in the toilet. Auron saved it as quick as he could but it's still a little water damaged but you can only see it if you hold it in a certain light. I swear it is the most indestructible phone. It would even give the old brick Nokia's a run for their money. It's sat at the bottom of the pool for a few hours, visited the mop bucket, and several trips to the toilet.

Definitely Back to Reality

We have had a couple of months to settle back into normal life. We are still not fully unpacked. I still have the majority of my clothes in my suitcase, probably because they just don't fit me any longer! Our candy stash has significantly diminished too.

The kids started back at gymnastics, we bought a new car, our old car got the seal of death a few days later so we now need to buy a second car (bleeding money this year!) We still need to do the landscaping and organise the fencing for our house. I'm just waiting for our neighbours to organise the fences actually because I don't want to do it! I just want someone to put the bill in my mailbox.

We have tried to get organised for the new baby but it's just not happening very well. I had a doctors appointment this week and it looks like I will be induced at 38 weeks as I am growing some kind of sumo wrestler or something. Baby is measuring a month ahead and already close to newborn size. So while I do usually have big babies (over 4kg/9 pounds) the prospect of going full term and having a 5kg+ baby is not ideal. So that really cuts down my time to get organised!

This past Monday was Queen's Birthday weekend here so Aarahi and I packed up the kids and headed into the mountains for a BBQ and walk around Hanging Rock. There was a kangaroo hanging out next to our picnic table who was so friendly that he was happy for all the kids to pet him. He tolerated all the attention from people for a good hour before he bounced off into the bush again.

We have had a school break this past week. Auron just finished his reading curriculum and ready to move up a level. We took only 6 weeks to complete a years work, however a lot of it was review. But the last 3 weeks were pretty intense for both of us and we needed a well deserved break. We will start the next level in a few weeks, until then we be working really hard on our writing skills with some fun lessons I have planned as well as continuing with our normal maths, history, art etc

We planned to do go on dates with each of our kids before the baby comes but our planned time has been cut short so we attempted to do it at the same time. We all went to the same restaurant, at the same time. We asked to be seated at different tables. They seated us at different tables right next to each other???? Anyway we made it work well enough. Aarahi and Lili had a special date and Auron, Ammon and I had a date (well Ammon was more occupied with his food, but we had gone out earlier in the week). Then the kids went off to play and Aarahi and I got to have a date for a good 40 mins. So we were pretty much winning at life. We all walked out well fed and happy.

Marcelle picked up Lili and Auron to go to church in our old ward today. They miss it terribly, especially Lili. That meant we only had Ammon until dinner time. It was so quiet, we enjoyed it for a while but both decided to was a little boring. We wondered what on earth we did when we only had one child?? We were happy to have the big kids back home.

The very friendly kangaroo...or wallaby I don't know how you tell the difference

San Diego and Heading Home

San Diego and Going Home

Now it's my turn to get sick. I knew when I woke up in the morning that I wasn't feeling too great but hoped it would subside. We made the 3 ½ hour trip to San Diego and I slept most of the way. I was really excited to visit the Mormon Battalion Museum but by the time we got there I was barely able to walk so Aarahi took the kids and I stayed in the car and tried to sleep. The kids loved it, and got to mine for gold. I REALLY wish I wasn't sick because there was so much we wanted to do, however we headed straight for the hotel where I promptly vomited as soon as we walked in the door. It was a rough night.

The next morning I was feeling better and feeling very grateful since we were flying home later that night. We spent the morning shopping at another huge book store and spending the rest of our cash on American candy.

Auron had seen a really neat place he wanted to visit where they made cookie and ice cream sandwiches. Everyone loved them and we all thanked Auron for telling us about such an awesome place. Auron always finds really awesome places for us to visit. He see's them on YouTube then writes them down for us to look at. 

Late afternoon we got back in the car and headed towards LA. We stopped off at the Los Angeles Temple to kill some time. It looks like the NZ temple only wider. There was a couple there doing engagement photos....it looked a little more than G rated lol we tooted at them as we drove past. 

Our last meal in America was revolting. So revolting that we couldn’t even eat it.

When we dropped off the rental car they were so efficient it was so quick that I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to our car. It's so lame how attached you can get to something in such a short amount of time. But they just took it away before I could even come to terms with what was happening! Our holiday was finally over.

We had some bag reorganising to do at the airport as one of our bags was close to 40kg over the limit. The flight home was long and uncomfortable. The kids did well but it still wasn't fun. Ammon accidentally wiped the itunes library on the ipad just before take off and he could no longer watch his beloved PJ Masks. We were so happy to finally get back to our pig sty of a house. For the next few days we recovered from jet lag. Often waking up at 3-4am. The next week had us trying to unpack which we still haven't fully completed. Time to face reality again!  

So what is next?

It was an incredible adventure and I am so grateful that I got to do it with my favourite people. It was not cheap, it was a lot of planning and stress especially buying and building a house at the same time. It is not easy taking 3 kids on a big overseas holiday especially while pregnant but oh my goodness it was worth it a million times over! I am so thankful and blessed that we are able to amazing things like this and to take our kids along on our adventures. We know most people wont get to experience many of these things in their life time and we don't take these experiences for granted.

So where to now? Right now we are getting ready to welcome our new baby in a couple of weeks. (should start getting a bit more organised!)  We are trying to decide on where to go next year, we are tossing up between Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa or somewhere more local. We are planning to be home in New Zealand for Christmas next year or around then anyway.  After that we have big plans for Queensland, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Bali in 2019.

Now that we have our own house and have finished baby making we are ready to take on something new so who knows where that will take us in the next 5 years. There is a whole wide world we want to explore and we are ready and waiting to take it on....as well as doing all the normal things like paying the mortgage and cooking dinner etc

Brownie, cookie dough icecream, dipped in M &M's

Choc chip cookie, monster icecream, dipped in M & M's