Month One Report

The end of our first month snuck up on me. These last two weeks have been tumultuous - mostly due to a high anxiety level from our girls surrounding the start of school. Their behavior began its downward slide a week or so before school started. As discussed in my last post, day one and two did not provide an instant fix but I feel the start of school marks an important shift for us. Summer vacation is over. We aren't just visiting. We live here.

In the past month we have adapted to the Sydney lifestyle. We live in an apartment. We walk everywhere every day. We put on sunscreen every morning, wear hats and spend a ton of time outside. We shop for groceries daily and make a point of riding ferries regularly. We say good night to the Harbour Bridge and the Anzac Bridge every night. We say, "cheers" and "no worries". We talk about Kindie and brekky with a straight face.

School brings the consistency that our girls crave and it offers instant community. People have always been friendly to us. We could always stop some family at a playground and ask a question or two but now that we have classmates we actually have people we see every day and we have the phone numbers, email addresses, coffee meet ups and play dates that go along with that.

Meanwhile, Brian is settling in at work. I haven't forgotten that his work brought us here and he has real opportunities on this project but also expectations and pressures as well. He's definitely not on vacation but it's also more than just a long business trip.

Hitting our one month mark makes us think about all the adventures yet to come. We just booked our flights and hotel for a weekend away in Auckland, New Zealand. We hope to go to New Zealand's South Island over our April break but this will give us a taste of the North. It feels good to crack open the guidebooks again and strategize about how to approach a new country. And then looking at those scenic waterside pictures reminds me that tomorrow's weather looks nice (despite today's rain) and maybe we should do a beach outing here after all.