We moved!

In case you were interested in how we got here, keep reading!

Have you ever been in a situation or a season of life even, where everything feels like it's happening in a very serendipitous way? Like it's all happening for a reason? Like that one morning you drive to work and you hit every green light? Or the person in front of you in line at Chick Fila pays for your order?! Enter July 2021.

My husband was deployed for 4 months last summer and about half way through his tour, he calls me and asks, "how would you feel about living in Japan?" I immediately replied "I don't." (It's too densely populated for me to feel comfortable moving across the world with two little kids.) He called back some weeks later and asked the same question - different location. "How do you feel about Australia?" I said "I feel better about it, but we can talk about it more later," to which he replied, "well I put in for it." ( insert exploding head emoji here. ) Within the next two weeks, he Zoom interviewed for the position, had a really great interview, but they ultimately chose another guy. He was of course, bummed. Whomp whomp.

Cut to January 2022, he gets an email from HR telling him "thanks for the great interview but we're going with another candidate. We'll keep you in mind for future positions." He said to himself, "hey thanks for the salt in my wound HR, I already knew that." He calls his boss to clarify, who answers his call with "Congrats buddy!" ... "What for??" ... "For getting the Australia job! Guess you're moving! Tell the wife!" ... "but I thought they gave it to another guy??" ... "Nope! As far as I know, it's yours if you want it. We've already put in the paperwork to get your processing started." At this point Shawn didn't know what to think, so he reached out to an actual person in HR to clarify, at which point he is told that the rejection email was a system glitch, as he should've received an email saying that we was chosen! ( The whole time, he had no idea that he was the runner up!)

He gets home from work that evening, and said "so I had an emotional roller coaster of a day!" I said "me too - you go first!" ( My day - we were closing on the sale of our townhouse that Friday, and two days out we had to replace the ENTIRE HVAC as it died the day before...small electrical fire!? Good thing it wasn't worse! I couldn't in good faith or conscience proceed with the sale to a single mother with a 2 year old in JANUARY, knowing that there wouldn't be any heat when she got the keys....Shawn didn't know yet. ) He said "so how do you feel about Australia??" and I laughed and said "why, are we moving?" he replied "it appears so - the first guy couldn't take the job so they gave it to me. We have to be there at the end of June."

( INSERT MANY EXPLODING HEAD EMOJIS HERE! )

He says, "so what's your news?" I told him the saga of the HVAC, he agreed that we needed to replace it. Cut to closing on Friday - I told our realtor the story of Australia, and she gasped - I mean sucked all the air out of the room gasped - and said "OH MY GOODNESS!! Now it all makes sense! God has absolutely taken care of you! You replaced the HVAC at the townhouse, and because of that good deed, you guys get to live in Australia!" I was floored - I never even thought of it that way! But it's true - serendipity...or divine intervention, which ever you prefer...either way, here we are! It truly feels like we are supposed to be here, creating a new chapter of life we could've never dreamed of!

We arrived after a long 3 days of travel ( many delays, two missed flight, a 0430 verbal altercation with a hotel night manager...) and immediately fell in love. Two reasons - we arrived at the tail end of their autumn (different hemisphere, opposite seasons) so there were beautiful fall colors all around ( to include cooler temps! ) and we were so excited to start exploring. I grew up in a family who PCSd 3 times over, and Shawn is a Marine - deployments and TDY come with the territory. Needless to say, we're adjusting pretty well, and settling in as good as can be expected! We have a really sweet house, everything we need is within a 20 minute drive, and I am NOT working for the time being ( !!! ).

I've attached some photos of our adventures so far, and I'll continue to post here with more as I take them, and of course, more stories of our time here! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I'm new to blogging, so I promise the entries should be shorter in the future and filled with more pictures :)

We've been here a little over 5 weeks + it's a good start! We are still exploring + as we do, I'll post about our adventures here! I hope you'll come along + "see" Australia with us!

Be well!

xx