The last couple weeks pieces of our plan have officially fallen into place. Kelvin’s new passport arrived. Yay!! Then we had a flurry of activity as we set up two house/pet sits in September in Brisbane, Australia. And we got our tickets to fly!
So, here is a rundown of recent events. Over the last months, I have been searching for a good fit for a house sit in Australia. Trying to make sure that where we choose or get chosen is where we want to be but also, logistically a good place to be.
In the US, we are used to driving long distances but, it is a big deal to try to drive 1400 kilometers between housing opportunities. 
And an even bigger deal when we try to do it in three days in a country we haven’t driven in together (Kelvin was there on his own in 2001), driving on the ‘other side of the road’ for us Yanks and in a camping vehicle we have yet to rent or even select. The situation gave Kelvin and I some pretty funny conversations as we were trying to rationalize a mammoth drive to get in between locations for a place to stay.
The organization we have been working with Trusted Housesitters to find the best matches. We have had lots of conversations, Skype chats and emails with potential matches and I was beginning to feel like I was online dating as I was proposing matches for our family as being the ‘best match’ for others on the other side of the world.
We finally sorted a match with a woman near Brisbane, Australia to care for her three kitty cats and bird. She is also, generously, allowing us use of her car while we are there. She is actually going on two trips with an eight-day break in between and she asked us if we could do the first leg as well. 
It sounded good but, we were coming from Hawaii and wouldn’t be there for the first two days of her trip. She, again kindly, offered to make her trip work with ours so we can be her support and she ours.
I then started scrambling to figure out our tickets to Australia from Honolulu. I have been playing around online with searches for the ‘perfect’ ones and had yet to officially commit.
This is where things got really interesting for me. We have been planning this trip, at least in theory, since last August. A good eight months ago and just like a woman in denial of her pregnancy, I didn’t actually believe it was all happening until I had visual proof. For me, it was the tickets.
I have flown around the world many, many times, however, I have never been responsible for two little humans in the process.
It’s one thing to throw things in a backpack and dig out my passport but, an entirely different kettle of fish to be arranging four flights to another country with visa applications, baggage requirements, thoughts about timing, food accessibility, world schooling plans, accommodations and time changes for all of us.
We were up very late at night. It was the only time Kelvin and I could effectively talk about these plans without the’ regular’ day logistics happening around us. My brain froze as my hands hovered over the ‘Click to Purchase’ button.
This is after several more searches in Google Flights and Momondo as well as the airline Jet Star where we eventually bought our tickets. I was breathing heavily. I looked at Kelvin and my eyes grew big. He looked at me questioningly.
“Yes….?”, he gently asked. “What’s going on?”
I stared at him and said, “Are we really doing this?”
Here is where my very patient and kind husband could have said any number of unhelpful things. Instead, he just said, “Yes, we are and it is all going to be okay”.
At that moment I had all the details of our trip that I have been pouring over in my mind, on paper and on the internet swimming around in my head and I thought, ‘Where is the adult around here that we can check with?”
Then I realized, WE are the adults! Yikes! This just got real.
I had a similar brain freeze when I was seven months pregnant with our first son, Canyon and my friend Wendy was driving me home from 
Baby’s R Us with the crib my in-laws had bought us.
I knew it was going to happen. That baby was going to be coming soon. But, I didn’t really know it until that moment. I was looking like I was nine months pregnant as it was but, it was that crib being brought into our home that really hit it home for me. It was real.
Wendy was reassuringly hilarious as she calmed and comforted me that we would get through this, the baby was indeed going to be here in about eight weeks and, that it would all be okay.
So, that night last week, we officially bought our international ti
ckets that will transport our family to the other side of the planet.
And it will all be okay. Right? Of course, right.
The day after we bought our tickets my husband left me a bunch of flowers and a note that read, ‘Australia, here we come! I love that we are doing this!’
He is my elixir, yet again.
Onward and upward to the planning…. more to come. Thanks for joining us on this journey and we prepare for our journey.
I get caught in this struggle to find the ‘best’ place for my stuff. I think, ‘I really should sell that book’ rather than just give it away. So, then I get caught in the crosshairs of finding most economical solution and what is that, really? If I clean out the metaphorical cobwebs doesn’t that have a plus on my well-being?
Did you know you have to pay taxes on your rental income? Some of you are hitting your forehead with your hand and saying, ‘YES, I knew that!’.
leaving the country might overlook. I love the simplicity of their queries about ‘Are bathrooms available where we are going?’, ‘What is the likelihood shark attacks in Australia?’ to the far-reaching of ‘What if I miss my friends?’ and ‘Where will we sleep?’
All while understanding that trying to make other’s happy with our choices doesn’t always make us happy and ultimately we can’t control others opinions anyway.
However, I have found out that the City of Portland (thank you Amanda Rhoads for educating me) is really cracking down on folks renting their houses out for 
Even ten years after my Mom died, my Dad still had their house in the exact same state as it was the day after her wake. The tablecloths were still on the tables and her purse from the hospital was sitting by the door, full of her eyeglasses, paper planner and multitudes of expired medications. It was sad for me and, I think, spooky for others.
All this snow has given us a lot of indoor time and aside from playing chess with my work schedule (seeing which clients could come in when), sitting by the roaring fire and playing competitive games of Qwirkle we have also been dreaming a lot about our travel plans.
in a conventional world. I would recommend learning more about this gathering and community here through 
I was so inspired by their work I came home and told my husband about the possibility of changing our trip of a year-long move to Brussels to a Yeear Long Round the World trip. And here we are planning it all!
I have memories attached to all these stamps.
arsenal of event evidence in our phones, let alone our computers. In a minute I can pull up a 1000 video snippets from the last years.
Our boys have now folded our plans into their everyday discussions. “So, next year at Christmas time, where will we be?” or “How will we celebrate Thanksgiving when we are not in America?”.
The day the Berlin Wall fell. That fall of 1989, I was on an exchange program living in Northern Netherlands attending University of Groningen or more formally, Rijks Universiteit of Groningen.
My North American friends and I did alright, making a stir fry or a variety of breakfast for dinner. I learned to love my coffee, several time a day. The absolutely civility of having a coffee break in the middle of class made me feel like a grown up as our lecturers would mingle with us next to the automat Koffie machines offering us a cigarette as we continued the talk of the lecture. This was not an American experience.
People were not upset or phased by this. Instead, we talked with people who had never been in Western Germany and had their entire families packed in to go visit a long unseen aunt or other relative somewhere. I spoke with a young, idealist Eastern German man who told me he thought it was the age of Aquarius. As the train bustled along and we shared cigarettes I felt a jolt of excitement and hope surge through me.
I do plan on doing some counseling work on the road and will need a method of communication that doesn’t cost as much as a mortgage payment. Also, we have grandparents and other family and friends that we want to be in touch with on the road.
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback on this.
My fear would wash up inside and worry about being named as a non-doer, someone with all talk and no action and a tiny fear of superstition. If I write about it will it not happen.
holding back our dreams, choosing the slow and safe lane, redirecting our wants toward the loudest naysayers opinion.
Yes, what seems like a lifetime ago. I arrived in this big, neon city with my Dad as he had me connected to a business partner of his to do some work. We flew business class. I think it might have been the first time I had spent 11 hours sitting next to my Dad.
At this point in my life, I had left my home country for foreign places several times but, landing in Western Europe each time. There, I could find a way for my caucasian self to blend in with my English and weak Dutch. I could be on a train and most would be none the wiser until I ordered a coffee, even then I could tilt and soften my accent to draw away from my American self identifiers.
it but, I don’t want to be painted with the brush or spotlight of FOREIGNER where ever I go.
However, perhaps we can point ourselves in the direction we want to go. Like a boat on a stream…there are plenty of obstacles but, we can navigate.