12 days

We sent Andrew off to Ethiopia today. What???!! Ethiopia? Is he seriously going there without me? And just in case you think he is Horrible Husband for leaving me with the kids so soon again for an extended period (reminder: a week in the U.S. after he came back to AUS), I encouraged this trip, I am only jealous that it didn't work for me to go too. But to Africa, of all places. Will have to get there one day. So... me + kids for 12 days = lots of ups and downs, but I do like my evenings. It's the days that will be long. So we're off to Bruny tomorrow for a few nights. The beach always does good things for the soul, even if it's freezing cold!

Pictures? I think not.

So I did the crossing of the Pacific with 3 bubs on my own. The flight: great. The travel through airports: HARD. I would love to post some pictures, but maybe it'll be no surprise that I took NONE! How exactly would I have taken a picture while pushing TWO luggage trolleys, each with a child and suitcases on them, and with Nick in the carrier on me? No, I didn't take any pictures, but others did... Below is the email I wrote my family on the day I arrived back. Excuse the lack of succinctness, I can't be bothered editing it much - I'm only barely back in the land of the living after the trip. :) --- Okay, there were 2 moments where I thought it was all just going to go downhill fast, but I'll tell you the story first... Checking into the Qantas flight at San Francisco airport - they didn't have a bassinet row for me with all 3 in the same row - they had 1 or 2 seats across the aisle, and me in the bassinet seat. Or - I could do all of us together in a normal row - no bassinet. NO. NO!! I just couldn't fathom doing that flight without a bassinet, or with the kids across the aisle - just imagine them not wanting to stay in their seat, but wanting to sit with me, and always being in the way of people walking the aisles... disaster. So I was pretty teary - not really crying, but not knowing what to do. FINALLY, the lady figured it out. She was really nice and trying to be helpful, but it just took awhile to figure out what to do, and in the meantime I was thinking that I might be staying in SFran for a few days because there wasn't another flight till Saturday, and I was seriously not getting on the plane without all of us in the bassinet row... Anyway, she moved another group of 2 adults with a kid, and just put one of the adults across the aisle, which is better than kids being separated from parents (duh!)... But then we sat in the row with a guy who didn't even have a baby in the bassinet next to ours. Ahhh, the joys of flying. Okay, so we got all checked in and went to eat. Got our food - all hot and smelling good - and Laura announces that she has to go to the bathroom. Great. Take the food back to the hot counter to maybe keep warm for a few minutes. Drag everyone to the bathroom... Came back and started to eat, and Laura THROWS UP all over the floor. Misses any of our stuff, and airport staff clean up the mess. Great. She seems fine, eats more and we get to the plane. Taxiing down the runway, everyone buckled in, and Laura does the 2nd throw up. HUGE, multiple times, looks like diarhea. Seriously gross. Lucky Nick and Daniel were asleep and missed it, but since we hadn't taken off yet, we had to sit with the mess for 15 minutes before I could get up and call for someone to help clean it up. Bad start. But all went well and the kids slept 8-9 hours, Nicholas even more, and that was magic. I slept 6-7 hours I think. Then came the airport transfers where neither of the two older kids wanted to be helpful AT ALL. I don't blame them, really, but it was hard. Luckily people were there to help, but it was still a lot of work, and I ended up pushing two luggage carts, with luggage and a kid on each of them, side by side, through customs and out the arrival gates where there are hundreds of people waiting to greet people coming off. Great. I heard "now there's a photo!" from one person, and then saw another guy taking a PICTURE of me on his phone. Funny, but also not. He was embarrassed to see that I saw him doing it. Most of the people I looked at were already looking at me. Quite a few people asked me where my husband was. Then there was this great airport staff lady who helped me to the domestic transfer spot, and then an American couple who helped me with all the bags through security, onto the bus with the kids, and all the way to the domestic drop off where they had a buggy waiting to take us to the gate. The kids thought that was great. We stopped off for some bottles of water, and the guy at the stand said I had my hands full and gave the kids a lollipop. Very nice. When we got on the last flight, I said to Daniel, "wow, we had a lot of helpful people today, what would we have done without them?!" He said, "I thinkt the most helpful person was the guy who gave us the lollipop!" Classic. Now I'm home and the kids slept pretty well through the night. Seriously happy to be done with that travel - would do the flight again (minus throw up), but I could do without the airport crap. :)

Family, family and more family.

We've done a new thing in my family. 4 nights at the beach. 10 kids and 7 adults. Always busy, but quite possibly the best time we've had together. Mom and Dad took the grandkids to the beach and enjoyed the sun while the kids spent 2 hours building a dam! Ratio of Grandparents to Grandkids - 1:5 The 7 eldest grandkids The Simmons-Sypkes-Slemmer-Owings Hot Tub Party! Me and my beautiful niece who made sure to bring nail polish for the weekend so we could do our nails and toes - thanks Erica, I love you!!! Grandma brought lots of carboard tubes - a day's worth of entertainment turning out tons of fabulous creations and one tired Grandma. Laura made Rosie the Princess Giraffe, and Daniel made spy glasses, not that they need explanation... Sisters.

More of CA time and friends

Just sharing more California pictures, that's all... Our old house and backyard. Accommodation doesn't look like anything special, but who wouldn't love this for a backyard? Our place was on the left - of the 4 sections, ours is the second from the end. Small, but I'd live there again just for that backyard. My beautiful 97.5 year-old friend Mary. Still feisty. Daniel and Elise played so well together, like no time had even passed. So did Nick and Audrey (considering they had never met each other and couldn't talk!) The adults played well together too, grabbing any chance we had to chat and catch up on life after Stanford, life with more kids, life, life, life... there's so much, we needed much more time, but we took what we could get with these great friends and loved it! A 4-night sleepover at Zara's house meant little sleep and endless fun for the kids. Thanks Wang's for taking time out for us and letting us crash your place.

Friends.Keys.Teeth.Wallet.Sanity.

We've spent a week at Andrew's 1-yr Stanford reunion seeing old friends, meeting new babies, re-meeting kids who are a year older than when we left (which is a huge % of their lifespan!), eating, drinking, and trying to sleep in between. It's been a bit of a blur. Here's my blurry thoughts: 1. Apparently the U.S. has a big effect on Nick - he sat up on his own for the first time the day we arrived, and got his first tooth the next day. 2. Our kids travel and do jet lag pretty well, all things considered. But when there's three variables (er, I mean kids), and they get up briefly overnight 2 times each, and one of them, being 6 months old, is awake and smiling from 12-2am, the mother doesn't get much sleep at all and takes a whole lot longer to get over jet lag. 3. Kids become friends again like no time ever passed, and adults can too. 4. If you're the adult, it's pretty annoying to lock your keys in a rental car along Hwy 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. And then strange to feel both thankful and annoyed to the person who arrives and jimmies it in 30 seconds. But if you're the kids who get to play in the dirt and rocks and find flowers to put in your ears while all this is happening, it's not so bad. And if there are a couple of friends who you were supposed to be meeting in Santa Cruz who happily get in their car and drive 45 extra minutes to come meet you, you know they are really good friends. 5. Living in community here was really fun and I miss it. 6. I think it's funny that I still get surprised by how big things are in America - the picture below is of a regular coffee cup and 1.18 Litre bottles of shampoo and conditioner!!! 7. Any family who has a 6 week old baby and chooses to put up with our troops in their house for 4 nights are either numb or really coping well. 8. On Friday it rained all day, I lost my wallet and my sanity. I'm not kidding. Wallet still missing. Sanity a bit back in tact. 9. I can't wait to see my family tomorrow. 10. I realized I would have preferred to pack the car and drive to Oregon from here rather than fly. Bummer bout that.