The Whirlwind

Who knew a dental hygienist could be so influential?

On April 14th, I schlepped the kiddos to Makena's dental appointment. We love our dentist and his staff, for too many reasons to list. But the one that matters this time is everyone remembers us. Not just our names, but what we were last up to. So, the hygienist, Heather, asked about our trip to Australia this past February. I told her how great it was and that we were planning to move to Melbourne in the next year or two. She was excited for us. The conversation progressed to what will happen in a year or two that will send us on our way. I gave the same answer that Mark and I discussed--the economy turning around as well as Mark and I accomplishing somethings we set out to do.

Driving away from the office, I started thinking, why wait? I mean, will we be able to accomplish what we hope to accomplish in a year or two? The longer we wait, the more ingrained Makena will be in school. I could quickly see a year or two becoming three, four then never. Then I had the first "what if" moment. What if we did it now? Whatever we wanted to accomplish in the US we could do in Australia. After a solid 4 minutes of pondering the scenario I decided to pitch the idea to Mark. It really felt good.

I pounced on Mark as soon as he got home from work. His response was, "that's a fascinating idea." We tossed some ideas around and decided that Mark would start looking for a contract. Immediately he learned that the economy is going well in Australia. He found a few jobs that he thought were quite suitable. He interviewed for one and was offered the position--start date: 3 weeks! And the race was on. We sold 80% of our belongings, had offers on both houses, found a broker to sell both cars, renewed Makena's and my American passports, got Kessler an Australian passport. We weren't sure whether it would work out that I could or should come with Mark. The permanent residency visa takes 4-6 months to process. There was talk from immigration that I could not travel to Australia on a visitor visa with a permanent residency visa already lodged. But an immigration attorney suggested that I travel with Mark and the kids, then apply for permanent residency a few weeks after arrival. So, that's what we decided to do--which meant I didn't have any extra time to tie up any loose ends!

So, here we are. We arrived Saturday; Mark started his first day of work today. I'm trying to find us some short term accommodation so we can move out of the hotel, which is wonderful by the way. It's right in the middle of downtown Melbourne. I can't describe it. I love this city, but I'll have more on that later!