I still call Australia home. . .

We are all packed up and ready to leave on a jet plane.  

We are going to bow out with an excerpt from the great Aussie poem, "My Country" by Dorothea Mackellar:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts . . .

and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty . . .

and her terror,

The wide brown land for me.  

It has been a wonderful 2 year 7 month holiday!  I am happy to go back to my home country, but Australia will always have a special place in my heart.

Coming soon:  Meet the Robinsons, Northern Lights Edition!

We're moving. . .

Our days in Australia are limited.

It's April.  Autumn.  The temperature dipped below 22 C (70 F) this morning.  Students wore sweaters (jumpers) to school.  It made me laugh because I remembered a time when we lived in Nova Scotia and it got up to 50 degrees.  We all ran out in our swim suits to get some sun.

I know it will happen again, because we are moving.  Somewhere cold.

We are moving to Anchorage Alaska.

It's all a bit of a shock really, though I don't know why it should be.  From the time we arrived here, I knew we only had three years.  At first, it made it hard for me to make Brisbane home.  Why make friends if we are just going to have to move again?  Then I met really nice people, and I couldn't help making friends.  It is the same story wherever we have lived.  I start to lie to myself after a few months.  I tell myself that I am home.  This is the place I am from.  And then it's not a lie anymore and I am home.

It is hard for me to leave my home.

I'v decided it's ok to put down roots.  I'm a jade plant - a succulent.  Just pick the leaf off a jade plant and stick it in some soil.  A couple months later, it's a full fledged plant with a home of its own.  I am a succulent.  Uprooting is not so bad.  Wherever I go my roots will grow. We don't say goodbye, only see you later.

The last couple of weeks have been a rollercoaster.  We are so excited to go somewhere new, but it breaks my heart to see my children sad to leave their friends.  The older my children get, the harder it is for them.  Caleb doesn't seem to be sad at all.  The older children on the other hand. . . it breaks my heart to cause them so much pain.

But we had to move sooner or later, and in some ways, it is easier to move sooner, before Bryce starts high school in the US.

We have been very busy lately.

A month ago, we learned we were moving.

Three weeks ago, Shon and I left our family under the care of my brother Tom and his wife Lindsay so that we could fly to Alaska and look for a house.

Tom and Lindsay, and a koala.  They color coordinated!

Two weeks ago, we came home to Brisbane, and welcomed my sister Becki and her husband Jeremy and son Ethan to visit us! It was so much fun to have them visiting.  It was such a great excuse to ignore all of my packing responsibilities and be a tourist one last time.  (I'll post pictures another day.)

Three days ago, my family left.  And the work began.  The packers came today.  My house is a box city.  I don't know why it is so disconcerting to see everything in boxes.  The house feels empty.  It even has an echo.  Actually the acoustics are nice.  Sarah keeps singing.  She must like the acoustics too.

We are really going to miss it here. . .

Still catching up. . .

Continuing on from our last episode, the Robinsons return Down Under.

We miss our cousins!

And friends.

After we returned from our trip to the US, Bryce took a shower and went straight to EFY at the University of Queensland.  Kids flew in from all over Australia.  They had such a great time!  I remember how fun it was to go when I was 14.  The dances were awesome!  I can only imagine how much more fun it is here.  Most of the kids here are the only members of the church in their schools.  (When I drop Bryce off at early morning seminary, it is a mishmash of colorful ties, blazers, tartan skirts, and shorts with knee socks - so many uniforms from different schools.)  Getting together with other youth who believe the same things you do - now that is just good fun!   Bryce came back more confident, and capable of articulating his beliefs.

When people ask me about the church in Australia, I tell them that if you meet active member of the church from down under, they deserve your respect:  they're not just good people, they are stalwart.  Everyone who continues to "keep the faith" here has made sacrifices - whether it be turning away from social drinking, saying no to friends who want to go "clubbing", not dating people who don't support your standards, giving up rugby or rowing (or marathon running!) or soccer because the games are all on Sunday, or wearing modest clothing even though it is way too hot.

It broke my heart the first year we were here and Sarah had to say no to 7 or 8 birthday parties in a row (never getting to go to a single party that year!) because they were all on Sunday.  There were a couple parties I thought might have been alright, but then that would just get confusing, having some be ok and some not, so we just decided to have a "no parties on Sunday" policy.  At first we used to just say, "sorry, we can't come," but I felt a bit rude, like I was hiding something, so I now tell people, thank you, we appreciate the kind invitation, but that we decided as a family that we wouldn't go to parties on Sunday because that is our Sabbath day.  Last month, Sarah's best friend's mother called to see if there was any way Sarah could come to a party on a Sunday.  When I said "not really" she said, well, we'll just have to plan the party on a Saturday then.  Sarah was so happy!  (By the way, it was an awesome party - a trip to Dream World - the Aussie equivalent to Disneyland!)  It has happened several times now, and not just with birthday parties - Emily's soccer party, Bryce's volleyball dinner, they all were changed from a Sunday to a Saturday because our children couldn't come.  People here really are so kind and thoughtful.

So. . . We got back from the US and had a couple weeks to kill getting ready for school.  It rained most of the time.  That doesn't stop us from swimming in our pool - if you're wet you might as well get wet, but it does stop us from visiting the beach.  The surf gets really crazy with all of the water pouring in from the streams and rivers.  We tried the Gold Coast one day and didn't last long after several kids got pulled out on a rip.  Watching the life guards drive out on their jet skis gave me a traumatic flash back to last year's rip experience.  So, with the rain, we spent a couple days exploring the museums down at the southbank.  (If you're ever in Brisbane, definitely check them out!)  Here are some cheesy pictures I took at the Gallery of Modern Art, using my phone.

This exhibit was called "We Miss You, Magic Land" and everything was made with sugar and icing and such!  A little too pastel for my taste, but the kids loved it.

  Everything in this exhibit had to do with spots.  I liked it.
(If you want to See Forever, you have to open your eyes, Caleb!)  

We loved the Obliteration room!  The kids were all given a sheet of spot stickers and told to stick them anywhere in the all white room.  Everything was white - a piano, computer, kitchen utensils and house plants!  By the time we saw it, there were more spots than white. 

More spots.  

And then, suddenly, school started.

Is that a missing tooth?!

Did I mention how much I love back to school shopping in Australia?  This year I had to buy a couple pairs of new shoes, some socks, a back pack, one $200 calculator, and heaps of stationery and books, which according to Australian tradition, must be covered in book covering material.  I am a pro at covering books.  Trust me, I have spent hours practicing. One big plus about having to wear shorts is that when your son grows 6 inches in one year, his shorts still fit!  Nothing else I bought him has lasted so long.  I am all for shorts and knee socks.

The house felt so empty when the kids went off to school, especially with the rain.  I turned on the TV, but that was just distracting, and I really did have a lot of work to do, especially with my washing machine broken.  (It took four weeks to get the right part installed, just this morning. Yeah, no more hauling the laundry to the laundromat!)  So, to give myself a little background noise, I started listening to pod casts.  I LOVE it!  My favorite right now is "Things You Missed in History Class" from howstuffworks.com.  I especially love ship wrecks, art history, music history, and historical medicine.

Just for the record, I actually really enjoy the laundromat.  I can get 8 loads washed in half an hour!  The problem is drying.  Here, most people use a clothes line, so the laundry place may have a dozen washers, but only 2 or 3 dryers; and my dryer wasn't broken, my washer was.  So, rather than sit around for hours and dry my laundry, I just hauled it all home.  The clothes line works great - when it isn't raining, or extremely humid, which it is, most of the time.  Using a clothes line in a rainy place makes for interesting social experiences.  The sun comes out and mums walking their children to school suddenly run off saying "I'm going to put my laundry out!"  It gives new meaning to the song "Today while the Sun Shines, work with a will. . ."  Some day, someone clever will invent a solar/wind powered clothes dryer (only $599!) which will become all the rage in California, where people are so environmentally conscious, and the rest of the world will laugh and point!

One of my favorite things about laundry is that I feel like I am working when I am really just waiting - and what better to do while waiting than read a book!  I have been eagerly waiting for this book:  Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale.  I love reading Shannon's blog.  She is so witty!  Several of my favorite books are hers:  Book of A Thousand Days, The Princess Academy, and of course, Rapunzel's Revenge, my most loaned book ever.  I finally just begged the school library to please get a copy so I could have mine back.  Sarah even went as Rapunzel for book week.

Rapunzel from "Rapunzel's Revenge" by Shannon Hale

 There is so much to look forward to right now.  My cousin, Jennifer Wolf, has a young adult novel coming out in April, Breaking Beautiful, which I can't wait to read.  Also, the movie of the Hunger Games.  I'm going to have to find my mockingjay pin again!

Ketchup. . . I mean tomato sauce

It's time to do a little ketchup, only we call it tomato (say tom-ah-to) sauce here.  Things have been very busy since the new school year started.  It will have to wait for another post though.

We had a fabulous trip home for Christmas.  We asked our children what their favorite part was, and they all agreed that playing with their cousins and friends was the highlight of our holiday.

We spent time in Los Angeles, Farmington New Mexico, Salt Lake City Utah, and Twin Falls Idaho.  

The week after Christmas, we had our Patterson Family Reunion at the Albion Campus Retreat.   It was awesome.  Growing up, we always drove past the Albion State Normal School on the way to Pomerelle ski area.  There is an old state college for teachers.  Built in 1901, it was used for decades to teach teachers, but has been completely vacant since the 60's.  I used to day dream about going inside the old buildings.  

Not only did we get to stay in the restored Miller Hall, we were given a tour of the other buildings, which are now used only at Halloween as a haunted house.  We explored the orchestra pit and dressing rooms under the stage in the theater.  The gym was pretty cool too.  I always feel bad seeing things in disrepair - especially something that used to be so beautiful.  But we had an awesome time exploring.  I think it would be a very scary haunted house!

The weather was unusually warm, but we still managed to have a great time skiing!  It was Caleb and Abby's first time.  They did great!  I think they are our first children to not cry their first time on the slopes.

When we weren't skiing, eating, or playing games in the rec room, we were in the hot tub!  The best part of course, was just being with family.

But, before we headed up to Idaho, we spent a week in Utah.

We had a special visitor.  Brother A was visiting from Arkansas!  It was so good to see him again.  I miss Brother A.

Me and Brother A.

Go BYU Basketball!

At Temple Square.  Can you tell Caleb was tired? 

Christmas Eve with Shon's grandparents.

 We got to see the Tabernacle Choir Christmas broadcast.  The choir was amazing.  Jane Seymore was a witty narrator.  Everything was great - especially the super nice college student who paid for our parking when I realized that I only had Australian cash!  I offered to get his number to pay him back and he wouldn't have it.  Merry Christmas to you too!  Living in Australia, I sometimes forget there are so many LDS members in the world.  To see so many people - including President Monson - in one room was overwhelming.

Sarah and I in the Conference Center.

It was so much fun to spend Christmas Eve with Shon's family.

Jet Lag

*True to form, I wrote this post a week ago and forgot to post it.  Here it is:


I have jet lag.  It has been 5 days, so I should be completely over it, but it just seems to be hitting now:  a nagging feeling that I should be eating at midnight, waking up at 4:45 AM even though I just went to bed at 12:30, a suddenly and unexpectedly falling asleep at 3 in the afternoon.  

We are back in the US, after being gone for 18 months.  We flew to Melbourne, spent the night, then flew from Melbourne to LA.  I can never sleep on the airplane.  I don't think it has anything to do with discomfort really, there are just so many movies I want to watch!  Fourteen hours of entertainment later, we landed in LA.  We visited Shon's brother Jason and his wife, Alex.  Alex is 8.5 months pregnant.  She is so cute.  Really, that's not very fair.  She looked like she was trying to shop lift a basketball.  Lucky girl.  We are very excited and look forward to seeing their little baby girl soon.  

Somewhere in California.

I crashed and slept for a couple hours at Jason's, then it was back in our rental car - a beautiful grey mini van.  Sounds pretty "flash", huh?   It may not be cute, but it gets pretty good gas mileage and is surprisingly roomy.  We have quite a bit of luggage and it all fits!  Shocker.  Anyway, we headed back into the van and I drove, on the right side of the road, for the next 5 hours, to a hotel in Kingman Arizona.  

We stopped to fill up near Flagstaff, and the kids all romped in the snow!

After an awesome night's sleep, on the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on (I was really tired), we got up at 5 and drove to Farmington, NM!  It was such a great visit.  We stayed with my friend Annie and her family.  They are such great friends.  We loved having scriptures with their family, and watching the pleasant interactions between their children and Grandma (who lives with them).  We felt so at home.  What an awesome friend Annie is to host 7 extra people.  And I'm sure we were pretty annoying.  The first few days we were constantly saying:  "Look at the size of this milk carton!" and "In Australia, we do it like this" or "they say this in Australia."  It's kind of strange to be back.  When I first heard the radio announcer in California, I thought she was joking and exaggerating an American accent!  

Sunrise on the road in Arizona.

Farmington was great!  With the exception of a weekend in New Orleans, we have never returned to one of the places we moved from.  It was so nice to see all of our friends at church.  I ran with my running buddies, twice!  It didn't hurt at all, though I was definitely out of breath - but I'm blaming it on the elevation (sea level to 6,000 feet is quite a jump.)  I got to have lunch with my choir friends too.  We had dinner with a couple of very good friends.  It was so much fun!  I got to go to Homemaking (or whatever it's called) and chat with the ladies from church.  And my children played with their friends!  I think it made me as happy as it made them.  I know how much they miss their friends, and to see them so happy was very fulfilling.  (I have to admit, it was a bit shocking to see how much everyone has grown!  Seriously, what are you feeding these kids?)  It was just a really great couple of days.  

We were sad to leave Farmington, but so excited to go see our family.  It has been way too long since we have been home.  Eighteen months is a mission for some people.  And the last couple months have been hard, so it is really nice to be home.  I'm usually pretty good at avoiding homesickness (avoiding is the key word here - you can't get over it, you just have to get around it.)  More on that later.  

So, after 35 hours (so far) of traveling, we are home.  (We have another 18 hours to drive, and 15 to fly before it's all over.)

Life is good.  I have eaten Mexican food, with green chilis and fresh tortillas.  I have run with my friends.  I have been to Walmart.  (Seriously, have you seen how big that place is!)  I have heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, on the radio!  Soon, I will be in the mountains, skiing.  My children have filled themselves with horrible, sugary cereals, and I'm not even going to say anything (like "that's not breakfast, that's dessert").  But best of all, I have seen so many friends and family!  I couldn't be happier.  

Life is good.  

Visitors

I love having visitors!  Shon's sister Angie, her husband Brian, and their 3 children (plus one on the way) came to visit.  We took a few days and made another trip to the Whitsundays.  (I told you I couldn't wait to go back with my family!  I was serious!)

This time we had the boat to ourselves.  We had a ball.  The skipper, Steve, was awesome, and the decky, Emma was "brilliant!"  She was also Irish and a former pre-school teacher.  It definitely came in handy on a boat with 8 children!

The weather was a bit stormy.  We expected rain, but it only sprinkled.  It was much warmer this time around.  One wet suit was enough!  (Shon and I wore 3 last time.)

Two down. . .

***I wrote this post two and a half weeks ago, but I was in such a hurry that I forgot to post it!  Better late than never.

It is General Conference time again.  (Sigh.  I love General Conference.)  We ate cinnamon rolls, and  actually sat and watched all of the sessions with very few interruptions.  It's nice to have my children getting older.  For instance, last week we had the missionaries coming over for dinner and I also had to pick up Caleb from a play date.  You'd think pick up would only take a couple minutes, but I often find that "play date" here means "wine and cheese by the pool."  (No thank you, to the champagne, but I'd love a glass of water.)

 Actually, my one and only big complaint about Australia (besides the fact that everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road) is the alcohol.  Alcohol seems to be the language of hospitality here.  And though I don't drink, it doesn't bother me much to say no to a glass.  People are honestly trying to be nice when they offer me something to drink.  What I do have a problem with is children and alcohol mixed together.  Let's see, first there was the kindergarten disco where my son was handed a can of beer instead of a soft drink, and my friend's two year old got ahold of a can that was already open - he slept very well that night.  For the public school art night, every admission ticket came with a complimentary glass of wine.  Oh, and the school's family fun night:  all of the children went in a room for crafts and a sausage, while the adults stood around and drank.  (Family fun?)  At the last class parent rep meeting, one of the topics of discussion was how the school could get a liquor license for their next fund raiser.  When my daughter told me about the father's day gift this year, I made a pre-emptive strike so my husband would actually be able to bring his 3 lovely gifts home.  I brought sparkling grape juice to the school for the girls to put their hand painted wine labels on.  The saddest thing to me was listening in on a conversation where one mum was telling another that it was time to teach her 15 year old daughter how much alcohol she could handle.  I felt sick.  Australia would be a very difficult place to live as an alcoholic.  I'm glad I'll never have to deal with that. But just for the record, we have plenty of fun, laughter, and engaging conversation without the alcohol.  And now I'm really off on a tangent . . .

Emily's sparkling grape juice label from the Father' s Day breakfast.  

I went to pick up Caleb from a play date, said no to the champagne, swung by the grocery store to grab a few last minute ingredients for dinner with the missionaries, and came home to a perfectly clean kitchen!  My children (mostly Emily) had cleaned the kitchen and living room!  The magazines were even in a little row on the end table.   The floor was even swept.  I love having older children.

Speaking of older children, look who is almost taller than his dad.  

I also love having the missionaries over - especially this set, because one of them is family.  Sort of.  Shon's cousin's wife's nephew is serving in our ward.  Another tangent:  Elder Sio shared a bit of polynesian parental advice with our family.  When a parent asks you to do something, you have two options:  Do it, or do it sad. 

Here's Elder Thornton.  We just call him Elder Cousin.  Cuz for short.

But back to General Conference.  I feel so at home watching General Conference.  This particular one means our family has been in Australia for two years!  We moved here just a few days before conference, and in my jet lagged state, I woke up at 4 AM and watched it live on the internet.  (Because we are a day ahead of Utah, we end up watching General Conference a week later than the US.) 

We have learned a lot in the last two years. 

We have "learnt" to spell like an Aussie, whilst "practising" saying "Hache" and "Zede" in the alphabet (H and Z if you're confused.) 

I learned that I can indeed whip egg whites to a peek, with just a whisk. Our stuff took 3 months longer to get here than we had planned, so I had to learn to make do with what we had.  Ha!  I only thought I needed a mixer.  Seriously, try it.  It gives your fore arms quite the workout.

We learned that we really don't need plastic grocery bags.  After seeing dead turtles on the beach, and realizing how much easier it is to carry everything in with the big fabric bags, we, like the rest of Australia, have abandoned plastic bags.  Besides, they are just gross.  We have also abandoned paper towels.   Total waste.

There is a lorkeet on Caleb's head. 

We learned how to Surf!  That was fun.  Seriously, I love the beach.  How did I ever live without it? 

The kids learned to talk like an Aussie.  I am however stuck with my American accent (though I am frequently asked if I am Canadian - but I think most people who ask me this just can't tell the difference and know that Canadians don't like to be called Americans, but Americans don't really care.)  The two youngest are the best at turning their Aussie accent on and off.  It takes a few minutes after getting home from school for "mum" to become "mom." 

The family in Singapore.  Caleb is going to be an Elvis impersonator when he grows up.  

The biggest thing we have learned is that the world is very beautiful, and very small.  All those countries you see on the news, with tsunamis, earth quakes, and social unrest - they aren't so far away. 

We are all just neighbours, mate.