home???

I used this same title about 14 months ago, but I was in a different country. I guess it is true that "home is where your heart is".
I have to say that the transition back to this continent has been a little more difficult than our transition to AU. There are many reasons why this is so...The biggest transition was back to reality. While in AU, I took 22 plane flights(the rest of the family took 18). Even though RT worked at the hospital for a year, he had no administrative responsibilities. This means that when he completed his 8 hour shift, he left his "doctor side" at the hospital. Many times RT would arrange his schedule so he worked 10 days and then he would have 8 days off, allowing us to travel ALOT.We also had no responsibilities at our house as it was rented, and we had no belongings of our own that encumbered us. With all this said, transitioning back to RT working a 60 hour a week job with lots of stress was not at all easy.
Another reason for a difficult transition is that we found that our family was able to happily live with 280 pounds (including books for homeschooling) for a whole year. We came back to find our 3,500 square foot house packed with unnecessary stuff, and found people around us with an overwhelming desire to have more. Ugh!! Why do we as Americans think we need so much.
Lastly, we developed some strong friendships while in AU. I never thought this would have happened as we travelled so much and we were there on a temp. basis. The Aussies are just too friendly!!! We miss our friends greatly!!
Many have asked us about our future....the answer is, we don't know. Our selfish desire is to be back in AU where life is just "too easy" with "no worries". Unfort. this world is a very big place and doctors are needed everywhere-even here in West Plains. We are in the process of seeking God's will for direction for our future.
Thanks everyone for your prayers and support. We feel incredibly blessed with all our friendships-stateside and abroad.

Canberra

Glass factory


Celebrating Cas' 12th birthday at Hog's Breath Cafe. This is the equivilant to the "Outback Steak House" in the states. They have American license plates hanging all over. Many Aussies are surprised to know that we do not have Hog's Breath in the states.


Birthday cake in the hotel

The Parliament House

The red, white and blue wreath is from the US in memory of Au's unknown soldiers

I think that Cas is surrendering in the Vietnam war

The war museum. This pic has a pool with an eternal flame and the building behind the pool is the memorial for the unknown soldiers

We so wanted inside the gates, we pleaded, we begged, we used the best American accent that we knew how, we waved our passports...no luck. The sign on the outside is as close as we got to American soil in Australia

We once again thoroughly enjoyed our travels in Australia. RT had a 2 day course in Canberra so this gave us the perfect excuse for one more trip. The first day RT was in class the kids and I enjoyed some "schooling" at the glass factory. We all enjoyed seeing how glass was made and molded. The next day the kids and I rode around the lake. It was approximately 30 kilometers (18 miles). It was a bit cool - probably in the upper 50's- but flowers were blooming, birds were singing and people were having picnics.

The next day we went to the war memorial museum. The Aussies have done a great job describing battles and displaying momentos from the war. Abbie and I really enjoyed the first 1 1/2 hours we spent there, while Cas and RT enjoyed the whole 5 hours.

The parliament house was a bit of a surprise to us. We went there expecting to have another "boring" (ok RT was not expecting boring) tour. This was not the case. We got to listen in on the Senate and then we got to sit in on Kevin Rudds question/answer time with the house of representatives. This was very exciting. Even though the speaker kept saying "order". There was not much order on the floor. They were questioning the gov't spending. This subject matter led to loud outbursts from both parties. To us observers, it was great entertainment.

The last day, we spent at a great science center. The kids got to "free fall" 20 feet feeling the effects of adreneline. We all got to experience an earthquake, perception deceptions and many hands on activities.

We concluded our tour of Canberra with one last trip to the War memorial to listen to the bagpipes play as they closed the tomb for the day. It was a very somber and moving moment.

All in all we had a great trip. We are back home. Our next trip will not have a return ticket.

New Zealand

RT, Cas and Abbie skiing


Letitia posing for a picture


Abbie skiing

Cas thinking the resurrection has happened and he is in heaven

forging a creek to get up onto the glacier

a sideways picture of RT and Letitia in a glacier tunnel

on the glacier

in the rain and wind getting ready for the big climb up on the glacier

our road through the mountains

another road going through the mountains

our scenery while driving through the mtns.

one of our first glimpses of the "southern alps"

We just returned from our next to last trip. We spent two weeks in New Zealand. We arrived in Christchurch and drove from the east coast across the "southern alps" to the west coast. It may sound like a long journey, but it only takes about 3 hours to drive from east to west. We did not stop when we reached the west coast, we turned south and headed to the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers. We had never been to a glacier so we wanted to include this in our trip. We took a walking tour onto the Fox Glacier. This included about 700 "steps" which were sometimes thigh high for Abbie and we forged several creeks all in the pouring rain and strong winds. We reached the glacier and put on our cramp ons and walked around for about an hour before returning down the same path. We had a lovely time enjoying God's creativity.

We drove back to Christchurch and did some touristy things before flying over to Queenstown for a week. The kids were so excited to ski that upon arriving in Queenstown, we drove up the mountain for night skiing. Skiing is a bit different in NZ as there are not any trees to run into. There were only 3 lifts but we could ski anywhere on the mountain. The kids are getting to be quite the skiers. Cas loves moguls, jumps and speed. Abbie is not far behind and she also found a new love for jumps.

You can see from the pictures that the scenery was breathtaking. My passion for skiing was enhanced by the enjoyment of the picturesque mountains. We thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trip.

Unlike some of our other trips, we enjoyed relaxing times with the family-strolling around town, playing cards and NZ monopoly.

We have one more trip to Canberra, the capital of AU. RT has a medical conference and Cas will be celebrating his 12th birthday at the War Museum.

Aussie blog

If you have not read my post in a few days....I posted yesterday as well. My running group has a blog (gogettagirlskingaroy.blogspot.com) and they posted a blog in my honor. It was after running my 1/2 marathon. I thought I would copy it for you all to read.....

"The Go Getta Girls gave Letitia the good oil about the Gold Coast half marathon so she gave it a burl while living down under.Letitia played it by ear, packed her port and hit the frog and toad. She had a bonzer drive from woop woop to the big smoke to run an Aussie half marathon.Up at sparrow fart for a bite of brekkie then skedaddle by shankys's pony to join her good mate Alexia. Stone the crows they both remembered their wadjamacallit thingummyjig tied to their shoe. It was to the dunny for one last tinkle then off to find a pozzy at the start line. Well they couldn’t get with in cooee of the start, it was chockas. Bob’s your uncle it was time to bolt.No kiddin, they ran the race at a crackin’ pace, I’ll give ya the drum. Good onya Letitia, our ridgy-didge dinky-di Sheila."

Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rock

Zip lining through the rain forest

family dive on the great barrier



RT enjoying the ride on zip line (sorry pic is out of order)

Cas posing by creek

RT and kids debating whether or not to jump into the freezing creek.

They eventually made it in for about 5 minutes

Kids warming in the sun after chilly swim

The boys went exotic fruit shopping and brought back some for a tasting.

We had black sopote, mangosteen, durien, passionfruit, etc.

Cheese tasting at a dairy in Northern Queensland

There are 5 beautiful waterfalls and 2 volcanic lakes within about 10 miles of each other. After visiting them all, we stopped at a sweet tea house and had yummy sandwiches made with homemade bread.

one of the waterfalls

We kept seeing the sign for the fig tree while visiting the waterfalls. We did not think that we needed to stoop so low as a tourist to look at a fig tree, at the last minute we drove the 2 kilometers out of the way and we saw this magnificent tree. Being a tourist isn't so bad after all.

Ayers Rock (Uluru). O.K. I have to admit I was not overly anxious to travel long distances to see a rock. Once again, my underestimation of a tourist sight proved me wrong. This is one big rock. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to walk around it at a fast pace. It was interesting to hear the aboriginal stories that went with the markings on the rock.

This was on the top of my list of things that I wanted to do in Australia. We took a camel ride out to see the sun setting over the rock. Abbie and I rode "trevor". He was a 6 year old camel that had recently came from the wild

The Olgas (Kata Tjuta) are about 20 miles from Uluru. They are not a monolith but just - if not more- impressive. We went on an 8 kilometer walk through them. If you look closely at this, RT is in the bottom center of the picture.

another pic of us hiking in the Olgas. Hats off to our kids. This was rated as a difficult hike. They hiked it with minimal complaining.

Wild camels in AU!! Yes, many people probably do not know that there are over 1,000,000 camels living in the outback. AU now exports camels to Saudi Arabia.

We had a wonderful 10 days exploring the Daintree rainforest, great barrier reef, and the Ayers Rock region with our good friends from the states. We were completely overwhelmed with our mighty God's creative ability. The rainforest possessed every color of green imaginable, the great barrier surprised us with the coolest fish and colorful coral, the rock was so mammoth and was such a stark contrast to the flat outback that we had to sit back and wonder why God put it in such a place. Even our kids asked why God put Ayers Rock there. While at Ayers Rock we had an astronomer (who gave credit to God for creating the sky) who explained to us the different constellations which we observed through a telescope. WHAT AN AMAZING GOD WE SERVE!!

The night before the run


carb loading at an Italian restuarant the night before the run. Pictured are RT, Me and my running friend Alexia


The morning of the run (4:30 a.m.) I am wearing my "proud to be an American" in honor of the Fourth of July



I was able to get showered after I ran 21k and before RT finished. This is RT about 30 minutes after he finished running 42K.

Sorry about the sideways pics. I do not have the time to figure out how to turn them. Wanted to get them posted

Wintertime activity

beautiful scenery. Just can't pass it up

country road

MaryAnne co-owns the vineyard with her husband

Captains Paddock

Cas enjoying the view

off-roading in the mud

starting the bike ride

RT had the day off so we decided to take a family bike ride to our favorite hang out place-the vineyard. We started by doing some mtn. biking; which turned out to be a bit muddy, but alot of fun. We enjoyed a nice lunch and then we came home a different route-a dirt country road. This is the kind of winter that I could get used to-cold mornings and evenings and warm during the day.