It was a big day on Friday!

Bigger for Duncan than for myself - our last day(s) at work. Duncan's VERY last day as he won't be returning, and my last day for a long time as I have a whole year of leave. Saying goodbye felt a little weird for me and downright emotional for Dunc. And all my teasing him about 'retirement' vs 'resigning' (a genuine mistake the first time... not so much the next 10 times!) didn't really help him!

His colleagues gave him a lovely farewell lunch and even included a cake with a bus on it. So incredibly thoughtful of them.

He wrote the most amazing email to all staff at his office and I think its well worth preserving:

"Last day for me today and can I say what an awesome ride is has been?!!

First, thank you to all who wrote on my card and donated to my crazy lifestyle change and thanks to Nick for the lovely speech he gave at the farewell yesterday!! I really appreciate the thoughtful comments.

It’s not often that you get to take a chance like this and we thought the time was now or never for us to do this with the kids at a time when we hope they will get the most out of it. I think Nick said it best in his speech when he said that our kids will be talking about this trip to their grandkids. I hope that it instils the travel bug in them so that they get out and see the world as Sacha and I already have. I know Senior Management will dislike me saying this, but this life is too short!! You need to grab these opportunities when they come your way, you need to step out of your comfort zone, grab your chance for an experience and really enjoy the living daylights out of them!

This trip came about mainly from the death of a very dear friend's 5 year old daughter from a brain tumour. We looked at our lives on the anniversary of her death and felt that we weren’t appreciating what we had … our health and the health of our beautiful children. We looked at our lives and decided a major change was needed, and here I am now. Sometimes we need a major event to trigger a life change.

8 years with any company is a long time these days and I had this grand plan about telling you all about how much I have seen, learned and done with this company. The list very quickly grew so long that I thought it would bore the socks off you so I dumped that idea. Suffice to say that my life at Skybridge has never had a dull moment and there was always a challenge to sink my teeth into.

I will make it simple. Thank you everyone for being the people you are and doing the amazing things you do. I have never met a more friendly, hard-working and approachable bunch of people in my working life as I have at Skybridge. Without you this company would not be the same.

You have all made my journey with the company a most enjoyable one."

Isn't it wonderful?! He sent it to me and I read it outside the pub where we were finishing up after my work Christmas party. I confess to tearing up. He has such a way with words.

So here we are. Our first Monday not working. Poor Duncan has come down with "Teacher-finally-on-holidays-Syndrome" and has been knocked flat with a horrible cold and has spent the day blowing his nose every 2 minutes and feeling miserable. I spent HOURS on the phone making change of address calls and cancelling the utilities before running into work (for the absolute last time) as I wasn't happy with the way I had left the Junior Art Studio for my replacement. We have 8 days to Christmas and therefore 12 days until we leave. ARGH!!!!! There is still soooooo much to do! We will get there though.

Our "Shakedown Trip"

So... apparently when one buys a caravan or motorhome, its the done thing to go on a "Shakedown Trip" to try stuff out and make sure you know what you are doing.
We REALLY needed to do that, as it became very apparent that we needed a rather large pair of "L Plates" for Bertha. Which is probably to be expected, as it was the first time we had taken her anywhere other than her parking spot and outside our house!

We thought we'd take advantage of the Melbourne Cup long weekend and booked into a powered site at a Caravan Park in Wonthaggi for 2 nights, and then intended to stay at a rest area for the last night. Of course, our plans changed, and that's not what ended up happening, but that's ok! TRUE preparation for our trip.

We started our little 'trip' with an hour or so in the parking facility while Dunc finished installing the tie-downs for the RAV4, but then we were off! And very quickly realised that in fact Sacha (Interior Payload Officer) has to lock the refrigerator door BEFORE the bus hits the road. Whoops! Luckily we didn't lose anything other than a couple of heartbeats when it made a rather large bang.

The rest of our first journey went smoothly. Then we got to the Caravan Park. The site they gave us was EXACTLY 19m long - which just happens to be the length of Big and Little Bertha combined.

It was a tight squeeze getting her in between a teeny tiny combi van and a huge shed over the pool, but we got there in the end.

We had a lovely couple of days pottering around and getting to know our new home and lifestyle. The kids swam in the pool and discovered that dishes do not do themselves. We shopped for essentials like the saucepans I forgot to pack from home - what a wonderful excuse for new cookware!!

We went to the Wonthaggi State Coal Mine and had an amazing underground tour, which was the highlight of our time there! We learnt so much and had a ball. And it even included a trip on the coal train to get out at the end...

After 2 lovely days it was time to try the 'free camping' side of life and our change of plans meant a 2hour drive to The Honeysuckles instead of a 20min trip to the Rest Area. All of which meant getting Bertha out of the Caravan Park, which proved to be no easy task! On our night time stroll around the caravan park (meeting all the locals and having lots of chats on the way) we had discovered a lovely huge turning area at the end of the 'street' we were parked in. Leaving would be "easy". Until we discovered that someone had parked smack bang in the middle of the road!! After 20 minutes of door knocking and meeting what felt like the whole neighbourhood, we decided to reverse the WHOLE way out. Imagine our surprise when halfway there the "bloody little bugger of a gold car" drove blissfully past us! I ran as fast as my little legs could go to make sure that no-one else would park there and Dunc leisurely followed with Bertha. Our little door-knocking stunt earlier meant that we now had the ENTIRE neighbourhood watching Dunc do his 3 point turn to get out and I'm sure those old dears are STILL talking about the time "that bloody big bus came to stay".

We had a wonderful drive to our lovely friend's Beach House at The Honeysuckles, where we were to try our "free camping".

Parking was MUCH easier with an entire bush block to ourselves...

Lovely views of the 90 Mile Beach, with all 90 miles completely to ourselves. The children had a ball swimming, while the grown-up sensibly avoided the icy water!

After a FAAAR too short time with friends it was back on the road to home. With a short pit-stop to try one more thing we hadn't done yet - emptying the black water tank (poop tank).

The road beckons. We can't wait to get out there and mix it with the big guns!

Step Three. COLLECT the bus!

So. Having decided on the bus we wanted, Dunc and I were kind of hoping we could put a deposit down and leave it where it was for a while. The owner, Will, had other ideas and so Dunc had a very unexpected and quick trip to Brisbane to collect "Big Bertha". Fortunately he was ably assisted by Pop / Rob Vander who took his navigator duties suitably seriously - when he wasn't sleeping!

Dunc and Pop texted when they were close and we had ALL the children in the street anxiously awaiting their arrival:

They ALL loved her and were quickly ensconced in the kid's bedroom. Its a few weeks on and I think I'm slowly getting accustomed to just how ENORMOUS she really is...

Step Two. Buy a bus!

So we decided we could do with more time with each other and less stuff. What better way to do it than to spend a year driving around the entire country crammed into a small, confined space?!

We truly LOVED our 2 week holiday when we drove around the South Island of NZ in a motorhome. The children had an absolute ball and Dunc and I were relaxed and really enjoyed the trip. We came home saying that when we were old and retired we would definitely drive around Australia in a bus.

So when we were faced with the realisation that other people were spending more time with our children than we were, bringing our plans "a little bit forward" was an easy decision.

And here we are. Three months later and we are the proud owners of "Big Bertha"!

After an exhaustive nation-wide search, and thorough perusal and discussions on the FIVE buses that would suit a family as opposed to a couple, we settled on the beauty above. She was unnamed at the time and I christened her sarcastically when Duncan showed a preference for the largest bus out of all the options. And so "Big Bertha" she will forever be!  Here are some pics from the advertisement:

Isn't she beautiful?

Step One. Sell the house!

So. Our plan to shake up our lives and spend more time together  starts with selling our house. :)

Looks great doesn't it??! We've been busy fixing up bits and pieces over the last few weeks. Levelling the garden and putting down the Lilydale toppings. Planting out the garden beds. (All required thanks to the destructive powers of our adored pet chickens who have been temporarily re-located to Katie's mother's house). Peeling off the stickers that were stuck all over the children's doors. Painting said doors. Swearing at the children for sticking stickers everywhere... You know how it is!

Then we de-cluttered, washed walls, tidied the house and now we are ready to have hundreds of people tromping through for our 'Open for Inspections'. Fingers crossed for a good result on Auction Day!

Its been a while...

So. Quite a while since the last entry! To be honest I found it very difficult to keep up this blog. Writing about trivial things our family was doing just didn't seem right while our dear friends Richard and Catherine were going through such a difficult time with their family.

Writing about swimming lessons and school productions just didn't compare to chemotherapy regimes and I didn't have the motivation to keep this blog up.

And, to be completely honest, we weren't having much fun.

We work full time and the children go to Before Care and After Care nearly every day. Or Hilly picks them up. But the bottom line is that we really don't get to spend much time with our own children!

But Duncan and I have found a way to inject some fun back into our lives. Its been just over a year since Anouk died and reflecting on her death has had a rather large impact on our lives. We have decided that we really don't want to live this way anymore - working all hours and seeing the kids for only 1.5 hours a day before tipping them into bed. I spend most of that 1.5 hours arguing over homework, housework and dinner anyway!

So we are making some changes. We're going to spend more time with our children. We've assessed what's important and decided that its NOT the big screen TV. We're going to make do with less. And have more. More time. More freedom. More flexibility. More family.

We can't wait!!