We have been very excitedly living in our big green bus and mobile billboard for our mission to Transform Children’s Health in Australia, One Lunchbox At A Time for 2 weeks now. This post is just a series of ramblings from our Family Tour Diary for last 2 weeks – it’s more about the family than The Root Cause – things we have noticed, things we have learnt and so on.
Naming our girl
We have all agreed on the name of our big ole green gal – it’s Kaley (as in a big green bunch of Kale with the usual Aussie addition of a Y that gets thrown onto the ends of names by friends).
Now we have to agree on a name for our trailer. We haven’t discussed this yet, but it’s coming because Rilien (our son) asked about it yesterday. Brock maybe, as in Broccoli. What do you think?
Home is wherever we park
Paul Young once say wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home, for us that’s wherever we park, that’s our home.
Tonight were parked at our 5th location in 2 weeks. We are right alongside a great bike track, skate park and beautiful Tuggerah Lakes at Picnic Point (Central Coast of NSW). This will be our home for the next 2 nights. Within 10 minutes of scoping out the skate park, the kids were climbing to the top of one of those rope-spider-web-like-climbing-things and I was whipping us up dinner. It was home already.
I must say I am relieved to find how easily we have adapted to this way of living. As much as this mission means to us, it has long been the fearful voice of that person sitting on my ‘play it safe shoulder’ that has said “What if you don’t like it? What if you need fixed roots?” Thankfully that little fearful voice has been beaten.
Personal Growth
I am beyond amazed at the personal growth we have all had in these 2 weeks.
- Both our kids have certainly become a lot more adventurous than before. Everything in sight is a climbing or swinging frame.
- We have all learnt how precious our water supply is, and have learnt to have super speedy showers in our bus.
- Our 5 year old son has taken it upon himself to fold up his clothes and proudly show me how he has folded them before putting them away in either his ‘long clothes drawer’ or his ‘short clothes drawer’. I have resisted the urge to refold them properly because this is a massive change in behaviour.
- Indrani our beautiful 9 year old daughter has diligently done her school work with minimal supervision and without us really prompting her. She knows if she starts by 9am, she will be done by lunchtime for the day. That’s the benefit I guess of not having the disruption of sharing the classroom and teacher with 25 + others.
- What can I say about Israel? My photographer, desk jockey and IT Geek has become a bus driver, mechanic, handy-man and house husband all in the last 2 weeks. He has blown me away with his nerves of steel of being able to drive this 19 metre, 18 tonne rig. You should have seen him mastering the roundabouts on the Central Coast today (it surely is the capital of roundabouts for this country). I didn’t think it was possible to love him anymore than I did, but I do.
- For me, I would squarely put my personal growth in the court of learning to go with the flow. If the drawers in the kitchen fly out whilst we’re going around the bend? Just get up and close them. Let the kids stay up late because they have met new friends their age who have been travelling Australia for 11 months? Sure, why not, we’ll deal with their tiredness tomorrow. If the kids have been running around in the dust having a blast and come in with filthy feet? Just deal with it, the dust is going to get worse the further inland we go. And accept that I am not superwoman – running classes everyday has been so so rewarding but I am drained some nights. I have had to learn to accept it’s OK if our newsletter goes out late or if I don’t get around to researching and posting on Facebook every night.
Realisations / Learnings
Here’s just a few of our realisations / learnings over the past 2 weeks.
- Our son no longer thinks an hour drive is a long drive, he tell us “that’s not long at all”.
- Our daughter rolled/fell out of the top bunk last night (scared the bejeezus out of us) – rolling up towels and put under the sheet to act as a bed rail is a smart thing to do (thanks to all the tip offs from fellow travellers).
- It’s always best to empty our grey water tank before driving, because otherwise it starts to slosh around in the tank as you drive and the smell is worse than bad.
- Kitchen drawers with heavy things in them need to have a couple of locking devices on them if you want them to stay closed when driving.
- We are going to learn SO MUCH the next 18 months. In the last 2 weeks, we have learnt Newcastle has over 200 shipwrecks, there was a colliery disaster in 1896, it’s peacock mating season and the male peacocks are in great form trying to impress the ladies, as are the pigeons around our camp ground.
- Newcastle is a great city with so many sights to see and many that are free. Our favourite is probably Blackbutt Reserve where there is a free wildlife exhibition – it’s incredible. You basically walk right through the middle of their exhibit and the bird area is spectacular because the birds fly over your head.
- Our kids really are great kids. They have adapted to so many situations this year. They are resilient and strong, and we are so very proud of them.
- If something is going to go wrong when driving, be grateful that it’s Israel driving!
And I have added in these 2 photos to show how much of a nut job our 2 kids are. Here they are posing with their green smoothie breakfast moustaches.