Tess' 7th Birthday Party

Lisa certainly knows how to throw a birthday party! Her number 4, Tess, turned 7 today.  The kids and I were invited to come to her party on Saturday.

There was a slushy machine for starters (imagine the possibilities for later when the kids are in bed!) Then the real fun started! A man arrived with a Dingo (the animal - not the small excavator variety) and all manner of other Australian animals! He gave a great talk about all of his pets (they really were his pets! I can't quite remember most of their names... I probably can't even remember their species names... but I can remember what they all felt like, and I can remember what one in particular smelt like!!)

This is a Dingo 

(Do you know how much I'm restraining myself from doing a Lindy Chaimberlain impersonation right now? It's a LOT!)

Mr Blue Tongue Lizard

'Pinecone' He's a lizard... I can't remember the variety, but he seriously feels just like a pinecone!

And this kind of lizard, it's head and it's bum look the same, so when threatened, he curls into a horseshoe shape, in the hopes the predator will bit it's bum, then it will bite the predator! 

Strong jaws - they like to eat snails :)

Miss Red investigating the cages Nick brought

Tessy wearing a Dragon fascinator - ready for the Melbourne Cup ;)

A frill-necked lizard - very scratchy claws! 

These ones run fast on their hind legs :)

An Iguana - like Jub Jub (from The Simpsons ;) )

Tess and a Brown Snake

Tess and hmmmmm - a snake.... was it a python? It probably wasn't, I can't remember!

I never expected snakes to feel so smooth, soft and almost jelly-like!

Red tickling the snake!              The snake heading off to check out the Andraczke's aircon.

Then we take a turn to the feathery variety - I'm pretty sure he said this is a Lorikeet

A Croc with a sore nose! 

The bandage is to stop him biting, but he does have a sore nose too - 

The people who found him kept him in a small tank to keep him small, but it doesn't work that way!

This is a Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat. She STUNK! 

She is 22 months old, and has been hand-reared since she was days old - her Mum was hit by a car and died, but she was rescued, which is pretty awesome :) Her best mate is a Dingo!

I learned lots and the kids had a great time!

CRAZY - that doesn't even BEGIN to describe the last year!

I've been petitioned to start blogging again.... so here I am - I hope this makes you all terribly happy! ;)


I realise it hasn't been a full year since I last blogged - more like 6 months - but the last year of my life has certainly been a rollercoaster ride! Let me break it down for you:

- Family of 6 - married, 3 kids plus our fourth kid - Thu, from Vietnam who lived with us for 2 years.
- I meet someone, unintentionally, on the internet, from Sweden, we form a very deep, fast and crazy relationship.
-Waking up one day and realising my kids and I deserved better than me being miserable, in a loveless marriage. Asking him to leave.
- He leaves, we are 5. Two nights a week, we are 2, while the 3 kids spend 2 nights away from me.
- I join a gym (a month before he leaves) and lose an additional 15kg by Christmas 2012 (almost 30kg in 2 years)
- I keep on, keeping on. Doing what I have always done - I often feel like I am everything to everyone. I continue to simplify my life (having already stepped back from the two organisations I have been involved with, and having closed my shop in January 2012)
- Trying to put myself first occasionally, sometimes isn't a total flop!
- Trying to get work is a total flop.
- I help my friend to set up a babysitting agency in Dunedin.
- Another friend tells me how wonderful Australia is. I am enticed, but don't think the ex will allow me to move the kids away, out of spite.
- Eventually I pluck up the courage to ask him. He agrees in less than an hour.
- I start making plans to move. The house is culled of excess junk and cleaned to within an inch of it's life!
- The house is on the market as of 1 December 2012.
- The house is unconditionally sold as at 18 December 2012.
- I am supposed to go to Sweden to see the one I met online. This does not go to plan, after people feed the ex a lot of crap. He refuses to look after the kids if I leave the country or try to go and meet him.
- I vacate my home so he can move in for two weeks to look after the children. I stay at my mothers after a short break away to Wellington to visit friends. The airfares to Sweden are non-refundable, a LOT of money down the drain. A LOT of heartache!
- I sell almost every belonging we own to raise funds for our move. I do pretty well!
- We move into my Mum's and Aunty's house and on 18 January 2013, we are officially homeless - settlement date.
- We stay a week at another friends house, then back to Mum's for the final few days in Dunedin.
- I sell my car, it leaves the morning we leave for Australia.
- 30 January 2013, we are on a direct flight from Dunedin to Melbourne.
- I settle kids in school.
- I meet a really amazing lady, who happens to live in the same street as me! She lends me her car, invites the kids over to play, we chat for ages!
- I buy a tiny little car - a white Mazda 121, for us all to get around in.
- I break things off with Sweden. I had tried several times in the past. He was not happy.
- I am encouraged to 'get back on the horse' and join an internet dating website. I meet an amazing father of 3 who is local, we have 2 dates, but he calls and tells me he thinks we both want different things. I am grateful for his honesty, but slightly disappointed as I thought we had a good connection.
- 6 weeks in, I get a job (as the one I had planned to get when I arrived didn't quite pan out the way we had hoped). I went in for an induction for a cleaning job, but after reading my CV, she decided I would be MUCH better suited to setting up a new arm of their business for them - a babysitting agency!


And here we are. Right now, I am waiting to start my job - I just need to tie up a few loose ends first. Little Red needs to get into a daycare centre.

So, once I have started my new job, I will be able to get us into our own house (we have been staying with my friend and her fiancé since arriving in Melbourne) Today I went looking at beds, as I knew I wouldn't be able to do that kind of thing easily once working - except in the weekends with all 3 kids!

The kids are doing well in their new school, they have both made new friends, in fact, we are off to a birthday party tomorrow afternoon! I have met a lovely group of Mums, through the awesome lady I met on the kids first day at school. We are all sorted with Medicare and Ambulance membership in case any of us get sick.

We are slowly adjusting to the extreme temperature... helped now by the fact it is Autumn and getting cooler!


I may well need prompting with remembering to update this, so please give me a prod if you haven't heard from me in a while :)