Round The Kookaburra 2017

SNAPSHOT Reflection: to give  serious thought or consideration. Synonyms: thought, thinking, consideration, contemplation, study, deliberation, pondering, meditation, musing, rumination, cogitation, brooding, agnonizing: This is a fairly accurate definition of our mood this week, with plenty of time for reflection we also spent a fair bit of time “brooding” and “agonizing” for one reason or another. The girls have enjoyed reminiscing and we spent part of our trip actually reading our blogs out loud and got such a giggle out of Leigh’s “jokes”..... We can’t avoid going home and yet we don’t feel “finished”.....in saying that though, I have really noticed how mature the girls have become all of a sudden and know they are desperate for all things “home”.....it’s been really important for Leigh and I not to get down in the dumps and returning! We have purposefully backed away from “doing stuff” this week and tried to make it more like a holiday - this isn’t...

SNAPSHOT We are desperately trying to engage the "Ostrich".....you know, when something is inevitable, you can see it coming but just want to run away screaming? So with plastered smiles on our faces masking melancholy feelings, I ordered everyone to enjoy every last minute of fun and sunshine over the next week!  This week I would liken us to ducks....calm and serene above water but a teensy bit frantic underneath! Normality" is tapping us on the shoulders so in true Stollery style we will sift in and around the Murray River Region for as long as possible before we turn the Kookaburra for home..... We are all worried about coming home.....will we fit back in? More importantly do we even want to? It's taken 5 months for us to find our groove and we could easily call in home for a Max cuddle and to reset the go button again! But we probably won't hah hah Enjoy!! WHERE ON EARTH ARE WE? Fitzgerald Bay | South Australia We farewelled Coffin...

SNAPSHOT We launched into Week 18 with a feeling of curiosity for, what lay ahead was the infamous Nullarbor - we imagined long boring days of dry barren land, screaming fighting kids and us gaining a few grey hairs and we couldn't have been any more wrong if we had tried!  Of course there were patches of what seemed to be endless highway but it was broken up by spectacular coastal vistas and a variety of landscapes and the most sensational sunrises and sunsets...... And all of this with barely a whingy mcwhine from the skiddies......how you ask?? Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone via audio book!! If only we had thought of this 10,000km ago - hindsight is a wonderful thing however we are too relieved to have made it across the Great Australian Bight that we just don't care 😂 On a personal level we are all aware that our travelling time is swiftly coming to an end....if we chose to get in the car right now we would be home in 10 hours!! does it feel like w...

SNAPSHOT Once I got over my sulking about leaving Perth we launched into a surprisingly brilliant week! At first we couldn't settle at all  - tolerance levels were rock bottom and I began to wonder if the (mostly) harmonious family that navigated their way around 3/4 of Australia had been a dream? Eventually we started to find our groove again.   But I'm scared.  When we started this trip, our goal as parents was to reconnect as a family - an insanely demanding lifestyle had got WAY out of control - our parenting was reactive not proactive and it didn't feel like there was a damn thing we could do about it. We wanted to resestablish boundaries and values.  A pipe dream? Perhaps.  But it was our pipe dream.......heading into Perth we were feeling pretty confident that we had achieved what we had set out to do, and naively didn't even consider that these changes weren't permanent........three weeks back in the real world of personal space a...