Remember Me?...

Tap, tap.  Is this thing on?...

Remember that time I moved back to the US from Australia right before Christmas, and then fell off the face of the earth blogger?  Yeah... oops...

I'm actually quite disappointed in myself for letting that happen.  It's not that I forgot about blogging or documenting this major transition in our lives.  In fact, I thought about blogging quite often... but I guess I just never really got any further than that.  I had plenty of "mentally composed posts" floating around in my brain over the past nearly three months... important moments in our lives that I don't want to forget like our last day in Australia, stepping foot on American soil for the first time in a year and a half, Christmas, New Years, moving back to Houston, forgetting how to drive on the "right side" of the road, things I miss about Australia, things that now overwhelm me about America, a few fun weekend trips we've taken, and the many other interesting experiences in this process of repatriating... but I guess I dropped the ball. 

If I'm being honest, it started out that I was avoiding blogging because everything was just a bit too overwhelming, and I didn't want anything else added to my plate.  At that time, it sounded stressful to me, instead of fun, like it had before. But then it kind of turned into me being sad about leaving Australia- in denial, really.  And I think somehow I thought that blogging about it would make it more real.  It's actually still pretty hard for me to read all of the expat blogs I had been such a loyal reader of just a couple months ago (Sorry to some of my faves- Jen and Jenna).  I guess having to leave Australia much sooner and more quickly than we anticipated... and essentially having to leave my expat identity (and all the wonderful experiences I had) behind made it somewhat painful to read about others doing the fun expat things I used to do.  Yeah, serious denial.  So I just avoided it all together.   Makes sense, right?... (totally doesn't...)  And the longer I avoided blogging, the harder and more overwhelming it seemed to start up again. 

But here I am.  I want to continue blogging and documenting our lives.  I want to remember what it was like to move back to the US after living abroad.  And I want to record the experiences we have in our "new again" home in Houston.  So this is my first effort at putting a stop to the avoidance, denial, and procrastination.  It will surely take me a while to get caught up, but that will be my goal.  So please bear with me over the next several weeks as I try to get back into my groove.  And I hope you won't mind some seriously outdated recaps while I attempt to get caught up. 

And because no post is complete without a photo, here's one of my last views of Gladstone as we said goodbye for the last time.