The quiet pace of Mornington is coming to an end!

It has certainly been nice leading a slower paced life during our stay in Mornington. 

After this busy year it has been a welcome change! 

Our van is set up, we have the last of our things to store this week and then our trip really begins once we drive onto the spirit of Tasmania!!

Icecream at Mornington, Vic

We haven't travelled far from home yet! We decided to stay near Melbourne as Tony's younger brother is getting married & my dad is coming to visit from Switzerland in December & January.

It will e great to spend time with family before we hit the road, or ferry, as the case may be!

At first I wanted to head off straight away, but staying in Mornington has been superb as it has allowed us time to fine tune where we want to pack everything in the van, and making the most of the small space we have, without the need to hurry!

It was a warm night the other night so we ended up taking the children in to Mornington Main Street for icecream. Unsurprisingly there were no complaints!

Our homeschooling method is one of natural learning

Our homeschool method is one of natural learning & this article describes it perfectly!

http://www.home-ed.vic.edu.au/2007/05/04/natural-learning-in-action/

This is the first part of the article that I really resonate with:

"Confession time: Sometimes I get ‘the guilts’ and think I’m not really educating my children at all. This feeling usually creeps in following someone’s wide-eyed response when I tell them that I home educate.

“Wow, I could never do that! You must be so organised!”

The overawed responses vary but the words ‘busy’, ‘dedicated’ ‘organised’ and ‘amazing’ crop up fairly often. My guess is you hear this kind of thing too. And then the guilt sets in because these people have entirely the wrong idea about me. They think that I am a super-organised disciplinarian, planning lessons; conscientiously implementing a study routine; supervising progress; correcting work and so on…

I’m not doing any of that stuff! The fact is that most of the time, I’m doing my own thing whilst the kids do theirs. As the clock ticks over 9.00 a.m. here you won’t find me with the dishes and daily washing and cleaning done ready to supervise the day’s school work. In fact it’s quite likely that I am checking my email in my pajamas whilst the kids are still reading in bed. One of them is almost certainly still asleep.

Sometimes natural learning seems to be ‘doing nothing.’

I think the thing is that following a natural learning lifestyle means that the parental role is so different to that of a teacher that even we home educating parents have trouble seeing and recognising it for what it is sometimes. We don’t appreciate how hard we work to help our children learn because we cease to consider it ‘work’ and just think of it as ‘life’. The truth is that natural learning involves much more than ‘doing nothing’ or letting the kids do whatever they want. On the contrary, parents are very involved in their children’s natural learning. Yes, my children pretty much do what they want as long as they are not causing a problem. But what we natural learners find is that, given the chance to do whatever they wish, children choose many activities and pursuits where learning is incidental (indeed inevitable) and that, as they grow older, children choose to learn more overtly in the direction of their own interests and often pursue those interests to a very high level. The child who is still asleep at 9.00 a.m. has often been writing a story or researching until late into the night.

So what of the parents’ role? No we are not implementing timetables but we are very far from being divorced from the process of learning which is going on in our homes. Encouraging natural learning is very much a facilitator’s role. We teach our children how to find out what they want to know. We answer their questions as toddlers and, as they grow older, we show them how to use the index of books, the library catalogue system and the internet but none of this is done in lesson form. It is just ‘taught’ naturally as the need arises. We search high and low for books that will appeal to them – both fiction and non-fiction. We take them to clubs, exhibitions, festivals, sports and activities that will interest them. We stock up on resources – books, art materials, writing materials, board games and so on. We provide the time and the freedom for them to develop their imaginations through long imaginative games. We display their models and artwork. In short, we help them in thousands of ways to actively pursue any interest they have.

We are also the sounding board for many of their ideas, thoughts and imaginary games. We take their opinions seriously. We thoughtfully read everything they write, even their first faltering attempts which we may also join with them in laughing at years later. We comment, correct or proofread as requested. We are the audience for their lounge-room concerts and sit through hours of recitals of their made-up songs and poetry. We preview books that we think might appeal to them. We read everything they recommend and talk to them about what they read. We type up their stories. We help them make signs and props for their games. Sometimes we purchase what we or they can not make – e.g. play money for their shopping games. We make time to explain concepts when requested and to demonstrate skills they wish to pick up. We frequently drop what we are doing in order to respond to their interests, their questions and their pursuit of knowledge. In fact we honour their quest for knowledge and help them to see how important it is.

We have no structure in a school sense but in a very real sense our whole lives are structured to aid, assist and encourage our children to learn and to love learning. ..."

Setting up our van. Aahhhh the simple life!

We have spent this week driving back and forth collecting everything we want to take in the van, re-sorting it, giving some more items to charity that we won't fit (& as aren't essentials), and bringing the rest to the van. Then we go through each bag or box and decide where to store everything so that we leave room for the rest of our things and so everything is in a spot that makes practical sense & the most efficient use of space! This process has actually taken longer than we expected and is quite tiring - more than we'd imagined as things have moved spots a number of times already! - but it feels so good "moving" into our new home on wheels & putting our belongings in/away makes it feel warm and inviting! And it is exciting because this is all we will be living with, indefinitely! ..aahhhh, the simple life! 

Day 4 - A photo of our tug & home on wheels!

This is where we'll be living! Now that we are over the hurdle of our first night, are filling all the cupboards with our belongings and the beds are all made with our linen from our old house, it feels more like our home. We are loving having so much time outside and enjoying the fresh air!

Breastfeeding our 19mo prevented a potential tragedy!

Not the start we had anticipated in our first night in our caravan...

Whilst putting the children to bed I noticed that the brackets for the middle bunk above Luca and I weren't screwed in and were bending with the best part of 20kg of Oliver (our 4yo) on it, despite it being rated to 70kg! After immediately calling Tony & getting Oliver off the bed before Luca and I got crushed, we set up the dinette bed for him to sleep on. 

I didn't get to sleep until close to 1am, I think awake with the adrenalin of considering that had I not climbed in that bottom bunk and seen the potential catastrophe, that Luca could have been killed had the bunk fallen on top of him! It is a parent's instinct to protect their children and I was so angry and upset about the situation! 

But ultimately I have to look at the positive and nobody was hurt. Yes, the work done to install the bunk should never have been slapped together like that, but there is a reason I am still breastfeeding our 19mo to sleep! ..ultimately it might have saved his life or prevented critical injuries!

Exciting day ahead - stay tuned!

The car is packed (to the brim)!! 

I am glad we don't have a bigger car or we'd taking more "stuff"! It's amazing how little we actually need!  Big day ahead!! ..stay tuned!

One more sleep & just a few more boxes to go!

One more sleep to go!

 The couches have gone & only a few toys left

we are sleeping on mattresses on the floor

no kitchen table

  All the cupboards are empty, so this is all we have left to pack up in the kitchen

Our room, nearly done!

 Sleeping on the floor

Study is empty

  The last few items have migrated to the rumpus room

 

We sold our washing machine & dryer so have been doing our washing at the laundromat in Monbulk & hanging clothes outside & on the curtain rails to dry!

 The skip bin full to the brim! - I am pretty proud at how much we got to give away that was in perfect working order, including four full car loads to the charity shop & so next to nothing was thrown away that was in good working order!

 The couch was picked up today

The wardrobes are empty

  No fridge

All the food is packed!

And so in the morning, we will take our tv unit to the charity shop, drop off the kid's mattresses to be stored, give the house a final clean, and then it will be time to say goodbye!

I am really excited, but this feels so surreal tonight! Maybe that will change when I wake up in the morning, ...or after a couple of weeks of rest, in Mornington!

Small update

I decided to simplify the log layout so it is easier for the website to open if on a slow connection - which may be the case once we hit the road!
I have also added the option to follow the blog over there on the right -->, so please do!

Two more sleeps to go until we hand our house keys over & five more sleeps until we pick up our caravan!! Eeeeeeeee can't wait!  I shall blog again properly over the weekend once we have moved and have sighed a big sigh of relief that the stress of moving (for this part at any rate), is over.

Our life in boxes

And so we packed just about all of our possessions into a hire truck and filled a small storage unit!

Then we had a day off to celebrate our two eldest's birthdays (4 & 6 - how time flies when you're having fun!)!

Now to finish packing the rest of the house, which is a much slower process than we imagined, with three children in the house! And we even accounted for it taking longer to allow us time to spend with the kids, but it wasn't enough!! It's going to be a busy week! 7 days to go until we hand over the keys!

Bye bye old car, hello new car!!

Getting closer... we sold the tv! And the car!

I was so excited when we sold the tv, dvd, set top box & surround sound!  The lady came to pick them up yesterday, and they only depreciated by 90% in 6 years! :P

It was pretty exciting to think we'll be without one actually.  We stopped watching it a while ago anyway and only watched dvds as it was, which we can now watch on the computer which is now sitting on our tv unit as we also sold our desk and chair! :D

We are only without a screen for one day though, as today we pick up our new car!!  Woohooo!!!  It has a screen for the kids to watch dvds, however we have made it very clear it will only be used on long trips.  So as soon as Tony gets home with the car we plan on going on a long trip, just for the fun of it!

We had to buy Amelia a new car seat as she is 6yo tomorrow and growing out of her old one, and we want her to stay harnessed for as long as possible.  The new Infasecure Evolve seat means she can stay harnessed until she is 8yo.  It has aqua padding and looks rather fancy for a car seat!  Oliver is moving up into Amelia's old seat and Luca will hopefully move into a new type A4 seat, that allows for extended rearward facing until the age of 2-3yo.  We are off to the babies & children expo this weekend to try to grab some special expo offers!

I drove our Mercedes R320 home from swimming yesterday, my last drive in a luxury car for quite some time.  It has been fun, but our new car is much more suited to us & to our adventures in the near future!  I never would have imagined I'd be more excited to be getting our Isuzu MUX 7-seater 4wd, than our Mercedes R320 6-seater SUV!  But I can't wait!!!!

Celebrations for miss Amelia's 6th birthday!

With four more sleeps until her actual birthday, we celebrated slightly early with friends by going to the Dreamworks Exhibition at Federation Square in the city today. 

They all had such a great day & the weather was beautiful!

We got to watch a helicopter land on the helipad on our way to fed square. 

Everyone enjoyed the dragon flight so much we watched it twice! With the semicircular screen it was incredibly real and a few of us (adults) came out feeling a little nauseous...

Thankfully the 6 of us adults managed to keep a regular head count of 9 children in party hats! It did make it easier that at this age they mostly preferred to stay together though ..except the escapee 18mo that is! 

All in all a wonderful day of birthday celebration! 

And because things come in three's, we also (finally) decided on our caravan!!! Here is a glimpse of our Adria Altea 552pk with bunks...

So, this is our van!!!  We looked and looked, and looked, and looked for a van and it wasn't until we saw the Adria that we both finally decided it was the one for us!

We are getting it converted to triple bunks, so with the dinette converting to a bed (in about 2 minutes), it can sleep 6-7 people!  And it has an ensuite (yay for no middle of the night toilet freezing cold toilet runs with the kids)!  Plus an enormous fridge.

We have to have the ducted heating/cooling removed to accommodate the triple bunks so we are having an Ibis reverse cycle installed in the ceiling.

And the best part is it is under 2 tonnes towing, fully loaded!

We wanted to find a car with high towing capability and a van with a lower towing weight, so that we weren't on the top end of the cars towing ability, putting strain on the engine (and everything else), and that is exactly what we have got.  We are so pleased!

We have a weekend between handing our house keys over and picking up our van and then we can head off on our first adventure!

It's all coming together...

Yep, it's all happening! Not only did we sell our house, but we're getting a new car! Introducing the Isuzu MUX 7 seater!

But selling the house is not all the exciting news!  After months of discussion we finally decided on a car!  Tony wanted the Isuzu d-max, but we compromised on the brand new 7 seater MUX over a secondhand landcruiser. 
The Isuzu has 2 tonne towing capacity and three baby bolts plus isofix and (much to the children's excitement) a dvd player!  We were trying our best to find a car without it as we would much rather they enjoy the view out the window, but we agreed it would be beneficial for those times we do need to drive for a number of hours in one day.  And unlike some other cars, there is only one screen so everyone needs to share and agree on what to watch!

So this is it, in titanium silver...

Time will tell if we made the right decision but we are pretty happy at first glance!  Fingers crossed we can pick it up next week!!

It's getting very real! We sold our house & move out in 27 days!

Yes, it is getting very real now!  And we can finally be excited with all the big decisions out of the way!

Firstly, we sold our house after being on the market for a week.  We absolutely have to take our hats off to our amazing real estate agent, Jan Brewster from Ranges First National in Belgrave!  She is simply the best!  Warm, inviting, easy to talk to, always professional, and furthermore great with the kids (and when there are three under six running around, that's saying something!).  She will come highly recommended to anyone looking to sell in the Dandenong Ranges!

Here is what we are leaving behind...  It will be sad to leave and we are absolutely enjoying every last minute here!  But we are going to see so many exciting places on the road, I have no doubts we will quickly realise it was worth leaving this beautiful mountain!

Oh my gosh we're living in a display home!

We had our inside house photos taken earlier in the week & our outside ones will be taken tomorrow as it was pouring with rain when the photographer came the first time!!

Tony says he hopes we sell quickly because "mummy is developing OCD trying to keep the house presentable or as close to presentable as possible, at all times!!!" Hahahaha! It is a little true though, I am going a little mad about the tiniest of mess! Hopefully our ad will be online early next week so OFI's will begin next weekend!

Gardening, a successful day!

My arms were not happy about my gardening efforts today!  I think I had a slight allergic reaction to something!  Note to self: wear sleeves that cover all my arms next time!!  But at 20'C and sunny, how could we not spend the entire day in the garden with the kids?!  It was just beautiful!  We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place & I think we will all be a little sad to leave, but we will be seeing so many other beautiful places on our trip, I am confident it will be worth it!

Amelia would have much preferred to be inside reading today, or watching a movie, but Oliver & Luca enjoyed themselves thoroughly, despite Luca falling down a step and scraping his nose.  We got so much done, it felt great to step back and look at our progress!  By mid afternoon we had completed much more than we anticipated! 

Due to having such a successful day Tony suggested we take the night off and go to Docklands to watch the fireworks & so off to the city we went!  Amelia and Oliver said they were too loud, but enjoyed the colours, and Luca was completely impressed! I couldn't help but think what a waste of money they were and how it could be better spent on the community, but I was grateful to be spending family time together & the children enjoyed seeing the luxurious looking boats docked! They were also fascinated by the changing colours of the ferris wheel.

All in all a wonderful, successful, enjoyable day! 

Learning to swim

Amelia (5.5yo), Oliver (3.5yo) & Luca (16mo) have been having weekly swimming lessons since the beginning of this year. Amelia and Oliver attended lessons on and off previously, but not consistently (I do not recommend this approach!), and it has made the whole process a whole lot more challenging! 

We can immediately see the difference in the children's level of confidence in the water. But they are getting there! And we are so proud! 

Amelia could just about be swimming on her own but she doesn't realise that she can do it yet so is refusing to let go of her teacher(!). But she is inches away, and Oliver is learning to swim with his face in the water and then he won't be far behind her either!  But, the one I am most very proud of is Tony. He had his second private lesson today. He never learnt to swim as a child and he fears the water.he will take the children in to the pool provided he can touch the bottom and is close to the edge. But with our trip looming he realised it was time he learnt to face this fear!   Today he put his face in the water, blowing bubbles, and began learning about his breath. It is incredible to see how much he has learnt and how far he has come with only an hour's tuition! The adrenaline must be pumping through his body during that half hour because last week and tonight he has been completely exhausted!  I am so, so proud! What he is learning for himself, in a broader sense, will be life changing, and unknowingly he is teaching the children so much through this process too!

Our dream, a step closer!

I have been talking about having my hair cut short, since before we got married a couple of years ago! I haven't had short hair since my early twenties, which is a decade ago now - showing my age now!

And now we are about to go on our trip, I thought this would be a great way to mark the end of one chapter of our lives and the beginning of the next!

And wow, has it been liberating! I should have done this all those years ago! I feel lighter, I feel motivated, I feel inspired! 

We are at about the half way point of having our house ready to go on the market. I knew this point would eventually come and I have been hanging for it! And my gosh it feels good! 

...We are one step closer to our dream!

To-do...

Last weekend we decided to write a to-do list for each room and stick them up so that we have a visual reference of what needs to be done to get each room ready.  Hopefully it will inspire us to check off small items whenever we have a spare five minutes (although there aren't many spare with three young children around). It was quite satisfying to get all the lists up, but not many items have been crossed off this week!  However we are heading out into the garden tomorrow, rain, hail or shine, and going to collect some of those autumn leaves, so that'll be rewarding!

Next steps...

All of a sudden our dream is becoming a reality and our to-do list has extended to a mile long!  We are not just selling the house, but practically everything in it too!  Plus the cars (to buy a 4WD), and we are yet to buy our caravan!  We need to de-clutter the house, photograph and advertise everything, ...& then it is a waiting game until it sells!  Oh, and then there are all the autumn leaves to collect from our garden!  We regrettably didn't get on top of them before winter hit and so now we have a garden of WET autumn leaves to pick up!
We met a bunch of real estate agents and all of a sudden things feel very real!  It is exciting yet daunting!  Tony has a little over a week left of work, and then it really will be real!  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

When not talking house and the practicalities of getting ready to leave, we distract ourselves with places to visit and pinning red markers on our google map!  It is nice not to have a set itinerary.  Hopefully we'll get to see as many of those points as possible, but no matter what it will be so liberating to just travel a little way at a time, and to extend our stay at the places we like and move on from the ones we don't!  Then there is just finding work!  I hope we will gain some farming experience in addition to learning how to self-build a house too.

I forgot to mention it, but that was a major reason for us finally deciding to go on this trip too - that we want to build our own house (ourselves) when we get back!  With the view of living a more sustainable, environmentally friendly, chemical free & simple life.  So that helped us make the decision to sell now.  It is exciting to have goals to work towards & to look towards a bright, comfortable, happy future that is debt free (hopefully, or almost at least!)

First steps to our dream!

We have dreamt of traveling, or should I say I have dreamt of traveling with our little family, since we were a family of 3, then 4 and now 5.  After many, many conversations, hubby came to realise that this would be a fantastic experience too!  So, what was stopping us?  Well, a stable income/job, schooling for the kids & our mortgage.  So we decided it wasn't an option right now...  Until we found out that Tony's work was closing.

After our eldest, Amelia (now 5.5yo), began prep, we found that she was completely exhausted and her mood and whole life was being affected by her exhaustion.  Even attending a maximum of 4 days a week (I don't think she managed a full week once the whole term), it was still too much for her.  Then I happened to be speaking to a fellow parent who suggested part homeschooling and keeping her home one day a week for the rest of the year, to give her time to adjust.  That was the beginning of our homeschooling journey.

We had already briefly spoken about distance education for when we eventually got to go on our trip, and after reading up about homeschooling in Victoria, and many, many discussions about whether it would work for her and for us, we decided to trial part-homeschooling.  The plan was for her to attend specialist subjects at school and for us to teach literacy and maths at home.  But that was short lived.  We entered school holidays with the plan to begin part homeschooling at the start of second term, but we saw such an improvement in her behaviour over the holidays, that we decided to keep her home for another couple of weeks, during which time we noticed she was more relaxed and happy; the children were playing better together; and we were all happier for it!  So we decided to keep her home and homeschool fulltime.

All of a sudden we only had one hurdle left to jump!  So, what to do with the house?  We tossed back and forth on this topic over and over again!  We have grown up in a society where we were exposed to numerous typical drama tv shows and romantic movies where girl meets boy, they get married, buy a car, then a house & have a family of their own.  So our conundrum was: do we follow society's norm & stay put, paying off our mortgage and providing a stable home for the children ...or turn everything upside down?  We are yet to do anything in order, so why start now ...right?  After countless discussions we decided selling up would mean travelling stress & debt free.

So with that last decision our trip suddenly became a reality!