Sad Times

We have been here three months. We are past the half-way point. I get sad thinking that I am going to have to tuck my shirt in again (I still wear one in public sometimes). I’ve also come to the conclusion that I don’t like Adam much. I’ve worn pants four times in the past three months and he was responsible for three of them. I wore them for a Christmas dinner with his family, at New Years Eve (not with him), to a bar that may have had a dress code against shorts (turned out it didn’t so I was tricked), and to a dinner with other US GM employees (really not me but Dan likes my kids) on assignment here in Australia being treated to the dinner by a visiting US GM Director in engineering. Pants make me feel as uncomfortable as if I were wearing a bather at the beach. (A lot of men wear bathers here. You know the Speedo bathing suit).

We’ve had a large group of new kids and moms join the biweekly playgroup since the new year. It has been a lot of fun for the kids to play with these new kids both at playgroup and at other times during the week. We’ve gone swimming with Jules at the Melbourne Aquatic Center (an amazing place with a wave pool, two zero entry play pools for kids with fountains, a big water slide, a four foot deep lap pool, and an 18” deep 20’x20’ play pool. We went to the Melbourne Museum with Alex and Thomas (both of which have found houses way outside of the city and will most likely soon become past playmates). There is a four year old, Avantika, that we’ve tried to hook up with but have had difficulty while they are finding a house. There is another four year old, Naomi, who has a two year old sister, Emma, from Seattle that just started playgroup. They moved here in November also but just found out about playgroup last week. Their mom is really nice and this would have worked out perfectly for the kids but Naomi just got accepted into kindergarten for four days per week. Therefore, we will only see her on Fridays. Poor Haley.

We lost our first American two weeks ago. Paul Tran went back to the US. There was a lot of talk about extending his assignment here but it didn’t get done before he left. He flew out here with us and showed our family the ropes. We miss him. The kids especially miss seeing Mr. Paul at dinner. They made him come-back-soon cards and gave him their prized window clings. We will be losing another two soon. Melanie Giasson’s three month assignment will be up soon and Cindy Hamkins (a friend for college) got a promotion and will be going back to the US early.


Another sad thing is that the days are getting shorter. It is so depressing. The sun comes up at 6:45AM and sets at 8:30PM. Ugh! Can you guys spare some in Michigan?

The last sad thing is that I am getting a wicked tan line on my ring finger. That’s going to make slipping it off in the bar more difficult.