By I meant it when I said more than a year ago, that I was committed to writing more frequent updates on GoCargus…! I had, and have, so much to write about. But life has a way of just happening, and as everything is a prioritisation of one thing over another, for some reason blogging has taken a backseat. However, I remain just as committed as I was a year ago, and who knows, maybe I’ll start to carve out more time to step out of the hamster wheel more frequently and actually get thoughts down on paper.
I very much live for the adventure of life, not the everyday, and in saying that the last year has been very eventful. It has had its ups and downs – especially the first months of 2022 where we lived with a water damaged house – life never gets boring! But recently Søren and I feel like we’ve regained so much freedom (yes, yes, kids are getting older and it’s getting easier, I get it). In reality, we have never let having kids slow us down, or not done all the traveling and living life exactly as we love to (as in moving to the other side of the world to live, or taking a round the world ‘backpacking’ trip with very small kids). But lately we’ve regained even more freedom in that the kids are so much more independent, but also just more interested in doing the things we love, read ‘travelling’ (although they did get enough of seeing waterfalls on our recent road trip on The Waterfall Way in NE NSW). This new stage has opened up a whole new set of opportunities and thoughts about what is possible and what we can now do as a family, an adventurous family that is. What trips we can go on, how we can live our lives…
But let me get back to try and give an update on the last year and a half… and since I am not going to painfully drag you through everything that’s happened, I’ll list a few key events instead. This is going to be a bit inconsistent and light on detail compared to what I normally do, and if you’re left wanting more, then I will try to make more updates in the future (or you can always call for a chat).
Lockdown – and finally down with covid
We had a long second lockdown in Sydney about a year ago. Actually it feels like forever ago, and we’re so much past it like everyone else. We also had covid (again like everyone else), and it didn’t feel mild – could be that we all had it at the same time, so there was no time to proper recover. But we made it through, partly thanks to the Nintendo Switch we bought a few days before.
Moving house (again)
We moved house. Kid you not! After two years in our old house that we loved, the owners decided to move back from overseas. Fair enough, New York didn’t fare well during the pandemic, but we were forced to find a new house just as lockdown happened. This meant that choice was limited, but also meant that we couldn’t ask friends for help with the move. So we moved all our things by ourselves – note to self, next time get help! But as it has happened every time, we ended up with a much nicer house than the previous one (ignore the water damage for now). And I probably said this last time we moved as well, but I didn’t realise that anything was missing until we found this place and now have an even better place for our family (until some new unexpected event occurs of course…).
The rental situation here is quite chaotic. Regulations protect owners over renters, and not many people rent because they want to. It’s a necessary evil stop before purchasing. But when you have this view from the end of your street (literally!) you cannot really complain!
Christmas in Denmark and Australian Permanent Residency
After just about two painful years with uncertainty around when we’d see our family and friends in Denmark again, we were finally able to go back home for Christmas. The predecessor for this trip was applying for, and then getting approved for permanent residency in Australia. During the last two years Australia closed its borders to anyone on a temporary visa, and we would not have been able to go and come back until we got our PR. We applied in August, and were approved in November. Oh happy days! I don’t think we had expected it to be that fast, so when we got the approval we realised that Carla’s passport was expiring and that we couldn’t go to Denmark without renewing it. The day after we were at the Danish embassy in Sydney, and two days later we had bought tickets. This was at the end of November, and Omicron didn’t exist in the public eye until literally at the same time as we chose to tell the kids. We made a scavenger hunt and the prize at the end was tickets. At the same time there was a press conference re-closing the borders, but thankfully we had our PR and could still go.
Reuniting with family and friends was amazing, and we had a picture perfect white Christmas. We spent close to 4 weeks hanging out with everyone we love back home, mainly sitting in kitchens or at cafes, eating, drinking and chatting.
Carla and Gustav
Carla is now halfway through her year 2, and she reads and writes stories. Gustav is in preschool and starting big school in January. Wow. These kids blow my mind. They are absolutely amazing (and sometimes really annoying), but they are so kind and have so good friendships … and heaps of energy.
Carla loves gymnastics, and spends most of her time hanging head down on her gymnast bar at home.
Gustav is very much into LEGO, and combined with Ninjago or Monster Trucks, he can play with that for hours.
4 years down the track
We’ve been in Australia for just about 4 years now. I never could have imagined that 4 years could go by so fast. I guess a 2+ year pandemic helps in fast tracking even the biggest life events, but we’re now back to what seems to be our new normal, and in a week we’ll be with my American family for a visit.
Stay tuned for more updates – I promise I’ll do my best!
GoCargus 