Ok, so it is so cold here in the winter. I remember my good friend telling me that it was "about 10 degrees hotter here in the summer, and about 10 degrees warmer here in the winter in comparison to SoCal." I actually believed this nonsense!! I guess I forgot that it had been about 12 years since she had lived in Southern California and let me tell you, it is COLD. It was below freezing today and tomorrow we can look forward to "freezing rain " (something I had forgotten about since my days living in Chicago). I know I may sound ridiculous to some in other parts of the country, but I don't do cold very well. I am a hot person.

Enough of my complaining! All is well here and we are hunkering down for a Texas Christmas here with the 5 of us. We have a nice relaxing day planned with lots of games, food, and even a friendly neighborhood football match. It should be fun, but I will be watching it from inside if it is this cold! haha

The kids are finishing their first semester of third grade and still enjoying school. Blake is learning flag football and sort of liking it. Kacie is playing soccer still and loving it. Lauren has performed for the first two times over the last two weeks in 20 degree weather--what a trooper she was! She did a tap dance to "Frosty the Snowman." It was too cute! She did fantastic.

Michael is still working from home and enjoying not commuting. We are planning a day of shopping tomorrow to get ready for Christmas.

We wish our friends and family a great holiday. We wish we could raise a toast to you and with you all. Our love is there with you. Remember the birth of our Lord Jesus this season. What a miraculous and mighty God He is for us all.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year (Happy Birthday Blake and Kacie 1/1 and Michael 1/3).xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

From Oz to Texas!

It has been so long. So much has happened. So much learned, but that is what life is about. We are now in Texas--Keller to be exact and it is a great place. Lots of nice people, a clean and safe area and great schools. We are really liking it here so far. It took us only a few months to turn around and come back here and Texas is our next adventure. I guess I didn't realize that by naming this blog "The Dennis Family Adventures" that we would actually be living them at this rate. It is all good though and we are all together and enjoying the life that God is leading us through.
Missing friends and family where ever we leave. That is the hard part, but living in the moment and appreciating this moment is something that has been learned along the way. I know this last year would not have been as doable if we didn't have our awesome friends and family supporting us all along the way. It was so nice to have you all loving us and listening when times were stressful.
So, life continues to flow and we are going to enjoy our first Fall season in 2 years. I already have the "pumpkin-spice" candles out and the Halloween decorations. I am loving this time of year. Trick-or-treating will be so great here (from what I hear, this neighborhood we are in really goes off!). Kacie is playing soccer with a vengence (on 2 teams) and is practicing outside by herself right now matter of fact. Blake is playing baseball and Michael is coaching him --team name: The Padres xoxoxxo. Lauren is dancing to her hearts content doing ballet, tap and tumbling. Michael is about to embark on a new job with a company based in NYC. I am busy with mom duties and house duties. Life is so good right now. I truly believe that we may live more fully from the experiences we have in life. We will take all we have learned and endeavor to apply it each day. The friends, places and times of our lives are so important to us. Ran across this song at church of all places the other day. It really works for our lives:

There are places i'll remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends i still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life i've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When i think of love as something new

Though i know i'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know i'll often stop and think about them

In my life i love you more

the Beatles

Moving on!

Life has been crazy for us Dennis's over the past year. We have decided and already moved back to the USA. Seems we weren't cut out for Australia for so many different reasons, but it was sure nice to catch up with everyone on our very expensive extended holiday! We are happy to report that we are in Keller Texas now! We moved back here in March, so as you can see a lot has happened with us.

With our thoughts of Australia now quenched, we are able to move on not only physically, but mentally as we set our sights toward living for today. Enjoying our pool, friends, neighborhood are on the short list of things to do! We are missing all of our friends and family that aren't so close now, but we have some visitors coming this summer and we will make trips back to see everyone.

The kids finshed up their second grade year (again--the first time was in Australia!). They did so well. They have made some great friends and starred in a play at school and even were in their school's spelling bee! They did so well. They have adjusted and readjusted and we are so very proud of them.

Lauren has a new little friend that lives right across the street from us. She loves to play with her. She also loves to play with Lawson Cox who is part of the Cox family here. The Cox family is: Annette, Kevin, Gavin and Lawson. They are our family here in Texas. Annette and I have been friends for 25 years or so. Annette is who told us about how nice it is here and why we even looked to move here in the first place. It has been so nice to have them here.

So much more to write. Better go for now.

Settling in here in Bayview NSW. It is a beautiful spot and very tropical. It managed to rain (once again) during our move in here. The move consisted of 6 suitcases and a few other items we managed to borrow from friends here. So, all in all it wasn't that bad. That stint of rain lasted for two weeks, night and day. It is a far cry from San Diego weather. Blake and Kacie loved it. I still can't stand that much rain. It is very tropical here. The birds, trees, lush foliage. It is very beautiful when it isn't raining. It has now been sunny for a full week! YAHOO.

Blake has been asked to play t'ball with a friend from school. His friend is Jesse, and he is a very nice little guy. He has been over for a playdate and Blake went to his house yesterday after t'ball to play and swim. Blake did well at t'ball on his first go. He hit two "homers" (but they don't let you run past 2nd base yet) and he actually got "Man of the Match"!It is so nice to have the kids meeting friends here. It makes life feel more settled here. Kacie has met two really nice girls at school. She also has Nippers with them so she sees them outside of school also which is nice.

We spend lots of time down at the local park here in Bayview. It is called Winneremy Bay-but the kids call it "The Flying Fox Park." They call it this because it has a cool zip line to fly down. It sits right at the bay with bbq's and a huge play area with some really cool other play equipment. We usually take some dinner down and bbq and watch the kids play. It is very relaxing, and makes me appreciate our return to spring--because I was really missing the fall!

Our belongings are still in customs. We think we may get them next week (hopefully). We are sleeping on single mattresses on the floor of our place. Michael and I are really hanging for our bed. What a luxury it will be to get it!! Our backs are in dire need now. It will be so nice for the kids to have their toys and stuff also!!

Blake and Kacie are ending year 2 (2nd grade). They are coming along well. I really hand it to them. The academics are tough!! Next week is their presentation on their favorite jazz or classical composer. I about fainted when I read they had to do that. I had to start from the beginning to explain what a composer was before we could even get started!! Their spelling words have gone from "which" to "temperature". What a blow!! They are doing great though.

Little Lauren is all booked in to start "kindy" which is preschool here in January 21st. She is looking forward to it. She goes with me to the gym now and is used to me leaving her for the 40 minutes that I work out. She is also going to start "bably ballet" in January (that is when the next school year starts -so everything begins again then). Blake will be starting keyboard lessons also. I think Kacie is going to join the choir if all goes well. They are enjoying some new classes at school: chapel, art, chess, music. It is very different.

Michael is doing great at work. He is enjoying it and thinks it may be a very good opportunity for him. I am very happy for him!

I had a tough week last week saying goodbye to my friend Tanya Crabbe who came out for a visit. It was hard to say goodbye. I wanted to jump on the plane with her and come back for some visits with you all. I love and miss you so much. Thanks for supporting us all. I couldn't do this without the love and support of Mom, and friends and of course prayers to God!!

Love to you all.

Sending our Prayers and good thoughts to you.

Hello family and friends. We have been so torn up by the horrendous fires that have bombarded our beloved California. I am personally sickened that I wasn't here to hug, talk to, share a wine with or cry with you that have been affected. I hope you know that I am there and sharing in it every minute. My thoughts have been scattered. I have found it difficult to concentrate on nothing else. I have been praying as have the kids for you all. I am so ecstatic to hear that things are getting better by the day. As I look around my surroundings here in Sydney, I see much of the same scrub brush, plantings, trees that I left in San Diego. I am worried that it may be only a matter of time before I see it all happening here also.

The kids have finished off a great second week in school. Kacie has received an "art of the week" merit award. She had to present her artwork to the entire school at assembly. I was very proud of her. She loves sitting and doing art. Blake has attended his first birthday party here. It was a "By Crikey, Crocodile Hunter Party!" It had snakes, crocodiles, the lot! It was very exciting for him. Michael took him and enjoyed a few beers there too. It was a blast for them. Later that night, we headed over to Ferg and Nicky's house and had a few coldies, and then walked up to the local pub with the kids and ate and the kids played. The pubs here have playgrounds in them!! What a concept huh??
Today we woke early and headed over to the beach for Nippers. This weekend I managed to get some photos of the kids in their outfits. They are adorable. Kacie came in first in flag races and Blake came in a close second amongst the boys flag races. They are quite good at the sprinting. They are on their way to being iron men and iron women! haha
Tonight, Fred watched the kids (all 3 of them) while Michael and I had a nice dinner (again at the local pub). He did well. First time for everything.
We are due to move down to Bayview this Saturday. We are all looking forward to being in our community and making some more friends there.
Love and prayers to you all. Especially you, my brother Dave, sis Summer and beautiful nephews Ian, Jared, and Landon. You are in our hearts...xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Perth Visit with The Western Australia Dennis Clan

Had a great time catching up with our family in Perth. What a terrific family they are. Ian, Yvette, Jack and Amie live in a beautiful community called Brighton. It is literally 2 minutes drive from the beach. It is all self contained with shops, cafes, medical center etc.. There are many English people that have immigrated there (called Poms-short for Prisoner Of Mother England-interesting huh? That is what the Aussies call the English people. Oh, another word for them is Geysers. Not sure what that means?). So during a bbq at Ian and Yvette's, we had 3 English people there along with the Aussies and the one American-me. It is amazing that the English language can be so diverse. It was hard to have a conversation at times! I often find myself nodding and pretending to know what is going on. My sister-in-law Yvette is now on to me. She now stops the conversation and says "right, you don't understand me now do ya?" It is funny-but I like that she knows me so well.

Blake and Kacie had so much fun catching up with Amie (11) and Jack (8) their cousins. They played non-stop. Jack and Blake would sit for hours and play legos. Amie and Kacie would sit and listen to music and talk. It was a match made in heaven. Little Lauren would get in there and play too! During this trip, we had started to potty train little Lauren. Needless to say Yvette and Ian were very patient with our little puppy dog messes! haha

We left there after a week's visit. It was so great to see them after 4 years.

Today was a great day for the kids at school. Both Blake and Kacie had a good time. Kacie has easily made friends. Blake has found it a bit tougher trying to break in. They both were happy when I went to pick them up. It made me feel so good to see them smiling and happy. I know this whole move has been hard on them at times.

Kacie informed me today that she knows about "S.E.X." Oh no, was my first thought! We had a discussion about what she knows. She said "well, it is when you get naked and lay in bed and kiss, and some other details that I don't want to get into right now." So, dad and I decided to have a talk about it all. UGH! It was a toned down talk, and the kids giggled and squirmed. They asked lots of questions and now it is over--at least I think! haha

Well, that is all for now. Goodnight all!

Reminiscing

Just now getting to take some time to look through the pictures of our going away party. What a great group of people we had there. We are so blessed to have friends like we do. It is hard to think that we are so far away from so many good people.

We had a great time at Disneyland. It was very magical and a good and positive finish to an emotional time for us all when we said goodbye.