One Year In...

[AFreshStart]

Last Friday marked a year since I landed, two weeks ahead of my family, working around the clock settling us into our then rental, ahead of their arrival.

I was overcome with pride and joy as I watched our son deliver the welcome in his school assembly, the same day, what a way to look back on the year and see how settled and integrated we have become.

So much has happened, along the way I’ve shared much of our journey, so this is more of the highlights package.

After arriving and settling in to Surry Hills and becoming part of the community, 5-months in we bought a place of our own in Waterloo, two suburbs over. It wasn’t part of the plan, but the opportunity arose and we took it and couldn’t be happier.

As my posts have often shared we’ve become City bodies, choosing to raise our family here, living close to my wife’s office in the CBD and close to the “landmarks” we know and love.

My wife settled quickly into her job and is steadily growing there, having been given more responsibilities, clients and continuing to foster and develop relationships.

The kids have settled well, my son in particular has come on in leaps and bounds and was selected for an advanced reading program, has continued to excel at his school work, making loads of friends, as made evident by the 20+ at his birthday party in June!

My daughter is now in day care 3-days a week, which gives me time to take care of household admin - accounts, cleaning, gardening and cooking and I’m now starting to unwind a bit having handled not only the cross-continental move, but the move into our rental and then a few months later starting again in our new home.

I started a community garden the week I arrived, which has now seen a full year over the 4-seasons and created a lot of opportunity to meet new people as well as feed ourselves and the community as a byproduct and I’ve been volunteering with an NGO that also works around food, working with refugees and the homeless, which allows me to give back in some small way.

Our Church community has become like family. We opened our home up, starting a small community group and 8-10 people join us weekly for a meal and have been there for us through thick and thin, small things like baking cakes for the kids birthdays to giving us the odd date night or even a few hours to ourselves for a coffee to bigger stresses and strains.

After settling in, somewhat fearful of the fact my wife and children were on "temporary" visas as part of the 2-year phase of the 309/100 VISA, I approached Borders and asked if they could move the timeline up and shared how we had bought a home, the kids were in school, we had drafted Aussie wills, taken out life insurance policies and shown our intention and commitment to Australia.

They allowed me to apply early and this same group helped sign-off documents, bare witness and provide photographic documentation of us in the same places together and wrote our 888 forms, a month later they were granted PR. True community.

This weekend we all celebrated by renting a holiday home up the Central Coast and hung out by the beach, cooked together and did life, as we do.

Australia is very much our home now, we've been adopted by friends and family and are blessed by their presence in our lives and this beautiful country.

Cheers

Matt

[TinaB]

Sounds like you've had the "ideal" journey.

Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your anniversary.

[Chips]

Congratulations Matt time indeed flies by, you guys are doing so good. Thanx for sharing.

[EmNew]

Congrats , and thanks for being an integral part of this online community, sharing so openly all your experiences along the way.

[Guest]

Thankyou for the update Matt. So nice and encouraging to hear of your happy journey.