2020 Wrap-up #3 - March - April

Life in March was well and truly focused on the pending house auction and (hopeful!) relocation to Brisbane. But that would be overtaken by tragic events that would end with the loss of our puppy.

RIP Nugget

Nugget became very ill again and we were pretty certain he had eaten another rock. We rushed him to the vet with x-rays showing three very large rocks at different locations in his digestive system. This was bad. Given Nugget's history with eating rocks and two previous surgeries, the vet was unsure of how a third surgery would go, and was almost certain that Nugget would go on eating rocks and other foreign objects with very little that could be done to stop him. This would result in further surgeries, further family stress and anxiety and massive expenses; this was simply not an option we could accept.

The family made the heart-breaking decision to have him put down. He was cremated on 10 March 2020.

Interstate relocation

The auction was held on 19 March and we had around six registered bidders. It was an extremely stressful time given the purchase of the Brisbane property rested on a successful sale on the day. 

Thankfully the auction went well and we ended up getting $6k more than the highest offer prior to the auction - so it was worthwhile waiting. The move was on!

We negotiated the settlement date with the vendors in Brisbane - which, frustratingly, ended up changing a few times - but arranged to get in slightly before the settlement date given the increasing uncertainty around travel due to COVID-19 restrictions.  On 6 April, CHESS packed our entire house into two shipping containers and transported them up to Brisbane. While we did have some bare essentials left in the house, we only lasted a couple of nights before we moved in with Chelle's parents temporarily. 

Our relocation day could not come soon enough. And at 3.30am, 15 April, we departed Canberra. Due to COVID-19 restrictions we would need to isolate in Queensland for 14 days upon arrival so the plan was to have a layover just south of the Qld border. As a result we decided to spend a couple of nights in Kingscliff (NSW) which meant it was only a relatively short trip into Qld (excluding the painfully long wait at the border checkpoint) to get the keys to the new house before we started our isolation period. Oh yeah, forgot to mention that most states and territories were closing borders due to a pandemic that was quickly spreading across Australia - more on that below.

On 17 April we were up bright and early and departed Kingscliff for our new house. While the border checkpoint (see below photo) was relatively free of cars, the process itself took a long time as it was all manual and had to be undertaken for each and every person in the car - even for Addi, a four year old. It was government policy on the fly, but given the rapid pace of the COVID-19 restrictions probably understandable.

We arrived at our new house at 8.07am and less than 10 minutes later the removalist trucks arrived with the real estate agent literally right behind them. It all went down perfectly. The real estate agent gave us the keys, we paid him the cash (for the rental period) and CHESS started unloading. Within half a day our entire household contents had been deposited into our new house.

And what a house! With a pool, five bedrooms, separate rumpus, and over 300m2 of living it is fantastic and made the 14 day isolation period much more enjoyable - particularly with the amazing fruit platters that Chelle arranged each day!

The 14 days went quickly - and gave us plenty of time to unpack the boxes and sort out the house - although Chelle did come down with a migraine as a result of all of the stress. 

COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

And then there was COVID. Lingering in the background, challenging our way of life and resulting in a number of unprecedented events. Firstly, what is Coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause respiratory infections. These can range from the common cold to more serious diseases. COVID-19 is a disease caused by a new form or coronavirus. It was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan City in China.

The below graphic shows the daily rate of COVID-19 infection in Australia since it all kicked off. The initial high daily numbers appeared to be being brought under control, but the spike in July was likely the result of general complacency by society as well as a bit of mismanagement of hotel quarantine arrangements in Victoria. However, in general Australia has managed the pandemic very well.

The impact on the family has not been any more severe than most other families, noting nobody in our family has caught the virus. However, home-schooling and a very extended period of working from home were the biggest impacts on our family. It did threaten to further complicate our relocation North, but we just snuck in with one of the last live (in-person) auctions held in the ACT before they all went virtual (including virtual house inspections!). 

As I write this, the Qld Government has forced all people from Greater Brisbane into a mandatory three-day lockdown as there is a particularly nasty UK strain of the virus that is present in Brisbane. A crappy way to end the holidays, but it's all for the greater good.

Cancer #1

In March my Mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had surgery to remove it. Luckily she did not need to undergo radiation/chemotherapy. The surgery was successful and, as at Jan 2021, the cancer has all been eradicated. However, it is likely to come back and so regular tests will be needed to catch it early.

2020 wrap-up #2 - February

Interstate relocation

After many months of talking about an interstate relocation, we finally locked it in and set about making it all happen. While the relocation was initially going to be to Adelaide, for business reasons that did not go ahead, and Brisbane became our new destination.

So where do you start with something like this? Not knowing Brisbane at all we needed to work out where we wanted to live - North, South, East or West?! So very early on we commenced our research and spoke with people, trawled the internet, joined facebook groups and chatted with complete strangers and settled on a few areas that were worth further (on the ground) investigation.

To get our sale underway we interviewed a couple of real estate agents before choosing Jake Battenally from Ray White - he would turn out to be a solid choice and just what we needed to get us through the sale. We signed the real estate agency agreement on 25 January and the house went on the market shortly after that. While originally 'By Negotiation' with a 'soft opening' we eventually went to Auction to get some certainty around the sale (given our Brisbane purchase would be dependent on the Canberra sale). 

Early interest was strong. We had some very early offers - one of which we might have taken as it was ~$10k off what we really would have liked to get (but still over what we needed). However, we stayed strong and continued to Auction where we got a solid price and were able to move forward with the Brisbane purchase.

On 14 February, we flew to Brisbane to do some house-hunting (sans kids). We looked at around 15 properties in North Brisbane and West of Brisbane over three days. This helped us narrow down suburbs and we identified three houses we would possibly put an offer on. We decided to put an offer in on one to test the waters. The negotiation process turned out to be non-existent with the owners being completely unreasonable with their expectations on price, so we pulled out. We then commenced negotiations on another property not far from the first one and this progressed well. After offers, counter-offers and counter-counter-offers we settled on a price with the vendor agreeing to caveat the whole deal on the successful sale of our house at Auction. Now the pressure was on! 

We continued with the weekly open houses - so much fun - and were feeling relatively positive about a strong showing at the auction scheduled for mid-March.

On 18 February we found out Chelle's car had been written off by the insurance company and that they were coming to collect it a few days later. It was a bit of a shock, but not entirely unexpected. This introduced additional stress that we really didn't need at this point in time! But rather than rush out and buy a new car we decided to wait until we got to Brisbane as this would actually make things easier by not having to relocate a second vehicle.

Addi starts pre-school

Addi started pre-school at Gold Creek and settled in very quickly. Unfortunately she didn't spend long there due to COVID-19 and our relocation, but she had fun nonetheless.

2020 wrap-up #1 - January

I sit here, finally finding the time to update the blog, 17 hours into a Greater Brisbane city-wide lock-down. No doubt it will soon be time to drink our own pee. Or the four bottles of Rose we just bought during our panic-buy yesterday... whatever. 

2020. A year that will go down in history as one of the more challenging periods in human existence. Probably a slight overstatement (it's all relative, right?!), as the most serious humanitarian concern during the year seemed to be centered around running out of toilet paper. But I'll get to that shortly...

Rather than do a month by month run down, I thought it would be easier to group things by notable events so as the update focuses on the major events of the year. The first is a continuation from December 2019... the bushfires.

'Black Summer'

The bushfires continued to grow in January and were not extinguished until March. On 1 January Canberra had the worst air quality in the world at around 23 times the threshold to be considered hazardous. It was so bad, an elderly woman flew in to Canberra from Brisbane and suffered respiratory distress on the tarmac after exiting the plane and died. 

On 4 January, Canberra experienced its hottest day on record at 44 degrees. Going outside was like stepping into an oven and with all of the smoke, evaporative coolers could not be used. 

The fire event was so significant (with 18.6 million hectares burnt and 34 deaths) the 2019/20 bushfire season ended up being called 'Black Summer'. During the crisis, an air tanker and two helicopters crashed while fighting the fires; three crew members in the air tanker were killed while three bushfire fighters were killed in two separate fire truck accidents. The below graphic - dated 7 December 2019 - shows the extent of the fire front before it grew even further.

At one stage, fires were 7 km from Canberra's southern border but thankfully did not impact ACT. However, on 27 January a fire was started in Orroral Valley by an Army helicopter's landing light as it was conducting reconnaissance for landing sites for remote area firefighting teams. It was not extinguished until 27 February, with the Chief Minister calling it the biggest threat to Canberra since the 2003 Canberra bushfires. 

Sydney holiday

For Linc's birthday the family headed to Sydney and stayed with Shane and Erika. We visited Bondi Beach, had breakfast at Icebergs and explored Darling Harbour. It was nice to escape the smoke!

Canberra hailstorm

One of the most destructive storms to hit Canberra occurred on 20 January. All up it damaged over 44,500 vehicles - including our beloved Mondeo which was written off! Winds over 110km/h were recorded with a total damage bill of $500,000,000. Luckily the Acadia was parked undercover! I took the below picture from the Kingston Foreshore before sprinting back to the office just as the hail hit.

And the following picture was taken from my office in Kingston. It's worth noting at this point that the Mondeo had already been written off as Chelle was in the car with the kids at Belconnen Mall and couldn't reach cover in time. Needless to say it was a scary time for the kids (and Chelle!).

The storm shredded trees and left roads looking like rain forest floors; this picture was taken in Kingston:

As Chelle was able to find cover part way through the storm, the damage to the Mondeo was not catastrophic (compared to other vehicles damaged in the storm - see second photo below). But it was enough to be deemed to be not cost effective to repair. It was written off. Mere weeks before our big move north (more on that later) it was another complication we didn't need.

Addi and Linc's birthdays

It was certainly a nice way to end January, with Addi's 4th birthday and Linc's 11th birthday. Linc even got his braces off just in time for his birthday photos!

Addi's b'day at Casey Jones

Linc's birthday

December 2019 update

Since the last update the family finances (and stress levels) took another hit with Nugget eating another rock and having to have another surgery to have it removed. Another headache we didn't need. $3963 later and he's on his last life.

In December we also got Linc's eyes tested since he was complaining of poor vision; turns out he needs glasses. 

In better news we did make it to Kiama with the Bell and Richardson families and we had a lovely time, but it was all too brief given our kids were still at school and I was still at work so we only had 3 nights away. While we had planned to do another trip to the coast in the Christmas holidays, it was not to be due to the coast catching on fire (see below).

Christmas day started with 45 seconds of Christmas present opening before all of the toys were buried in paper; but the kids were very spoiled and loved their gifts. We had lunch at Aunty Jo's house and the kids played outside with their Nerf guns for a bit, but it was extremely hot with no wind to cool things down.

Half of Australia has been on fire for the last 4-6 weeks with unprecedented fire weather conditions. Fires have burnt out over 3.6 million hectares in NSW alone - the scale is difficult to comprehend.

So far the ACT has been largely spared, save for the odd minor grass fire; however, the smoke from the NSW fires has meant we have not been able to run the evaporative cooler in the evenings as the Easterly brings in thick bushfire smoke; it's made for some very hot and sticky nights but at least our family (and house) is safe given the fires are primarily along the South Coast. 

Yesterday was one of the worst fire days on the South Coast with areas we holiday at (Batemans Bay, Mogo, Batehaven etc.) being impacted directly by the fires. As I write we are unable to go outside due to the choking smoke - but again, we're safe while many others aren't, so we have comparatively little to complain about.

Batemans Bay, NSW (not my photo)

October/November 2019 update

We seem to start many of the blog posts off by noting how quickly time has flown by - particularly when there's a big gap between posts - but when you're busy, time seems to go by quickly and at present life seems busy. However, there isn't much to write by way of update since Carter's birthday.

Probably the biggest issue was Nugget eating a rock and having to go for emergency surgery to have it removed. It was a particularly unpleasant time, but he's now well and truly on the mend and growing bigger every day - it's funny to think he was way smaller than Addi when he came to live with us, now he's twice as big as her... maybe we need to start feeding her some dog food?!

We're all looking forward to the Christmas break; in between now and then Mum and Dad are heading to Sydney to see Lauv (after seeing Rob Thomas last Friday!) before we head to Kiama in mid-December for the traditional three-family gathering with the Richardson and Bell families.

Oh, and Carter has now lost two teeth. Yep, two teeth. Only two... while Linc will be getting his braces removed in January, so he's very excited.

Happy Birthday Carter!

Nine years old and you are already such a character; very cheeky, very intelligent and we all love you to bits.

July 2019 update

From the beach to the snow! Making the most of a particularly cold spell, we headed into the Brindabella Ranges in search of snow. After finding lots of mud that attached itself to every nook and cranny of the mighty Acadia, we finally found snow! The thought of it was very exciting, but the reality of it soon set in as we alighted from the car at Bulls Head to fierce winds that chilled to the bone and cold hard, wet, cold cold cold snow... that hurts when you get hit in the face as the boys found out when having a snowball fight.

We didn't quite make it to Mt Ginini as a couple of cars had slid off the road (every man and his dog in his 2wd Toyota Corolla were also out looking for snow!). But it's a definite reason for another road trip (after the mud dries up!)...

Earlier in the month Linc spent some time with the PM, the Leader of the Opposition and other parliamentarians for the Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. Was so proud of Linc as he was polite and really enjoyed the ceremony.

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 has just been released in Australia ($175k!) and so we went to check that out - it has 477kw of power making it more powerful than a Lamborghini Huracan!

In other news, Linc has just had braces fitted to get his teeth under control. While they were installed in late June, by late July his teeth had already started to straighten - incredible!

All in all, life is still hectic, Nugget continues to grow rapidly, and Dad is travelling Every Single Week to Melbourne... and these kids continue to grow up so quickly...