Our First Stop...

Monday, December 14th is the day we move out of this house and move into our caravan permanently. 
We decided many months ago we would stay and travel around Victoria for about 6 to 8 weeks before we move onto New South Wales. The reason for this is, firstly we both love Victoria and want to visit some of the special places we have already been to and also the many special places we haven't yet been to. The other reason is that we are far more confident travelling around Victoria than any other state, and we think its a good way for us to adjust to caravan living while being in more familiar surroundings.

So Plan A has us leaving on Monday December 14th or at the latest Tuesday December 15th and going straight to Ocean Grove. However, we've had to put a Plan B in place since we are yet to purchase a vehicle. Plan B has us at best sticking around for an extra couple of days to about 1 week ( either way we hope to be gone before Christmas, but only time will tell ). 

So once we leave this house we are either off to Ocean Grove, or to Macedon (  which isn't to far from here and they have a caravan park in the area ) or we may even go and stay with my mum ( she lives about 20 minutes from Sunbury ). We will have to see how it all works out!

In the meantime, we are all dreaming of beautiful beaches, old English toffee ice cream, yummy B.B.Q's, quality time together and being led by God. There is a church at Ocean grove that Shane and I have had our eye's on when we previously holidayed in this area, and we are really looking forward to checking it out. I'm looking forward to seeing how other people do " Church." It should be good!

Time will tell how it will all work out...
Take care, 
Dimi :-)


 
 

How do you make more space in a caravan?

Well, the way to make more space in your caravan is simple...take less things with you, Hahaha...Its the only way!
I've been packing our necessary items in our caravan and its very quickly becoming full. Over the few months before we purchased our beautiful home on wheels, I would add to my grocery trolley a few extra canned goods, pastas, rice, toiletries and stationery...oh I have a deep and probably unhealthy Love for toiletries and stationery and because of this, I tend to go a little overboard when purchasing them, Haha!
Its been a bit of a task to get these items to fit into their allocated cupboards. I like things very neat and tidy and so I had a list of what items go in which cupboard, yep I'm a bit of a nutter. Well the list did help, but it didn't entirely work because I bought too much stationery, toiletries, canned goods, pastas and rice didn't I! I didn't even think of our last day here when we will need to empty our large kitchen pantry items into our much smaller caravan pantry cupboards!

Anyway, I've done the best I can and we still have some space for other items we will need ( no food, no stationery and no toiletries though, Hahaha ) but for now I'll share some pics of my crazy organising...

Ummm, I still have 2 other places in the caravan that I've stashed some toiletries...don't tell Shane ;-)

Some canned goods...Shane says you can't go camping/travelling without baked beans. His a crack up!...

I think I have enough pasta and rice for about 6 months...

Shhh, this is just 1 of 3 places that I've stashed stationery in...Shane doesn't need to know...Hahaha!

Some more food storage and stationery...

Oh and finally, I've packed these other necessary items.............What do you think? Do you think these are necessary items when living in a small space and travelling around Australia??? Hahaha...

My Beautiful earrings...

And just a few necklaces...

Yea, I think so, Haha....A girl has got to have some pretty earrings no matter what she's doing or where she's going, and I did leave most of them behind, so I've done well...plus they only take up a tiny bit of space :-)

Looking forward to learning to live with less!
Take Care,
Dimi xoxox


 

More Packing and Sorting...

Once again, Spunky Shane and I have spent the last couple of days packing and sorting, packing and sorting. Our home is looking and sounding very empty. Its sad to see our home of 8 years looking this way and Its sad to pack away our personal belongings, it makes our home feel less and less homely.
Its probably a good thing that our home is feeling less and less homely though, because in less than 4 weeks, ready or not, we will be walking out of this house for the very last time. In less than 4 weeks this house will belong to another family and they will make it their home.

At the end of the day I know Its just a house, that's all it is, just a house, but I know I'll still cry when that day comes and we drive out of the driveway for the very last time.
I have so many memories in this home with my BEAUTIFUL Family. We bought this house about 8 years ago, the girls were only about 1 and 3 years old, now they are 9 and 11 years old. We have many, many BEAUTIFUL memories here, we have GREAT neighbours and we've loved living here, so its going to be very sad to say good bye to our home and its going to be very sad to watch the girls say goodbye to there much loved home also! 

I know no one forced us to do this, we chose to sell our home to travel and connect more with each other and grow closer as a family. We also chose to do this because we felt God calling us to travel Australia and connect with people. We are very happy with the chooses we've made, its just that some sacrifices are a bit harder than others, but that's okay because its all part of the journey!

Even though its going to be hard to leave everything behind, we are so VERY BLESSED to have such a VERY Special journey ahead of us...Yes, some steps are going to be difficult, but some steps are also going to be VERY Exciting and its all part of this journey of ours. We believe what lies before us is far greater than what we leave behind, so even though its difficult to say goodbye, we believe its going to be well worth every sacrifice we make ...

Lately I'm reminded of this verse... Romans 8:28...
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.

Love that Verse! I'll keep this verse in mind as I spend the next few weeks packing and sorting!!

Take care,
Dimi xoxox

Still Looking...

We are still looking for a suitable vehicle that can handle towing our Roma caravan. Our caravan is about 19.6 feet long internal, about 20.6 feet long external ( not including the draw bar/tow bar ), about 7.6 feet wide and about 1650 tare. We think our Roma is a great size. Not too big to tow but big enough to live in comfortably ( hopefully Haha ).

Shane and myself spent most of the day at car yards yesterday ( while the girls were at school ) looking for a secondhand, diesel, automatic, at least 2.5 tonne 4WD at a reasonably low price! That shouldn't be too hard, should it?

We spent a lot of time at car city in Ringwood. That place is HUGE! Its actually  about 40 something car yards in one large area and you just walk through to each car yard, it even has a cafe and finance office within the dealership. It was good to be able to view so many different vehicles in the one area, but we left with only 1 vehicle worth thinking about and it was a dual fuel vehicle ( gas/petrol ) so not exactly what we want.

Its so difficult looking for a suitable vehicle because we don't know a great deal about them. We need to find a vehicle that offers us what we need and then have a mechanic take a really good look at it and give us the okay before we purchase it. We don't know a great deal about cars so we are heavily reliant on a mechanic. Shane's step dad is a mechanic but he is quite busy with his business. Hopefully he has some free time soon and is able to help us find a suitable vehicle.
 
Time is ticking away and we really want to secure a vehicle within the next 2 weeks, pay the deposit and hopefully have it ready for us to be leaving in about 4 weeks which is our plan A. We do have a plan b in place but both plans still require us to have a vehicle completely ready to go within the next 4 to 5 weeks ( ideally 4 weeks ).

Its all a bit stressful at the moment, however we are reminded to trust God and so we will continue to trust Him...This is just another thing we are going to spend more time praying about.

If your reading this and your happy to... please pray we get the vehicle we need, for a great price and we are able to have it ready to go within the time frame we need it in!

Thank You Very Much and Take Care,
Dimi xoxox  

Happy Birthday Beautiful Princess...

A HUGE Happy Birthday to Our Beautiful Princess Elissa...

Elissa our Fun loving Girl...

Happy 11th Birthday Gorgeous Girl. We are SOOOOOO VERY proud of you, you bring SOOOOOO much JOY into our lives. We know God has an Amazing plan and purpose for your life and we are excited to watch you grow into the beautiful, godly young lady He wants you to be.

Elissa, your a sweet, caring, kind hearted, fun, funny and smart girl and you are such a joy to be around, Thank You for being you...You are EXTREMELY SPECIAL to us!

Elissa the Preacher...

Our Hope and Prayer for you is that you joyfully live the life God has planned for you...May His will be done in your life.
We LOVE you with all our hearts sweetie xoxox

Beautiful Sisterly Love...

Daddy's Special Girl...

Elissa the Beach Lover...

Elissa and Zoey...

Mummy's Special Girl...

Extremely Sweet Sisters...

Elissa, we love you with all of our hearts Princess xoxox

 

May this 11th year of your life be full of God's blessings, happiness, love and laughter xoxox

 

 

Love Always,
Mummy xoxox

God Answers Prayers...

We know that no problem is too big for God, but do you know no problem is to small for God?
God will provide a strategy for every problem, we just have to ask Him! 

We have a gorgeous little doggy named Zoey and our girls absolutely ADORE her, as does Shane and I. Zoey has a sweet temperament and she is loving, gentle, fun and playful and loves the girls in particular. We've had Zoey for over 2 years now and as you can imagine she is very special to us.

When first thinking about travelling around Australia on this journey of ours, we first thought that we would definitely be taking Zoey with us. We thought there was no way we could possibly ask the girls to part with Zoey ( they were already giving up so much ) but once we started to look into travelling with a doggy, we quickly realised it would be too difficult for both us and Zoey to drag her around Australia.

We found out that Zoey wouldn't be allowed in a huge amount of national parks. Zoey wasn't allowed in many caravan parks and the caravan parks that allowed pets wouldn't allow us to leave Zoey in our caravan unattended. That would be a problem when we went to church on Sunday's, or a theme park, a zoo,or anywhere really. We realised we couldn't just leave her in the car or tie her up somewhere, we just couldn't do that to her, it just wouldn't be fair on her.

We eventually told the girls we would have to leave Zoey behind and try to find a temporary home for her. That was a difficult conversation to have but we all eventually accepted that was the best solution.

We soon found out that we couldn't leave her with family, so we were out of ideas. We felt as though it was WAYYYYY too much to ask anyone to temporarily home Zoey for 12 to 14 months, it was too BIG of an ask.

We decided we would pray hard about it and so we did. We prayed to God and asked Him if He would find someone who would like to temporarily home Zoey until we got back from our journey. It had to be someone who would offer to have her and would be happy to have her without us asking or even hinting!

Within 2 or 3 days of praying, Shane was at the girls school talking with one of the mums whose son is in Serena's class, they were just talking about our trip ( Shane and this Special Lady, Deb often had a chat at school drop off ) and then this Special Lady randomly asked Shane " what are you going to do with the dog?" Shane said, " I don't know, we may have to consider giving her away."
Do you know what happened next??
This Special Lady offered and actually decided on the spot that she would temporarily home Zoey for us......WHAT!!!

Shane came home and told me about the conversation he had with Deb. We were book shocked. We asked her to think about it because it was still very difficult for us to accept her offer. We love giving but find it hard to receive and I guess that's probably the case with a lot of people...Its easier to give than receive especially when its such a HUGE thing like this!

I cried ( as I do ).....God answered our prayers! Of course GOD answered our prayers!

You know I've never officially met this Special Lady until the day that she had Zoey at her house. This special Lady asked to have Zoey at her house that very weekend just to see how Zoey would go with her dogs and without us.

This Extremely SPECIAL Lady sent from God has BLESSED us TREMENDOUSLY and she barely knows me. Who does that for someone? Someone special and sent from God does that!
God planned it, God answered our small prayer. God heard our hearts and our children's hearts and he came up with a strategy for us. God is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!

God ANSWERS prayers, no matter how big or small they may be.

THANK YOU God and THANK YOU Deb for doing such a selfless thing for us, you are a true blessing to us xo

Thanks and Take Care,
Dimi xoxox

Ocean Views...

These are some of my favourite photos. I took them when we were at Ocean Grove over the Christmas holidays...Absolutely Stunning...

I see something really special and powerful in this pic....Shane is flanked by his daughters...

So VERY Stunning. I absolutely LOVE the ocean. Its sooooooo VERY Peaceful, soooooo VERY Beautiful. 
Thank You God for creating such a perfect master piece for us to enjoy!