And then everyone erupts with laughter, talking over the top of each other, and the excitement bouncing off the walls has my heart beating that little bit harder. I can’t believe I’m about to pull this off. But I’m not getting too confident yet. We have a very long flight ahead of us, and I doubt I’ll get any sleep on it. Between the kids and trying to contain the excitement, my OCDanxiety levels are high, trying to run through the plans in my head and hoping like hell I’ve covered everything. After we make our short stopover in Hawaii, I’ll be handing out the itinerary for the time we are there. And then I’ll pray like hell that everything comes together like I want it to.
As the plane is taxiing to the terminal at Sydney Airport, I look around at all the kids, hands on their seat belts, ready to release them as soon as they can. They’re all peering out the windows, looking for kangaroos.
Twelve hours ago as we sat in the transit lounge in Hawaii as they refueled the plane there was a lot of discussion about the kangaroos that apparently are just hopping around the streets of Sydney. Then Jessie, Tate’s oldest son, mentions that Australia has all the venomous snakes and spiders. Well, didn’t that start a round of screams through the terminal. Thankfully all the girls managed to calm the craziness and convince them we will be safe.
Part of me is second-guessing the zoo booking I made, but maybe we can just skip the reptile enclosure.
Mason’s voice comes through the speakers into the cabin, telling everyone the seat belt sign is being switched off, and the kids scramble to be the first off the plane, and I can’t stop laughing.
As we start grabbing all our cabin luggage, Mason walks from the cockpit of the plane with a grin as big as the ones the kids have on their faces and comes straight to me.
“Lex. Thank you, that’s a huge bucket list item ticked off for me, flying in over the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.” You don’t often see a lot of emotion from Mason, but Ican tell this was something big for him by the way his eyes are sparkling, the strength of his handshake, and his other hand on my shoulder squeezing it.
“My pleasure, and don’t worry, I think it was pretty special for all of us too. But don’t think I didn’t notice you deliberately dipping the wings on each side on approach so everyone got to see the view.” I know he would never do anything that would put us in danger, and the way he handles this plane is with pure professionalism.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” He just laughs as he turns to help Paige with the bags and to wrangle the kids. The other pilots will sort the plane out now. Mason has signed off and is officially on holidays.
My travel consultant, Nerida, greets us in the terminal and directs us to the fleet of vans that are waiting for us. I can feel eyes on us from bystanders as we all start piling into the row of black vans. People probably think we have some kind of celebrity in our group or that we are VIPs of some sort. Little do they know we are just a rather large group of loud American tourists.
Driving from the airport to the house we are staying in, there is one thing that never changes the world over. No matter what major city you visit, the traffic always sucks.
MIA
“Lex!” I gasp as I walk out onto the balcony of the entry level of our accommodation and look out at the view in the soft light of the early evening. My husband calls it a guest house; I call it a mansion. I have seen some big places over the last few years, all dripping with wealth in every room, but they have nothing on this place.
This home has ten bedrooms, all split on different levels, as the building is designed to take in the panoramic water views asit spills all the way down the side of the hill. We are right on the edge of Sydney Harbour and look down the waterway toward the Harbour Bridge from a suburb called Point Piper. I don’t have words to describe the view. I think everyone is the same, we are just in awe.
I feel his arms slide around my waist from behind me as he pulls my back to his chest. “Am I forgiven for bringing the kids?” he whispers in my ear.
“Totally,” I reply. “It’s…” My brain is struggling to find the word to describe it. “…extraordinary.”
“I’m glad you like it. Wait until you see it at night when everything is lit up. We will have plenty of time to enjoy the view while we are here, but we need to settle the kids in, and I’m desperate for a shower after traveling for a day.” Spinning me around to face him, he kisses me and then leans into my ear. “Care to join me?” he asks, only loud enough for me to hear.
“I wish.” I look over his shoulder to see the kids all running around the large open-plan living area with a wall of glass between us. My heart is pounding with anxiety at the way they are touching everything. “But like you said, we have that to deal with,” I say, nodding my head toward the house.
“Is this the part where I admit that maybe you were all right and that I should have left the kids in Chicago?” Lex groans into my shoulder, and then we head back inside to get kids showered, fed, and to sleep, hoping like hell we can get them on to the local time zone as quickly as possible.
I’m glad Lex scheduled yesterday as a rest day and made sure each family had a driver to take them out exploring on their own if they wanted to. It’s hard to settle the kids down when they areall together, so a day apart from their cousins was a good idea, and it also gave the younger ones time to nap when they needed to.
Stretching out in the beautiful bed in our room on the second floor, watching the sun rise over the horizon, is something I’ll never forget. For most of my life I struggled just to keep a roof over my head, that even my dreams never stretched this far.
It took a while to accept that I never had to worry about money or feeling safe, but Lex was so patient with me as I navigated through such a huge change.
Wishing on the stars at night is an important routine for us as a family, and I tried not to giggle last night when Gabe and Remi were worried that the stars they were looking up at wouldn’t work for their wish because they were on the bottom of the world. Kids’ minds fascinate me, the way they try to work out the great big world around them.
And although nights are precious, the morning sunrises are just for me and my thoughts.
This morning, like many mornings since I’ve met Lex, I’m just processing the last few days and feeling blessed.
Normally I would get out of bed and grab a coffee and enjoy the stillness of our home at five am, but today, I just want to lie here with Lex wrapped around me and take it all in.
Watching the sun rise over the water is such a contrast to what I see every morning in Chicago—not better, just different.
“Mmmm,” Lex murmurs as his lips softly start kissing my bare shoulder. “Good morning, beautiful.” I love his gravelly voice as he wakes me and the safe feeling as his arms tighten around me.
“Go back to sleep, enjoy the quiet while you can,” I whisper, knowing how tired he was last night after spending time in the pool here with the boys and kids, trying to wear the little ones out so they would sleep, but I think it was the adults that ranout of energy first. We have done big family holidays all together before but never this far from home, where jet lag is involved.
“Not a chance. I have better plans for our quiet time together.” He pushes his crotch against my bare ass, and the tingles start heightening my body. It never takes much when my husband is naked around me.
