Happy Ever After 18 yrs and counting.

Clinton is suggesting that I talk about my best friend and how he is the best person in the world….CAPTAIN AWESOME! 😎 If you haven’t guessed by now YES THAT’s him!

Let me introduce you to him, for those that haven’t met him. Husband of 18yrs, Best Friend/Boyfriend 20yrs, Awesome Dad, challenge setting, comfort pushing, reality speaking smooth talker that has a way of making me both completely out on a limb but like I’ve got it all in the same moment, even if it takes me a while to believe.

Right now he is trying to convince me to go for a swim in the middle of winter!…..I’ll let you know if he convinces me a little later. 😉

I think it’s safe to say, I would not be a mother of 8 without him, for two reasons.

1. I never had the notion or thought to have 8 kids before him and probably would never have.

2. It would not be possible without him. His desire for adventure has certainly taken me further than I had ever dreamed.

I guess if you had asked me at the start of our life together, I would have said we’d have 4 kids and probably still live in Sydney. So now to have 8 kids live on the central coast, have 3 businesses and all that goes along with that; I couldn’t have even dreamt that.

…………….In the early years of our dating/ marriage Clinton would say to me when I asked him if he knew the directions to somewhere we were going “It’ll be an adventure!”

It’s funny how much I’ve changed since then………I used to get so stressed when he use to say that! I liked to be better planned than that!

Clint would start driving and I would get out the street directory and madly try and figure out where we were and where we were going so that I was ready should anything go wrong and we end up in the wrong place……..trouble is.…..

We never did get lost, he always remembered how to get places he only has been to once in his life and if he was slightly off his impeccable sense of direction would get us back on track.

However two things came out of that time:

1. I learned how to read a road map really fast! (A skill that is now almost obsolete)

AND

2. I learned to relax more each time we went on an adventure which……I was going to say happened quite often in the beginning but really it has been a continual process throughout our life together.

Over these 18 -20 yrs I have become quite relaxed even to the point of me saying it back to him at times!……I’m not sure he appreciates the encouragement though.

The reminders these days are not about what street to travel on, that changed a long time ago but this statement keeps popping up in our marriage questioning our comfort levels!

A good example of an adventure that Clinton wasn’t expecting was when we headed to go camping in winter about a month ago.

We had suggested catching up with a couple of friends to go camping in the middle of our business quarter so that we could recharge and keep the momentum going for the rest of the quarter.

Such a great idea, and we were all in. Only two things posed a problem –

1. We were camping in winter and

2. We were meeting near Gundagai!

For those of you with no concept of how far that is, Gundagai is 4 1/2 hrs south of where we live, and on the other side of the snowy mountains and it is halfway to Melbourne where our friends are from, that came to meet us.

To put this into context for you, for the last 18yrs every time Clinton has suggested the idea of going camping in winter I would quickly give him the list of why camping in winter is not a great idea. Especially if he suggested anywhere south of Queensland and since we live at least 8hrs south of the Queensland border in NSW the idea of camping in winter has been thrown out for that 18yrs.

So Clinton was 1st of all amazed that I would go camping in winter and Then that I would camp in one of the coldest parts of Australia.

Clint also suggested the idea that we could detour via the snowy mountains on our way home to show 5 of our 8 children snow for the first time.

Not expecting me to say yes to this as we were already stretching out of our comfort zone or should I say MY Comfort zone. We headed off to go camping not knowing if we would attempt to go to the snow or not.

I had prepared as if we were going but I think Clint didn’t want to assume we would in event I wasn’t up to it. Considering my past history of camping he was fairly accurate to think that.

Clinton and I come from very different worlds when it came to family holidays he went on a lot of camping holidays as well as staying with family whereas we stayed at holiday houses if we weren’t staying with family. So I really didn’t camp until I met Clinton.

Camping in the cold – we faced condensation issues which meant we had water on the inside of our tents, – four of us squashed in a tiny tent, I was coming down with a cold, It was cold except when we were warm by the fire. However it was the best time for adventures, relaxing, having fun and building friendships. Games of spotlight and sardines in the dark certainly were a highlight.

So was it worth it going camping in the cold ?? ……………..Absolutely it was! Worth every minute to reconnect as a family and with awesome friends. So good that we are planning to do it again next year!

So after the adventure of camping in the cold we then headed towards home and to Clint’s surprise I said yes to going to the snow on the way home.

Have a great day Friends!!

Sarah.