My job has been busy over the past few weeks as I get back into it again & learn my new run; there have been times where I have wondered whether it’s all worth it, but am starting to settle into it and become more happy, although it does make me very tired.

We are still staying with my sister and brother-in-law with their family while we look for our own place; we have looked at several properties, but as yet nothing has succeeded; we know God has the right place at the right time.

Our stuff is still sitting in storage until we can secure permanent residence, so with the weather starting to cool, especially overnight, I am running out of warm clothing. We also have little Chlo’s 3rd birthday coming next week and we have a B.I.K.E (sssshhhhhh don’t tell her) in storage which at this point we cannot get to, so there may have to be something else for her birthday.

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling. Life seems to be busy especially with a house full of people (14 of us at present), but I’ll try & blog more regularly.

We are staying with my sister and Brother-in-law temporarily while we look for our own place. At least this way we don’t have to pay big bucks for accommodation and be in a hurry to find a house quickly. It’s interesting because they have 3 kids, so with our 2, we have 5 kids in the house, 3 of which are under 3 years. We also have to find a car from somewhere, but my brother-in-law is good at that & is a mechanic, so he is helping us out.

I have to find work, but the job prospects here are endless compared to what is on the Gold Coast, plus I have a few leads already which makes things much easier.

So here we are, back in Perth settling in slowly, but as the post title says, it’s good to be home.

We have stairs in our house and little Caleb who is now 14 months and is almost walking, loves to crawl up the stairs and get into mischief (as little boys do), so we went out and bought a stair/door barrier with a little gate that is supposed to keep kids out.

It does the job of keeping them out, but is also makes for grumpy children who can no longer go where they want. Chloe, who is coming up 3 in May, is at the stage where she loves to open & close doors. She gets quite upset when she cannot open and close this gate and go in and out, so while the barrier does it’s job, it creates other problems. It’s frustrating and I feel like I can’t win!!

While we’re on the topic of keeping little fingers out; in our bedroom upstairs we have a VCR and Austar decoder which at present, are sitting on a little table just above floor level, and of course the kids love to reach up (not that they have to) and look at pretty lights and push buttons and pull cables out; also very frustrating.

Yesterday while we were at our local Salvo’s Shop donating some stuff I found an enclosed TV/video cabinet with glass doors. Perfect size for the bedroom. It’s too small to put our TV on, but the VRC, DVD & Austar will fit inside quite nicely, and it only cost me $18.00.

I love my kids dearly, but the really frustrate me sometimes.

For me, the last few years have been a journey of finding home. I was born, and grew up in New Zealand. I have some wonderful memories of growing up in my hometown and spending family holiday’s at our family batch, and then during my teen years having a wonderful group of friends who were always doing things together.

Then in 2002 we said goodbye to our home in NZ and moved over to Perth, Western Australia to start a new home there. After being in Perth for 7 years, meeting my lovely bride & bringing our eldest child into the world, we decided to go back to NZ, which I thought was home, continue life where I left off there. But things were different.

Life there was not the same as when I grew up, my old friends had moved on, work was not the same as before, even though I was doing the same thing. Everything was different and I did not like it.

So we decided to leave NZ and come back to Australia, but we did not think, at the time, that we wanted to go back to Perth, so we came here to the Gold Coast to give that a go, after all it is Australia where we felt more like home and are definitely glad to be on Oz soil.

But something’s still not quite right here. We don’t know anyone here, we don’t have any family here, it’s been very difficult trying to find work here (I’m still looking), and we haven’t been able to find a church.

So where’s “home”? I think for us, home is where family is; where the support and love of friends is; it’s where you feel comfortable.

I thought home was where I grew up, but after trying to re-plant in the old soil, I was reminded why I left in the first place.

So what about you? What does the word “home” mean for you?