My welcome to Perth began with a whirlwind of settling in to life in the heat, meeting new people, starting a new job and unpacking boxes. The new job was a 5 minute walk from home, we were walking distance from pubs and restaurants and life was pretty good!!
A few months in and things were pretty good, except for my job. It didn't have a good vibe about it and I had a chat to someone I'd previously worked for, who I have a lot of respect for, about my challenges. I decided to make a change and secured a 12 month contract in a new role. It was with a good business working with a great group of people, except a couple, but hey you can't win 'em all!
Also with settling in came navigating the world that is step-parenting! At this stage we had Miss K 3 nights a fortnight. What a great little girl she was, and still is now! Our weekends with her were spent exploring Perth, or hanging at the beach.
Around six months in we decided it was time to get us a bigger place to live so found a rental in Karrinyup. Yard space for K to play in, close to the beach and a great location in terms of services and travel to work.
Things started to gel really well. First year in we had Mum come over from Tassie & Billy's parents from Kalgoorlie join us for Christmas. It was a hot one too! But a lot of fun and good to have a full house.
2015 ticked over and life kept rolling by. The lifestyle Billy & I became accustomed to when I first moved over of drinking & partying continued, which was the beginning of bad habits, for both of us. The weight for me started creeping on but I didn't do much to try and change my behaviour. Emotional eating, more drinking and smoking, feeling rubbish & down on myself and the circle continued. It was at this point that what I now know is endometriosis, started to kick up a notch. Period pains were getting worse each month. I had also moved into a different role where I was working and that made me feel even more isolated as my team was in Sydney. I was still sitting amongst ex-team members but it wasn't the same.
It was at this point I decided to find a new job and landed at Boutique Advisers where I just ticked over my 5 year anniversary! 3 weeks in and the office closed for the Christmas break and Billy & I headed off on a road trip to Esperance and Albany for a week. Christmas Day 2015 will be forever etched in our minds as my beau Billy proposed to me! I knew that he had procured a ring but wasn't sure when it would happen. We celebrated with prawns & Veuve at the Dempster Cottage in Esperance.
We held off announcing it to the world until after we'd told K & her Mum. Then we started the planning for engagement parties in both WA & Tassie. Both parties were so much fun, surrounded by our loved ones celebrating our engagement. However the Tassie one resulted in me returning to Perth with a broken fifth metatarsal and ending up in a moon boot for 8 weeks.... damn ugg boots 😂
Wedding planning kicked into gear however at the same time we got notice we had to move out of our rental. So it was either spend $20k+ on a big wedding OR buy ourselves a house, we chose the latter! Decided that our wedding would only be small with 20 guests back in Tassie in early 2017. In July 2016 we moved into our new home - we were so excited! A little further north but only a 5 minute drive from the stunning Mullaloo beach, and we have a pool. Miss K was SUPER stoked, water baby that she is.
The wedding drew closer and my weight ballooned even more. With that my mood darkened. I was supposed to be heading into one of the most happiest times of my life yet I felt like shit, which hello emotional eater, to cope I then ate. My weight was at the heaviest I had ever been and I was not happy with that. I had picked out a beautiful dress with my Mum but the size tagged was 26. Now that I think back on it, I'm glad we didn't have the big wedding because that meant less people got to see me at the size I was. To this day I only have a few wedding photos up at home, because I look at them and don't like what I see.
Don't get me wrong, the day was magical and we had such a blast with our family & friends. We held it at Glen Albyn Estate in Hobart, where a long time family friend Bernadette lives & runs it with her partner Mark. They put together the most amazing intimate setting for our celebration and of course partied on with us into the early hours of the morning. The rest of our trip home for the wedding was great. We had an after party at Dad & Deb's shack at Orford and caught up with more family & friends. More catch ups happened on the NW Coast when we got back up there before heading back to Perth.
Six weeks after the wedding our family was dealt a blow with my cousin Sam taking his own life. To say we were devastated is an understatement. I hopped on a plane straight back to Tassie to be with my cousins as we tried to comprehend the fact that our Sammy was gone. I was so glad that I saw him after the wedding; shared a fabulous dinner with him & the family, K did some performances for us, she asked Sam to draw her a princess and he drew her a horse (we sadly don't have it though) and I left giving him a big hug and telling him I loved him. Heading back to WA from this trip was extremely hard. I miss him every day 💙
In the May of 2017 we brought a new addition into the family with our new puppy Daisy. I’ve never had a pet before (except the odd gold fish & guinea pig) so this was all new for me! She settled in extremely well & completely stole my heart. She was just what the doctor ordered & helped heal my heart somewhat.
The rest of the year passed by filled with Daisy fun, a visit from Mum, a wedding of dear friends & a conversation with some other good friends about their fertility specialist. This lead to us making our own appointment for early 2018.
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