*Funnies*

OK so we realized it wasn't going to be completely the same when we got her but we also knew that it wasn't going to be too much different either!

So here are some of the differences we have found so far:

We were looking for someplace to eat, and the map on Bryon's phone said that there was a Wendy's close by in a mall, well much to our dismay when we got inside we found this...

 

yes its Wendy's but its not really Wendy's. It was an ice cream shop!

As we were walking around the mall we saw some more interesting things

like this...

We were very excited to see that something like this had make it to Australia, until we looked a little bit closer and realized it was a drop off box for a dry cleaner.. lol

We also saw this store that I just thought was a hilarious name for a shoe store...

Really?!?! Who was the person that

thought, hey let's name this shoe store after a foot fungus!!! Haha

We also saw this store that I thought was kind of funny...

They sure don't have Bed, Bath and Beyond... but they do have Bed, Bath, and Table!!

One day we were walking down the road and this caught my attention...

Now I was quite surprised when I saw the sign on the side of this truck to "hire a hubby" the first thing that came to my mind was, is that like "mail order bride"?

When we got into our house we needed to go to the store to buy some groceries, walking down the aisle I saw this...

Chicken Flavor chips!!
Coincidentally when we were on the plane over here they had snacks and drinks at the front of the plane that you could just go and get at anytime. Well after about 10 hours on a plane you sort of loose focus for simple things, and this flavor of chip is what I ended up with... Needless to say, they are not very good!

Also while we were at the grocery store we realized something different about the buggies...

It's hard to tell in these pictures but, all four wheels turn. You would think this would make it easier to do your shopping. Quite the contrary, this is probably one of the dumbest (yet most fun) ideas ever!!

:)

Going to the city is always an interesting adventure! The first time we

ventured out that way we saw these two strange characters...

This one was on an enormous unicycle, juggling a plastic sward, a plastic bat, and something lit on fire! His opening line was "this is the most dangerous trick of my act, I could possible burn myself, cut myself, or kill myself!!

And then we saw this guy...

He literally just sat there, talking like a regular Australian person, playing the Didgeridoo and saying the words "Australian Aborigine" a lot!!

We soon realized after moving into our house that we need a better way to get around than walking so, we bought bikes! When we came back to pick them up the lady at the front counter told us to go here...

This is what is known back in the states as layaway... Why they call it "lay by" I have no idea!

Then we realized that we need an even better way to get around so we got this...

Then we started driving and saw this sign...

(if varaiable speed limit sign is blacked our 100)
Then we had to learn how to drive like this...

Because the steering wheel is on the other side if the car, also the speed limit was 100!!!

Just kidding it is in kilometers per hour, which is something else we have to get used to!

by the way, 100 kph is only about 62 mph, but it feels a lot faster!!

So some of you might think that the wildlife would be so different here, but it's really not! Mainly just the birds, here are some pictures of some of them...

 

Some colorful little birds and
 some pretty big birds!! Don't ask me what they are, I have no idea! lol

We also say a kookaburra bird sitting in a tree!

 

And no, unfortunately we have not seen any kangaroos or koala bears, hopefully we will visit the zoo soon though! :)

Bonus:

for those of you who have herd people say that in Australia the toilet flushes swirl in the opposite direction, I'm going to go ahead and clear that up for you...

It doesn't swirl AT ALL!!!

haha it just kinda sprays in every direction!

Also all of the toilets here have a two button flush: a half-flush and a full-flush.

(very water conscious) lol!

Other than those things this place is so similar to back in the states that most of the time we don't even feel like we are in another country!!!

Now for a side note...

I have a quite funny "trash to treasure" story I would like to share it with you!

We have been looking for a desk to put in our quite empty room for a little while, and we thought we might be able to get one for free from the college. (They have a warehouse full of used furniture that they sometimes open up to the students.) But they told us yesterday that the warehouse was pretty much completely empty, due to this being the biggest intake for students ever!

So we were taking a walk down the road in our neighborhood, when we saw this random glass top, small-ish dining room table sitting on the side of the road. We went over to look at it and all that was wrong with it was a small chip on the bottom of the glass.

The weird thing was that it wasn't really sitting in anybodies yard, it was kind of on the corner of an empty lot and on the other side of the road from some houses. This concerned Bryon quite a bit because he thought, well what if we get it and it wasn't there for the taking, or what if they were out the day before doing a lemonade stand and where going to wait till later to get it! Well my response to that was.. well if they were doing a lemonade stand yesterday, than they should have taken it inside yesterday!! lol. And of course there was no one outside for us to ask about it. So we walked on by and decided to come back tomorrow with the car, and if it was still there we would pick it up!

So this morning we went to church, came home and drove by the table, and it was there, and luckily for us the couple whose house it was across the street from was outside as well! I nicely walked up to them and asked about the table and they said Yes!! take it, its free!! So as excited as we were, we now had to figure out how to get it home (with our new Toyota Sudan lol)!!

First thing we tried was to gently slide the glass (the heaviest part) into the back seat, and of course, it didn't fit! it was about two inches too long, so neither door would close! So then we thought, hey, lets try to put the glass in the trunk (or boot as they call it here :) ). But it stuck out a little bit, so we put one of our coats on the bottom and one on the top of the glass so that if the trunk bounced it would have some cushioning.

Then we had to figure out how to get the table part home. Initially, we were going to carry it because it wasn't very heavy and we were not too far from home. Then Bryon had this genius idea to put it on top of the car... so we tried it. What happened was all four legs of the table, conveniently slid into all four open windows!! Also the curvature of the bottom of the table worked so well with the curvature of the top of the car that it didn't touch the top of the car at all! it was amazing! The hard part was getting in and out of the car. We literally had to have one person hold the table on top of the car while the other one got in, then when that person was in they had to put the two legs in the window and hold the other end on top of the car so that the other could get in, then they had to slide there two legs in the window. It was hilarious!!

When we got home, which only took us about 5 minutes, we had to maneuver out of the car again and clean the table off and bring it inside!

 Here is the picture story to this strange adventure!

so this was what we figured would work best...

 then after this picture was taken we realized that we needed to take the table off of the car just to get in...   :)

and we are in and ready to head home!

see.. nothing touches!

And here is the finished product!

Thanks! keep folowing us

Bryon & Shelby Tatum

"Home"

So has anyone ever asked you what "home" means to you? Most answers would be, my home is cozy, or home is my sanctuary. Well I'll be honest with you, on this journey I have finally realized what "home" means to me. Home is where my husband is! There has been many times these past few weeks that I really do miss our family back home. With several thoughts and doubts running through my mind about if this was really the right thing to do or not, I know that is just Satan himself trying to get a handhold into my life. Then I think about all of the things that brought us here, and watching the step-by-step process that only the Lord himself could bring us on to get to this place. I try to think about making this journey without my husband and I honestly could not do it! No matter where we are in the world, or who we are with, as as long as we are together with God by our side, we are home.

My husband is my rock, my guide, my protector, my love, my laughter, my reassurance, my stability, my provider, my husband is my "home"

We made it!

 We made it to the Sydney airport at about 6:30 in the morning! Got our luggage, went through customs and started walking around. The airport was huge, but we really just wanted to sit because we were so tired. The first thing we tried to do is get our phones set up, so we went to a popular phone company in the area that was in the airport. We were so excited that we would be able to do it so soon and get that out of the way! When we got there the guy at the store told us that our IPhones were not unlocked, which means we would not be able to have a service over here until we contacted AT&T in the states to unlock our phones. This was a problem because we didn’t have phones, or anyway to get ahold of AT&T! We tried using their online support but that didn’t work either. As frustrated as we were, we just brainstormed to figure out the problem. We ended up skypeing with Bryon’s brother Matt and had him call AT&T for us to fix the problem. Luckily two days later we received an email from AT&T saying that they resolved the problem! We then went to the closest phone company and got our phones set up.

It was time to leave the airport and we ended up getting a shuttle to our hotel, as we were talking to our driver we were finding out some interesting information! He had pretty strong feelings about how bad the public transportation was in Sydney, which is pretty funny and kind of ironic considering he was an airport shuttle driver! At one point we also asked him if we had already passed the city, then he proceeded to call himself an idiot and cursing at the fact that he took us through a tunnel under the harbor instead of taking us on the bridge to see the whole harbor, it was pretty humorous! And it really didn’t bother us that much, because after sitting at the airport for 5 hours we were just ready to be at the hotel!

Speaking of the hotel, when we arrived we got our entire luggage out and onto the sidewalk so the shuttle driver could leave. Then we got into the reception area only to find out that the hotel had no record of us even making a reservation. We booked it back in the states several months ago, and we went through this company called Kayak which was affiliated with Expedia. The hotel wanted us to contact the company we booked it through but they are located in the states, so being an international call, they did not let us use the phone in the reception area, so we had to call the Hillsong School so that they could call Kayak. After about an hour and a half of playing phone tag with the school and Expedia we finally got to get into our room without having to pay any more than we already did!

Jet lag was pretty interesting, the first night we were her we ended up going to sleep at 6:00 pm and woke up about 5:00 am the next morning. Wednesday was the next day and we decided to try our hand at the public transpiration in the area. It took almost an hour on the bus to get into the area that Hillsong School is in. Upon arriving we realized that no one was even at the School because they were having a conference in a completely different area, so we just walked around the shops and places in the area! Also the first night here we realized, being winter, it gets dark around 5:00 or 5:30 pm, which doesn’t give you much time to do things during the day.

Later on in the week we finally ventured out into the city, ironically Bryon grew up with one of the students that attend the city campus; he has been here for about 6 months. So we called him and he agreed to be our tour guide for the day! It was amazing to see all of the cool things, in real life, that most people only get to see in pictures!

We also were able to attend out first Hillsong church service, it was amazing! We were going to try to go to one of the morning services, but then we realized that we would not make it on the bus because it took longer than we thought it would. So we decided to go to the 5 o'clock service, when we got there we could barely find a seat. Finally when we did and they started singing the first song I felt like I was at a Hillsong concert, that is an every Sunday experience! Then we left and got something to eat, and had to find our way home. Unfortunately when we decided to come to the 5 o'clock service we did not think about the fact that the buses don't run later on in the evening as much as they do during they day so we would have had to taken 2 buses and a train to get back home. Where as during the day that would have been only one or two buses. So we ended up standing in the freezing cold, finally deciding to call our firs cab, it wasn't so bad, just expensive.

We finally got to move into our house and met some of our new house mates, there were so many people coming and going that we were not quite sure who we actually lived with! When we got here there were five other single girls living in the house, but two were moving out the week that we moved in! We got the master bedroom with our own bathroom since we were the only married couple living in the house. We live with one native Australian girl, one from Switzerland, one from Japan, and one from Italy but she has lived in Sydney most of her life! They are all very nice girls. Our hours is one of the smaller campus houses, the majority of them have anywhere from 7 to 12 house mates! And most of the students have to share a bedroom!

A few days after we moved into our new house, we decided that it would be the best option for us to get bikes! We went to a store called Big W, which is kind of like there equivalent to Walmart, and bought two bikes! Which made us so much more mobile. The first day we got them, we rode the bus to the shopping center, bought the bikes and rode them home, which was about 3 miles. The next day we thought it would be good to venture out to one of the further shopping centers, it was about 4 miles away. When we got there we were very tired, but we got some food, got what we need to get and headed back, it was about 8 miles on a bike that day! We were exhausted!! We are also contemplating the option of getting a car, especially for me getting a job. Speaking of getting a job, I have been looking, I looked all day yesterday calling and looking up places online. Thankfully I have a interview on Tuesday at 4, which would be Monday at 2 Am for you, so pray that everything goes well and a job will come my way quickly!!

Everything here is pretty much the same as back in the states, except the malls are bigger. Most of the malls in the area have everything in them including grocery stores and stores like Target and Walmart! Also they drive on the left side of the road, but the right side of the car, which is  quite strange being a passenger because i felt like I should have had a steering wheel in front of me.  also most of the smaller roads use round-abouts, some of which are two lanes, which is a little bit scary for me because I am not used to that. So far it has been a very busy and eventful two weeks, we are looking forward to see what else God has in store for us!

Thanks for your thought and prayers, and for following us on our journey!
Bryon and Shelby Tatum

Here.We.Go

Finally at the airport, we hustled to get our many bags out of the car and get out of the way. Luckily we had just enough for about one bag per person. We had six checked bags altogether and a carry on plus a personal item each. We checked our bags then waited with our families before we had to go to through customs. I am so thankful we had as much family there as we did! We love you guys and thank you so much for being so a great support!

Next step is going through customs, which wouldn’t have been so bad if someone “Bryon” hadn’t scared us all and almost lost the tickets!!! Yes, we got all the way to the table and he looked at me and asked me to give him the tickets. I looked at him and said, “you were the on that had them last”… so then we panicked… I looked all through my purse and he looked in his bag, nothing. Then we went back to the seats we were sitting in when we were with our family. Searching around the edges of the cushions, nothing. Bryon starts pulling the cushions off the chairs and at the last minute he found them! Out of all the places they could have ended up, they were underneath the cushions of the chair he was sitting in. Luckily it made for a good break from all the crying going on, to just laugh about it, after we found the tickets of course!!

We are now on the plane, it’s my first time flying and I’m not even sitting with my husband, well not directly beside him. We both have aisle seats and he is two seats back, meaning I might end up with a crick in my neck before this is over from looking back at him so much! I have to say this plane looks a lot bigger outside than it feels inside lol. To me it feels like I’m on a cramped coach bus! It has three seats on side and three seats on the other. I suppose I can’t say much because I don’t have anything to compare it to! Let’s say I hope the next one is bigger!           

Our plane was about 25 minutes late which is going to make things interesting for later. When we get to Las Vegas originally we had about an hour to get from one plane to another, now that this one is late we have about 20 minutes to run to the other plane… this should be fun!!! Lol

Our connection flight from Las Vegas to LAX was interesting. We went to the gate and thought that the people waiting there were waiting for the same plane that we were, so we sat down to wait with them! Then they called our names and apparently everyone had already boarded the plane! We got on and after we sat down every single seat was full! Needless to say, we didn’t get to sit together on this plane either. Luckily it only took about 45 minutes to get to LAX!

Well we are finally on the last leg of our journey. This plane is much bigger than the first two. This one has three seats on both sides and three seats in the middle!! It has screens on the back of the seats with a great selection of movies! Luckily we are sitting together on this one; we have three seats to ourselves which is good because it gives us room to spread out a little bit! It has been a very long flight; we will be in the air for a total of 14 hours. Right now we have almost 4 hours left on the plane, we will arrive in Sydney at 5:56 AM. Unfortunately this poses another problem, we cannot check into our hotel until one o’clock, which means we have a lot of time at the airport to do pretty much nothing! We also wanted to try to rent a car for the first week we were there, then we realized while we were still in the states that that were not going to be able to do that.  Therefore we are going to have to have a very expensive taxi or shuttle take us to our hotel form the airport!

Ok, almost there…

Sydney, Australia  

Here.We.Come!!!