Living as a Family

At the time (over 12 years now) our 2 sons and our youngest son's partner were living happily in their own home next door to us.

They would all come over every weeknight to collect their dinner (did not cook for them on a weekend), they usually took it home to eat at their leisure they liked to eat a little later than we did

This particular night was a little different, holding hands, smiles as big as the moon, something very special was in the wind. As they hugged and kissed me, at the same time whispering in my ears one either side:

"Mum you are going to be a grandmother"!

Oh my goodness I had dreamed of this honor for a long, long time, and now it was really going to happen. I was on cloud nine. Oh my gosh what a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

Having to wait another 7 months was going to be hard (for me, I guess that sounds a tad selfish) every single day felt like a week.

I had to find something to do in my spare time, so off to the craft shop to buy baby wool in every color that was available.

While I was knitting my fingers off, my husband was making a wardrobe with draws and hanging space, suitable for a baby, It was beautiful and it housed the many items of clothing that I had made perfectly with room for more.

So the time went a little quicker.

Eventually the time had arrived and we were presented with our first grandchild, the most beautiful little girl on the planet. (I was asked to be at the birth) An honor that I never expected, It was the most incredible experience that I have had the pleasure of being asked to participate in.

To see my Granddaughter enter into our incredible and beautiful world, surrounded by so much love and happiness. It was a feeling that I could never explain, It is still with me today.
Another surprise that almost made my heart burst,she was given my christian name as her second name,that's another feeling that blew my mind.

Summer had just begun and that particular year, even for Australia it was extremely HOT.

As our Son and his Partner, at that time, didn't have a cooling system in their home. our grand daughter spent a great deal of time in our home.

It was wonderful that I could spend this very special time with her.

Lots of hugs, kisses, playing with and feeding her, taking her for long walks in the evenings when the weather was cooler. I recalled being called by a friend 'a besotted grandmother', That was OK, because it was true. :) :)
Then on one particular evening while the whole Family were dining together, the idea of us buying a large property, ( 2 acres) to be exact came about, sounded wonderful to me. still is!

So we went 'for it', looked around the different areas, week after week, as we wanted to be in a rural area, but not too far from a shopping center.

Eventually we located a property that was perfect and suited us all!

"Accommodation for 3 separate Families".

Purchased it!... Sold our old houses!... Moved out!... Moved in!... Too easy?

Not really that easy! Trying to decide what to take, what to give away, packing, cleaning, making sure the garden looked it's best, organizing a carrier. Phew!!!

We had been in that home for 28 years, so had collected a 'bit' of stuff. All in all it went pretty smoothly. :) :)

The agreement we all made at the time was to live as a family for 5 years,then decide what we wanted to do after that. It is now way past 5 years, and all is going really well.

The property has a very LARGE garden, which requires a lot of weeding, mulching, pruning  etc, but it looks beautiful, so its well worth the time spent.

We also have about one and a half acres of grass to mow, thank goodness for the ride on, as it makes it so much easier.

Our children like to look at a nice garden , but are not one bit interested in doing any of it, My partner and I do it, but that's fine, Gardening is my favourite Hobby, but most of the other chores are shared.

Over the years the guys have destroyed two mowers and we have recently purchased a new 'Ride On' mower,

it's great, not that I use it, that's the guys chore. As we are located on a busy road the boys built a retaining fence for the safety of the kids and dogs so I have a small Electric hand push mower that does all the fiddly bits of grass.

The guys tell me that the 'ride-on' has a 33 inch cut with a 16 hp motor, but who cares, to me the color 'red' is much more interesting. :)

I much prefer fresh water and we are not connected to mains water at all.

Our water supply comprises of 3 very large water tanks, and 3 poly tanks which harvest the rainwater from the roofs of the houses. All the tanks are interconnected and we hardly ever run out of water.. During the drought we did run low and it was only a matter of a phone call and within a day our tanks were replenished. We sure could taste the chemicals ! Yuk,Yuk.Yuk. Our Granddaughter started doing her Rain Dance every day and sure enough after about a week it started to rain and eventually broke the drought.

She was so happy, could not keep the smile off her face. :) :)

Each concrete tank holds 22,000 liters of pure rain water, and all have been painted with various things such as pet dogs, birds, snails, rabbits and other animals to reflect the local habitat.

I hate the chemicals that the so-called authorities put in our town water supply.

Harvested rain water, in my opinion, is much better for our Grandchildren, plus it tastes much nicer than tap water. (We now have 2 of the most gorgeous grandchildren on this Planet).

I absolutely love being able to see my Children and Grandchildren every day or we can go for a week or so without seeing any of them, we do have that choice.
Sometimes we go for Nature walks down to the back paddock, and at various times see Rabbits, Foxes, Lizards, Spiders, Frogs, and lots of Birds, Snails, Ants, and on one occasion a Snake. I was not happy about that, snakes are not even close to my favourite pet.

One thing I have learned in this experience is that your Children have their own lives and ways of doing things. You may not always agree, but you have to accept that they are individuals, sometimes you may just have to ZIP it. :-)
Also you may be called upon to babysit at very short notice and often, this I dont mind, as they do grow up very quickly and go their own way.

UPDATE.

We now have one absolutely beautiful Granddaughter and one very handsome Grandson.

They both light up our lives, and make us smile and laugh every day,each has their own individual way of doing things and are loved so very much.:):)

If you are contemplating doing something like this, from personal experience my advise would be "GO FOR IT" maybe it will be the most rewarding thing you will ever do in your life.

To me it is better than ORBITING AROUND THE MOON....

So if you decide to try living this way I wish you LUCK and hope that you enjoy every minute of this new experience of living as a family :) :)