I am an Australian expat who wears multiple hats: mother, trailing spouse, marketer and blogger. Our family have done the 'ultimate' travel trip: living for eight years as expats in New Jersey, USA. Although we had to relocate back to Australia, I have documented our adventures and relocation trials in this blog, and continue to write about these memories, until there's no more to tell!
RELOCATION: Just arrived in New Jersey? Well as an expat, you could be forgiven for thinking that now you’re here, most of the hard work is done. After all, packing, shipping and getting yourself and your family across the world to a strange place, by itself is no mean feat. Here’s the reality. You still have […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: What makes Fall in New Jersey my favourite season? It’s not the festivals or the food or the weather. All of these are pretty fantastic but there’s something extra special about Fall. It’s the rich and vibrant colours that wow you at every turn. You would think I’d get sick of […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: About now, anyone with a school-aged child in the USA has begun their annual preparations. For what you ask? Not another hurricane but for this whirlwind time of year when one after the other, there is Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas: the Perfect Storm of Celebrations. That’s sure what it feels like. Between October and December, […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: Like others elsewhere in the world, I started to blog about our expat life in New Jersey as a way of documenting the experience. Then I started to photograph images to add some colour and life to my blog. But along the way, there have been increasing numbers of colorful images from New Jersey […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: Driving in New Jersey is really not that hard once you get used to the rules and the amazing labyrinth that makes up the road system. Before you start thinking about how to navigate from one place to another though, you need to familiarize yourself with the basics. Most of this […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: We’ve just returned from another home visit to Australia. It was short but still very enjoyable. As with other visits, we saw our friends and family and looked at our house in Sydney’s Inner West. Nothing seems to have changed much except for one big exception. Somewhere, somehow between this year and last […] Continue reading → 
GREAT NJ TOWNS TO LIVE IN: If having one of New Jersey’s best school systems isn’t enough to make you look at this town twice, then its close proximity to the beautiful wilds of South Mountain Reservation, should be. Known as the home of the upscale Short Hills Mall and the Paper Mill Playhouse, […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: What is summer in New Jersey like? Well in a word, humid. And hot… but not as much as you might think. Temperatures can go up to 37C (100 F) but it doesn’t occur often. The 40C+ days that you see in Sydney fortunately don’t seem to happen here. Weather extremes Mostly, the hottest […] Continue reading → 
LIFE IN NEW JERSEY: So, you’re a newbie expat in New Jersey. You’re just arrived and trying to unpack. The kids are already asking… ‘what’s for dinner?’ Of course, there isn’t any food in your home yet, you’ve just gotten here. It’s the expat’s version of Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Great… You’re at that point that […] Continue reading → 
EXPAT LIFE: What’s as American as apple pie? How about the American diner? This may be an icon in the US but even people outside of America have been absorbing diner culture since the advent of ‘Happy Days’ and the Fonz, into our living rooms, way back when. Since the late sixties, countless movies and TV […] Continue reading →