Originally Posted by Bix

Soapy told me to say it was a lovely post.......but he didn't need to as I already recognised that.

Nice one Lisa.
Glad it has worked for your family.

Originally Posted by soapy

whattttt!!!!! she will kick ma heed in on friday night now

still got yir sppon

Originally Posted by floweroscotland

does all the Gold Coasters know there is a meet this Frid at Pacific Pines Tavern at 7.30pm, then its all back to Soapy's lol : see ya Frid

Originally Posted by floweroscotland

I can harldy believe we have been here almost 2 and a half years now , it has gone so fast as it seems like yesterday we were waiting on that visa!

Ok where do I start! We had never been to Australia before but it was always the dream and we just thought lets go for it, no holiday or nothing , but we knew if we hated it or couldn't settle we could always go home! we knew it could take up to 2 years to get our PR visa (my hubby is a Joiner/carpenter) and we really didn't want to wait that long to start our dream, so we originally came on a student visa which only took 4 weeks to get, and I went to college and we applied onshore for PR as soon as we arrived through my hubbys trade which we got after 10 months.

We settled really well, got a house in Arundel, jobs, cars, my oldest daughter who is now 8 started school and after the first day never looked back, my youngest daughter who is now 6 started kindergarden, and is now in year 1, they have both lost the Scottish accent (it only comes back when their talking to our family on the phone) and are now just little Aussies, and have such a fantastic life here, everything is outdoors and there is so much to do for families, great parks with BBq's, cinema on the beach, lagoons so they can swim safely at the beaches. As soon as they come home from school they are out in the garden all year round! we have just bought a plot of land to build our first Aussie home, a house I could never have dreamed of building but it's achievable here!

But please don't come thinking everything is going to be different and an easy life, cause its just not like that unless you are coming here with a lot of money, you still have to work to afford a decent life and you do go through your up's and downs, there is still times when we get homesick and the next few weeks will be worse for us as my in laws are coming and we haven't seen them since we left! we know it's going to be so hard when they leave after their holiday but we are trying to prepare ourselves.

All in all we do have such a great life here, and we did it to give our kids a better future which they definately have, we now take so many things for granted and have to give ourselves a pinch at how lucky we really are to be here, we are living the life we had dreamed of and we have met some fantastic friends along the way some we couldn't have settled so well here without.

Life is too short not to take some chances, so go for it, and if it doesn't work out then at least you tried!

Good luck to everyone

Lisa