We needed a change!
We've been in the small town of Graham for the past 10 years.  Our kids have grown up here.  Will has no memory of living anywhere else.  We have friends, coworkers, acquaintances, a church family, reputations, and friends we'd call family here.  But really, we had to try something new.

{I don't expect every post to be this lengthy, but there's a lot of story here that deserves at least an introduction}

So Tricia and I both grew up in West Texas (capitalized intentionally), and we've never lived anywhere else.  This is the furthest east we've ever lived.  Tricia started life in a small dusty town of cotton fields and pump jacks.  Her father was a Methodist preacher, so they moved around a lot, but most of her growing up was in Lubbock.  I was born in Lubbock, but grew up in Midland in a time between oil booms.  Both of us being good Methodists, we went off to college at McMurry University in Abilene.  We met there (between the education building and Gold Star dorm), and a year later started dating.  We got married the summer after Tricia graduated, and just before my senior year.  With Tricia's help, I applied to, interviewed at, and ultimately was accepted to medical school at Texas Tech, back in familiar Lubbock.

After the move to Lubbock, Tricia started teaching elementary school while I attended med school.  During my third year, we had beautiful baby Grace... and Tricia retired.  I've always joked about her "retiring", but the better word is probably a "promotion" to a job with more responsibility, more hours, and less pay.  I finished medical school and started the family practice residency training in Lubbock, and just after my first year, Maggie Lee was born.  Another promotion for Tricia.  I finished residency in 2004, and at that point we had arrangements to move to Graham, had a house and a job, and 10 days before we moved, William was born.  So we loaded our U-Haul truck, Honda minivan, three kids, two dogs, and left for Graham to start our storybook life in a small Texas town.

Jump ahead ten years, and we're ready for something new.  There's a lot that led to our decision to uproot our family and go.  Just know that it was made with many hours of thought, discussion, and prayer.  I won't explain it all now, although I have a feeling that if we keep writing and you keep reading, you'll get a clue of what led to the decision to move.  But where, you ask?   Australia, of course!

You heard me right.  I guess we had gone too far east, so it was time to move west.  8,536 miles west, to be exact.  We started our searching in December 2013, and by January had found a job opening in the small town of Yeppoon, QLD, Australia.  In the area they call the Capricorn Coast.  And so, the paperwork and application process started, and still continues to this day.  Yep, from January to September, we've been waiting and planning on a move around the world.  And we're still waiting.  The latest estimate is maybe early October we'll be in the air, but I won't believe it until I have my shoes off in the security line at the airport, holding my boarding pass for a flight to Oz.  But I might not even believe it then...

So welcome to our family's blog.  We hope to thrill you with stories about our crazy adventures as five Texas natives cross the globe to live on the beach in Australia.  It may actually be really boring, and I apologize in advance if it is.  But I doubt it.  After all, as most of  the town of Graham has told us, we are "crazy".
-Peter