These past couple weeks have been a whirlwind, to say the least. 6 flights in two weeks is quite a lot, but it’s funny how one’s plans for the year can come to fruition. At the start of the year, I had a plan to make this year one of more travel. Call it a New Year’s resolution or something of the sort. After the past few years of not doing a whole lot of travel, it’s been nice to get out there again. I have enjoyed being more present in Australia, and that is something I definitely want to stay connected to and have my kids experience more and more. We can get so wrapped up in pursuing our dreams and the daily stresses of life that we forget we have so much right in front of us. I’ll be honest - I was never huge on family growing up. I set off on my own 12 years ago to pursue my dreams in America and didn’t have a hesitation, not even a passing glance back to where I came from. But as I matured as a person and had my own kids and maybe even the fact that Covid took away the ability to go back as easily if I had wanted, I grew to see the importance of family. So taking my kids to Australia for the first time last year and then following it up with a trip to Sydney again this past week to celebrate my wife’s birthday has been something special. I have loved seeing my kids experience family the way I grew up with it, and perhaps I took for granted how great that was.

Life goes pretty fast. It’s crazy to me that my son is now 7 and my daughter almost 5, and here I am having lived in this country for 12 years. So this trip, I really took the time to just be rather than try to cram a million things and have a checklist of items that we needed to see and do and people we needed to see, and that was nice. Honestly, my favorite thing to do was get up early and go to the local coffee shop with the family for breakfast, read the paper and have the kids play in the back. That was a pleasure for me and something that I missed. We crashed at our family’s house too, so there was no fancy hotel or anything of the sort. It was actually great crashing on the floor and waking up in the morning altogether and piling into two cars to get breakfast or grab a late night ice cream at our favourite ice cream spot Mapo. I also enjoyed the beauty of Sydney and enjoyed the ocean walks and run, another thing that I have sorely missed.

Sydney has so much inherent beauty, and to keep that as a part of my life is important to me now moving forward. Rekindling that love for my hometown is special, as well as having my son experience rugby league (NRL) in a way that I did as a kid and probably in a way that he experiences the NBA growing up here in America. He wanted to pass the footy with me and was interested to watch games with me and even adopted a favourite team. That is special to me. The bonds forged on trips like this you cannot put a value on. I enjoyed it so much, as did my family, and I know we are all excited to return again soon. I don’t know if I will ever live back in Sydney again, perhaps one day, but for now we can revel in the memories created and carve out more of these in the near future.