March - July 2004

As written retrospectively in March 2007.

On March 4, 2004 we moved from California to Perth, Australia. This was a difficult decision to make as we had made California our home together for ove seven years, had a fantastic group of friends and family there and I had a wonderful and supportive professional network (and a career I enjoyed). Sean however was not having as much enjoyment on the career front - especially since the 2000/2001 recession. So we made the big move to a new place (well I lived in Perth for 6 years while at uni and in my first full time job) and see if a new career might await Sean there.

We moved into our home not too far from the Canning River in Perth's southern suburbs - without any of our furniture it felt like we were squatting in someone else's home at first. We started job searching and catching up with old friends.

Here's a photo of Yallingup Beach and all the gang at Dwellingup.

After a long hard job hunt, we both finally landed jobs - me as a PR Manager (my field) with an ISP company, and Sean in corporate finance for a large mining company (mining is the big industry in Perth). Different to his investment banking roles, but he was ready for something new and a challenge.

The San Francisco Giants gave way to the West Coast Eagles (well while we are in Perth at least - we'll still love the Giants!) Go Eagles!

The pelicans are on the Murray River. We spent Easter at Murray Lake Resort, Yunderup (near Mandurah).

The next few months were also spent tidying up our yard and painting the inside of our house. So much more work to do compared to our our little condo in California! Check out all the yard waste on our front verge ready for the green waste pickup!

We also dog sat my brother's dog, Jaxon (that's him on the left) and our friends' dog, Ochie (old red dog on the right). They are both legends in the canine world and have both sadly passed on (Ochie in 2006 and Jaxon in 2007).

We celebrated 4th July in Perth at the Nedlands Yacht Club - check out the cake. It was funny celebrating it in winter - usually we would be

camping in a gorgeous forest or by a lake somewhere in Calif.