2023 Year in Review

Hello, family and friends! We hope you're doing well.

Wow, hard to believe another year has passed. This year has been all about settling back into a rhythm of life in Sydney, which I feel like we have now largely achieved. That’s not to say it has always been easy. Despite the fact that technology makes it far easier nowadays to keep up with faraway friends (albeit time differences and child schedules making it more difficult than it should be!), nothing really replaces the feeling of whiling away a morning or afternoon with food, drink and easy banter. So while we’ve gained the ability to do that with our friends in Sydney, it feels like we have lost a lot in not being able to do that with our friends in the US. However, the odd unsettled feeling of losing one home and not yet being settled into another has basically disappeared, which is definitely an improvement.

Avery continues to bring immense joy to our lives. She is a chatty, cheeky, cheerful little monkey, and makes us laugh every day. She significantly built her social and communication skills at daycare this year which is great. We can now have proper conversations with her and she has started developing her sense of humour and telling little jokes (although she won’t be headlining the Fringe Festival anytime soon). We’ve dealt with tantrums too, but they are generally short-lived so have felt pretty manageable so far. We really just need her current sleep regression to pass 🙃.

Avery posing for her annual day care photos

Avery at her second birthday with Annika and her grandmother

We also had a few life updates this year:

In February, Andrew started a new job as a Product Manager at Airwallex (a mid-size financial payments startup). While he is enjoying the challenge of working on some technically complex problems, he has found it a pretty big adjustment from working with more mature San Francisco tech companies that have a huge depth of engineering and data talent.

In March, we bought a house in Middle Cove, about 15 minutes from the city in the leafy north of Sydney. We only started to look seriously in January, so we bought a place a lot faster than we expected, but Annika fell in love with the serene bush setting, so here we are – significantly cash poorer but very happy with our new home. If a trip to Australia is in your future, please know you’re welcome to stay with us! You may get lucky enough to see the cute wallaby that comes to visit us and eat all Andrew’s plants.

In August, Annika made the decision to return to full-time work, taking on the role of Director of Business Operations at a small consulting company called Coras. This was a big step as she immensely enjoyed the 15 months she had with Avery full-time. Overall, it’s been a really positive move – Coras has an amazing culture with a wonderful team of people, great work-life balance, and interesting work to do. However, she also misses all the special moments she had with Avery, so it’s still a bit of a struggle figuring out the right balance of work and parenting. We’re fortunate to have a mix of daycare and grandparent care that made the transition a lot easier than it might have otherwise been.

A 20 week ultrasound image of baby number 2.

In September, we found out Annika was pregnant which was exciting but a little overwhelming given she had just started her new job. Fortunately, the pregnancy has been relatively smooth. She’s due in mid-May, and we found out it will be a little brother for Avery 🙂 Hopefully everything continues to go well until then!

Andddd that pretty much sums up the major news from us! There were lots of fun moments with family, friends and animals throughout the year, all of which we are grateful for. We’re looking toward 2024 with a mixture of excitement and trepidation (truly wondering how people manage with more than one child, but I guess we’ll find out soon?!), but are hopeful there will be more ups than downs.

We wish you all a wonderful year ahead and would love to hear updates from you as well!

P.S. Some general themes from 2023

We took a couple of small getaways including Avery’s first ski trip. She seemed to enjoy her short stint on skis so hoping this bodes well for future winter adventures.