The Art o Placing Your Beach Towel in the Sand

If you've been to the beach, you know there is an art to placing your towel successfully in the sand. There are those who toss their towels haphazardly to the ground in the way of somebody driven solely by the desire to feel their toes in the sea. There are those who entreaty the unobliging wind and hold their towels out, slowly bringing them sandward, hoping that their flapping flags of towels will alight neatly. There are those who enlist the help of their friends and, taking a corner in each hand, attempt to keep the towel taut and sandless as they lower it simultaneously down between them. There are those who, failing all other methods, resort to acrobatics - bringing one end to the ground and kneeling on it before suddenly grabbing the far corners and flinging themselves in a stretched out belly flop onto the sand. Some place shoes, bags or books on corners, others overlap with neighboring towels.

I myself prefer the wind method. Holding out my sarong to flap and twirl in the wind until exactly the right moment when a small gust blows underneath, straightening it - followed by a moment of calm for it to float serenely to the ground. As this has happened exactly zero times, the art to my towel placement comes in surrendering to the universe and allowing that I am, after all, sitting in the sand.

Au Pair Adventure

Me, Frey and Willem at Cedar Creek Falls

"Count to 100," says Willem. He rapidly begins changing from his pajamas into his school uniform, getting tangled briefly. His worried expression as he realizes he's done up his buttons wrong prompts me to slow my count. "Ninety eight....ninety eight and a half....ninety nine....ninety nine and a half..." He grins triumphantly as he finishes. "Tah-dah!" I convince him to brush his teeth by promising a dance party in the bathroom to his One Direction musical toothbrush.

Freya joins us in the bathroom, combing out her wavy hair and holding the elastics out to me - her way of asking for braids. All dressed and ready to go, we hop in the car, wait for Willem to buckle (his method is to pull the seat-belt out all the way before clipping himself in and letting the slack slide back in), and head to school. We slow as we pass the "guinea pig house" to press noses against the back windows in hopes of spotting the critters in their front yard cage.

This was how the routine of Brisbane Au Pair job melted days into weeks, weeks into months and suddenly the time was gone. Somehow in those two months, I had found another home. Freya and Willem filled most of my time with their antics, finicky eating habits, theatrical performances, stories and games. The rest of my time I spent going for runs in the "lemongrass park," a place I so named for its amazing smell - or exploring with my two German au pair friends. We took trips into the city and up and down the coasts. We hiked the Glass House Mountains, rode waves at Coolum, Noosa and Byron Bay beaches, wandered along the esplanade by the river in the city and had sleepovers with movies, wine and chocolate when one of us had to stay at home and watch the kids.

As we moved toward summer in Queensland and the mornings got too hot for me to go running, it was my time to leave. Not without struggle, I paired my belongings back down to backpack volume. How things mysteriously accumulate when I stay in one place for too long, I will never understand. With a few clothing items less and a few kid-drawn-masterpieces more, I donned my hiking boots (too heavy to pack) and headed to the airport.

At Byron Bay Lighthouse with Anne and Annika

Aussie, Germans, Brit, American, Brit #2 - What a crew!

Anne, me and Annika at the top of Mt Coolum

Me, Freya and Willem at the Koala Sanctuary

The kiddos at Southbank

Me and Willem at Cedar Creek Falls