How are the Tans faring in their new home?

That's the question we get all the time, so we'll answer that first.

When we show pics to people back home, they invariably ooh and aah, ask "How much?", then ooh and aah some more and congratulate us on achieving what would have been impossible in Singapore.

Sometimes, it takes talking to our Singaporean friends for the reality to really sink in, that we actually now own a landed property in Australia. With all the talk of mortgage stress and housing unaffordability here, we're very grateful for where we are and constantly amazed at how good God has been. If you've followed our accounts of the valleys we've been through in our first days here, you'll know we've come a really long way.

What we love most about the house are the front garden (which is really quite impressive at first sight), the refitted kitchen with its polished floorboards and Smeg appliances (I like how the oven makes home baked choc muffins crisp on the top but moist inside), and the way the gardens wrap the house on 3 sides so you get views from every window and huge amounts of natural light coming in. With daylight savings, I hardly ever need to turn on the lights till 6 pm at least.

Our next project is to redo the back garden, which is somewhat overrun at the moment. The previous owners planted fruit trees (the peach tree has started bearing fruit) everywhere, started on a veggie patch, installed 3 sheds (perfect for storing those cartons from the packing/unpacking), there're shrubs under every window and an inordinate amount of grass. We had a guy come in today to remove 2 dead trees, mow the nature strip (which is Council property but has to be upkept by the owner of the property), and do a quick once-over to keep things presentable.

It's fun leafing through Home & Garden-type mags for inspiration and visiting Bunnings on weekends to see what DIY things we can do in the meantime.

One Sat morning, CA and Beth drew up their own prototype of what the rejuvenated back garden will look like, with water feature, neatly demarcated areas for the veggie patch and fruit trees and space for a pool, trampoline and swing. Cool.