Now that Mike has headed off to work and I am on the house & school track I figured it's time for me to add to the updates. I don't have the same flare for blogging as Mike so bear with me. It's been so nice for all of us to be able to spend this time together the last couple of weeks, but alas real life continues. The kids have been adjusted to our new life in limbo just brilliantly. There's no complaing and very little fighting. I can't believe how easily they are just rolling with it. Although, when we were talking about neighbourhoods yesterday, someone said "I know of a couple nice neighbourhoods in Calgary", as we got home from yet another day of driving around. I'm sure in a lot of ways we would all like to be back in our comfort zones in Calgary doing what we know best. I know I've certainly been there a number of times in the last couple of weeks. Cyrus, who also made the above statement, pointed out that what we are going through right now is not an indication of what our life here will be like. Out of the mouths of Babes!! (He would not be happy about this reference. Out of the mouth of a highly intelligent teenagers!) We finally all seem to be over our jetlag. Just a word of caution to anyone planning a trip over, it took a full 7-8 days to adjust!
So, we have been spending a ridiculous amonut of time in the car, ours and others, driving around trying to figure out where to live. Yesterday, my new best friend,(whether she likes it or not) Kylie took us out for the day to show us some of her favorite neibourhoods, beaches and shops. It was really nice to have more of a personal perspective on things. When we finished our day of driving around we went for a dip in her pool. I was complaining to the kids about how cold I was from being in the pool when I got an e-mail from Vanessa saying she had to go shovel the sidewalk. I felt a little better.
I hung my first load of laundry on the drying rack to dry. Nothing like have your clothes crack when you try to fold them. I have never seen wrinkles like the ones I have seen here. Elecricity is just too expensive here so we will just have to get use to not using a dryer (among other things!). I know Mike has talked about how expensive it is here, but let me tell you it is really over the top. Keva asked me to buy her some Cover Girl mascara, same type that sells at home for $7.00, it cost $19.25. No word of a lie. And that was at the supermarket, not the expensive department stores. We've also been trying to find phone plans and internet plans. Not only is it incredibly expensive it's incredibly complicated. On a land line you need to pay a monthly fee as well as per minute for phone calls. On all phones, mobile and land line, it costs one price to call a land line and is more expensive to call a mobile number. Texting is cheaper than phone calls so that may be the way to go. Internet is confusing as well. It is sold by GB and costs more at different times of day. You have to try and get a package where you have more usage between 8AM and 1AM because usage during 1AM and 8AM is calculated separately. Very confusing. Another thing about Western Australia is the pace of life. It's apparently short for Wait Awhile. It can be difficult to get anything done, as our broken internet connection initially suggested. When I was looking at internet connection plans it says that it takes about 20 days for the connection to be set up! Kylie said this is normal here and to get prepared to have a great deal of Patience. She is from Sydney and really struggled with this when she moved here. So we may be going dark again when we move into our new place. I've been trying to pick plans so we can get started on the process right away when we find a place, but it is really overwhelming. I'll figure it out soon though!
Today we have some meetings at some schools. We are going to have two tours followed by, surprise, more driving around! Hopefully we can seriously narrow our search area today and make some decisions. Once we pick a school everything else will fall into place! Wow, have I rambled, I'll try to keep my blogs shorter in future. So much to catch up on! Keep the e-mails coming, I LOVE hearing from everyone. It really makes my day to wake up to e-mails from home!!
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