Settling In

We moved ourselves into our new house last weekend. Despite a few teething problems (dishwasher, stove, heat, hot water all didn't work initially), we now feel quite set up and at home. It's nice to have a house that's flat as a pancake -- we can let the intrepid Georgie do her own exploring without baby gates or other accessories. And we are so nicely de-cluttered (our stuff on the slow boat doesn't arrive for another month) that we're automatically quite baby-proofed. We rather like the minimalist existence -- we're not sure we're going to know what to do with the stuff when it eventually wends its way here.

Marc is delighted to find that his commute is the promised 20 minutes, sometimes even less. He commutes with two short walks and a tram ride, so it's a fair bit more pleasant than a 10 mile highway drive (his old commute). He's enjoying his new job, which he started last week.

Serena has discovered that life with two young kids is still... life with two young kids. But she's enjoying the warm and mild weather, a more kid-friendly house, and catching up with friends and family.

Owen had a hair cut last week and was overjoyed to discover that his new hairdresser plays Wiggles videos while she cuts (a very smart move). Georgie was a bit cranky for much of the week, but is now sporting a new tooth, so maybe that explains it. She's not walking yet, but continues to stand... and stand (clearly wondering what to do next).

Kangaroos

On Sunday, we took a trip to a local golf course -- doesn't sound too exciting, except that it was positively overrun with kangaroos. These are not zoo kangaroos, these are the genuine article. So, it was pretty exciting for Owen and the rest of us to wander freely among the kangaroos and flying golf balls, and escape with our lives (the golf balls were far more of a threat than the very tame kangaroos). The weather was beautiful all weekend, so we also spent a couple of days at the beach -- everyone's starting to look a lot more tanned and healthy. This week is more mundane -- we're hoping to move into our new house at the weekend, so there are still plenty of logistics to cover in the meantime.

Australia Day!

This is the Australia Day 3-day weekend, so we'll be heading to the beach for a few days for some R&R. It's been a hectic time for our little family, trying to get ourselves set up here, so a few days of downtime will be nice. We adults spent several hours yesterday morning in a sea of IKEA boxes, pretending to be carpenters. Made some progress, tho sometimes it feels like you're starting with just the planks.

Owen started "school" this week, and seems to really be enjoying himself. By some miracle they've managed to get him to eat fruit there, too.

The race is on

Georgie is desperate to walk -- she's a determined little thing, and now spends most of her day pulling up on chairs, couches, legs, radiators... If she manages to stand for a minute, she breaks into the most delighted smile. We'll be moving into our new house in about 10 days, and we're hoping to get there before she takes her first steps. But it could be a near thing....

We have a house!

On Tuesday, we signed a lease for our new house, and got the keys yesterday. Phew. Seeing 13 houses with kids in tow was quite enough. We'll be living in Armadale, close to a park and shops. And Marc's commute will probably be around 20 minutes by tram (Owen's mesmerized by trams -- we get a full tram report every time one passes by).

The house itself is cute and looks little -- only about 15 feet across at the front -- but is surprisingly deep. The hallway is about a quarter of a mile long, which'll be great for the kids (they love tearing up and down hallways). Three bedrooms, a laundry/study (yep, that combo surprised us too, but it may just be crazy enough to work), and a big kitchen/dining/living with doors to a back yard with clothes line and some space to play. Off-street parking too, which is a great luxury for us.

Our address is on the left, and there are also some new photos. We'll probably move in at the end of the month, but we can collect mail from there anytime. Yay!

House Hunting

In the last week, we've visited 13 houses.... The baseline was set on Tuesday -- the elegant 4 bedroom home that sounded so nice on paper was falling apart in real life, and there was an actual cockroach wandering across the front hall when we let ourselves in. Ugh. Owen & Georgie joined us for 9 of the houses, and did great -- Owen kept rushing in and saying "there's no furniture in this house EITHER!", like it was some amazing coincidence. And then he would busy himself opening and closing cupboards and chatting with the realtor. In any case, we have an application in now on a place we all like, so let's hope it comes through. If not, more house-hunting for us...

The other logistical task was trying to get ourselves cell phones (or as they're called here, "mobiles"). We wandered into the first shop like total innocents, not realizing that our simple question about plans would be met with a flood of totally incomprehensible information in a language we couldn't understand. Turns out, it's all different here -- rather than buying minutes, you buy dollars, which are then eaten up at a variable rate depending on the company, the phone, the time of day, the phases of the moon, etc. Five days later, we're still confused.

It's been warm this past week -- it got to 110 degrees on Thursday as we visited open houses. But it's not too humid, so we all made it through OK. We parents had dinner on the beach on Thursday night, which was a nice perk. And this week, we'll be leaving the kids behind as we go to the Australian Open tennis. Updates as events warrant!

In Australia!

Many of you have been wondering whether we actually made it over here, and so here's the official confirmation -- we did indeed. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. We didn't manage to update the site earlier due to ... well, you'll probably get the picture when you read the rest of this.

The flight went about as smoothly as it could, given that it involved taking 2 kids under 4 and eleven pieces of luggage across a very broad ocean. Which is to say, the planes left mostly on time, we didn't miss either of them, and the luggage came too. And that was pretty much our fondest hope for the day. A few things didn't go as well. Airport security confiscated our sunscreen and a large bottle of Georgie's favorite diaper lotion (it was supposed to be in checked baggage, but well, eleven pieces of luggage!!). More of a problem, Owen developed some kind of stomach bug that had him vomit on both plane flights AND in the airport. Nice. The really well prepared parent might bring two changes of clothing (we only had one), but I defy any parent to be so Boy Scouty as to bring three changes. Owen deplaned in Melbourne wearing just his stripy pajamas (and he was frankly lucky to have those).

Perhaps due to the sickness, Owen worked himself into a state of extreme tantrum on the cross-Pacific leg, which resulted in him receiving serious talkings-to in the bathroom from each parent at one time or another. We can now confirm that the bathrooms are not very well sound-proofed -- a three year old's defiant screams still travel through the locked door to every corner of the plane. Lucky we'll never be seeing any of those people again :-).

Serena's parents met us on arrival and took us straight to the beach. By that point, Serena had Owen's stomach bug too, and Owen had developed pink eye. Georgie was still on antibiotics from her last-minute ear infection (which we just caught in time for her to fly), so we were a sorry lot. But it's amazing what a few days of sunshine and comparative relaxation can do. We're now all in one piece (well, four pieces) and busy trying to find ourselves a place to live. We'll keep our contact details updated (that's them, scroll up and to the left).

Photos will follow soon -- we've been lousy about remembering to bring the camera with us to record all these pink-eyed moments. We're missing those of you from Boston and New York, but looking forward to catching up with those of you down here.