Italian, Italian, Italian.....Mexican (Part 5)

Monday morning we relaxed, tried to let Lexie get some more sleep, as she's still a bit unsettled at night. At lunch time we walked into Federal Hill, otherwise known as "Little Italy" to get some food. We wandered down past many cafes and pizzerias, but couldn't find anything we really wanted, until we got to the last place......just happed to be Mexican. OK, so we were in Little Italy, but we couldn't resist. It was really good Mexican food too. (Standard Disclaimer follows - But not as good as El Chaparel.) Actually it was better...ssshhhhh! Don't say that out loud! :-) It seems though that Lexie's decided, after such a great start, to be disinterested in food. I don't know if it's just the extra milk that she's been getting lately with all these night wakings, but she no longer seems interested in the solids. Hmmmm.. children, go figure. She hasn't lost any of her charm though, at dinner she entranced the waitress to the point where the waitress spent ages chatting to her. Tuesday - poor Andy had to go to work. However he was allowed to come home early, which was good, as Tuesday was the day that we got into our apartment. Lexie and I got up with Andy and we all headed up to Norwood together. I dropped Andy at work, then took my first turn at driving. Lexie and I headed back out to the Medway region to look at a bunch of houses we'd seen on the Net. Spent the entire morning driving around, getting a feel for the areas, before picking Andy up and heading back to Providence. The new place is really good, a 2-bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor. Lots of living room space, full kitchen, two bathrooms, in fact almost as big as our place in Turramurra. There's a pool in the complex, and the complex location, right in the centre of downtown, is fantastic.

Wednesday was a relaxation day (well it was for Lexie and I, Andy had to work). We tried the pool out. As you can imagine, Lexie was in her element. She's also now back to sleeping beautifully, Only waking up once overnight. Thursday the girls went for a walk up around Brown University. The East Side of Providence is a really nice area, wish we could afford to live there, though that would mean a big commute for Andy. (wouldn't be too bad only a little further than now , if we could afford the houses- A). When Andy got home, we took our first trip to the supermarket. Oh what fun, so many choices! Friday- more househunting. Lexie and I headed up to Norwood with Andy, then out to Medway. This time I went straight to a real estate agent. They were so helpful. Printed out a list of everything in the area we're looking at, in our price range, gave me full run of their building and facilities, then after I'd made a short-list, set up appointments for us to see the places on Sunday (these people open houses on Sunday not Saturday). Met up with Andy in the arvo, along with a couple of his new work mates. Stopped at the next door hotel (as in motel) for a couple of drinks. Lexie learnt a new skill. Pole dancing! It involved standing on the table using the umbrella pole as support. Nothing rude, so don't call DOCS on us. People at other tables started laughing and pointing at her while she was doing it. Again she's charmed the locals. She only got $20 for her efforts...hee hee hee! And Mummy got a bit of a surprise too. There's a tooth! The bottom left hand front tooth is starting to poke through. Oh no! Sleepless nights? We'll see......!

Sunday - a day of rest & househunting (part 4)

Slept in again this morning. Well, we needed it. Lexie was still adjusting to jet-lag (but was getting better). But we left the hotel at around 8.30-9am The plan of attack was to do the drive up to Norwood, MA (where Andy was to report to work on Tuesday), to get an idea of the roads, travel times, traffic, the amount of moose/racoon/bears/rednecks on the roads, the speed limits, the hiding places for police...you get the idea. Travel time? About 40 minutes. Arrived at Norwood. Brought back some major memories for Andy - all of them good! We headed into the town of Norwood itself, turned out to be very pleasant. Really nice little place. Breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. Where, once again, Lexie turned on the charm for the locals. As they came in the door the first thing they saw as they waited in line was Lexie, and didn't she enjoy the attention!! Drove out towards Medfield, Medway, and the other towns in the area. Saw some beautiful places, and yes there are plenty on the market. However it would be better described as "quantity...not quality". In order to find what you're looking for, you really have to hunt! We have at least decided that this is the general area that we want to look in. Quaint little towns, lots of green, a bit on the rural side in places, now we just have to find the house. And only a short drive for Andy to work. Stopped for lunch in a little place called Bellingham. No, not the one near Seattle! :-) Dropped into the local Dairly Queen (probably our biggest issue with the area, not much in the way of eateries that aren't either sit-down restaurants or fast-food outlets), picked up a burger each and took then over to the town common just across the road, and had a picnic in the park. Gorgeous weather, about 24C and beautiful blue skies. Lexie enjoyed herself playing with blades of grass etc and watching the other kids fly kites. She is getting so much steadier on her feet. She had a big walk holding onto Daddy's hands with no prodding on what to do with her feet. A smidge more balance, and she'll be walking by herself. We aren't pushing her. We actually want her to be controllable for a few more months (years?).

Drove back to Providence, ruling out a couple of other areas (Woonsocket and Attleboro) that weren't quite what we expected. For dinner we splurged and headed to the local McCormick and Schmick seafood place. We were hoping Lexie would sleep through the meal again and took her in the pram, but it didn't work so well. There was no room on the table for Lexie to sit, so we had to try and eat our dinners whilst contending with the little octopus, I mean really, how long are your arms girl........????

Waterfire - Flames on the River (part 3)

Our first morning in Providence we spent.......can you guess how?..... sleeping. About 2 pm we decided we should get out and get some sunlight to try and help us adjust. So we went for a walk up into the historic part of town - Benefit Street. Very nice. georgous buildings, tree lined streets. We dropped into an Irish pub (Ri Ra) for a late lunch. Again Lexie was a major hit as she sat on the table - the waiters decided that they needed one (i.e. a Lexie) as a centerpiece for each table. Though when they went to clean up the table they may have changed their mind. The mess that she made wouldn't have been fun to clean up - she decided that she wanted to share the salad that I was having, and by sharing I mean grabbing handfuls , shoving them in her mouth and then spitting them back out. Lovely hey! We headed over to the Mall to try and get some information about phones, and in doing so found the nearest Dairy Queen. Mmmmm........... Blizzards. Then back to the hotel to rest up before heading out to "Waterfire". Waterfire is a attraction put on by Providence where they build bonfires all down the canals running through the centre of town. The bonfires are built in braziers that sit up out of the water and in these the fires burn. They then pipe music in, set up lots of food stalls, get some bands playing and you have a festival. All the time there are gondolier rides up and down the canal (you pay for these of course) and there are people in fancy dress going around in boats as well. Every so often the "fuel boat" will come along past the braziers adding more wood to keep the fires burning.

It was actually really great, we wandered along the canal soaking up the atmosphere. Lexie missed the whole thing. We put her to sleep before we left the hotel and put her into the pram and she slept through the entire thing, only waking up when we stopped at Subway on our way home to pick up dinner. I know Subway, but hey, our hotel room didn't have a kitchen let alone a fridge!! So something quick and easy was the ideal choice. We hope to put up photos soon once we get the camera and the computer up and running - it's a little hard on the laptop.

The Adventure Begins (part 2)

Well were here. We arrived. I apologise in advance but I'm going to post this in a couple of parts, a full diary of our first couple of days for anyone who is interested. The flight over was a bit harsh but we made it. The initial flight from Sydeny to LA was actually really good. Lexie was a dream, fell asleep during takeoff, woke up for dinner, scared Mum and Dad to death when she decided to try and stand up in the bassinnet whilst we were eating, thankfully she didn't make it all the way to her feet. Then went to sleep for the night. She had a bit of a squall when she went to bed but 5 mins later she was asleep, and she slept through to breakfast. The only problem was that our plane left Sydney 3 hours late, so of course we missed our connection to Chicago. They originally put us on the next available flight out at 11.50 pm that night (we had arrived in LAX at about 10am), in the process downgrading us to an Economy seat (awahhhhhhh!) but the nice lady who went to check us in took pity on us and instead booked us on the 6 am flight out the next day and got us a hotel room for the night. Sounds great doesn't it.......hmmm too bad it didn't turn out that way. The hotel that we were booked into (The Embassy Suites North) was fantastic, we got a one bedroom apartment with Kitchenette which was great. Unfortunately Lexie had serious jet lag and refused the sleep for more than 20 mins at a time for the entire night. Man was that hard. At about 1am we gave up and got up and played with her till we had to get ready to go back to the airport at 4 am. By this stage we were all totally buggered and we still had a full day of travelling in front of us. Well at least I now know... just do the trip in one go and get it over and done with. In The Hotel in LA The flight to Chicago was not too bad. Thankfully Lexie slept for the majority of the flight and we managed to get in a bit of sleep too, then there was a four or so hour wait at Chicago and a final flight from Chicago to Providence, again we managed to get in a bit of a nap, but not without a bit of a fight, and lots of jigging around in my seat. Bill managed to get a severe crick in his neck - US planes are not made for people over 5 feet in height! More dramas ensued when we reached Providence at 6pm- they didn't have our hire car resevation. Because we were due in that morning, they'd cancelled our reservation. Took another good half hour to get that sorted, then a short drive into Providence and checked into the Hilton. First impressions of Providence were good. Looks like a very nice place. As we flew in the one thing I noticed was that it seemed a lot less densly populated that I had expected, with lots and lots of green space which is always good. Had a quick wander around the block to try and find something to eat that didn't involve sitting down and making Lexie behave for longer, but couldn't find much as we were in the Financial District, so we ended up by Lexie and I heading back to the hotel whilst Bill walked up into Little Italy and got a take-away Pizza. It was actually a really good pizza - more than 3 toppings! And thus ends our journey.

The Final Countdown (part 1)

This week has been a bit of a roller-coaster. I think it's finally hit us that we haven't got much time left in Oz. Nervous? You bet! Excited? Definitely! The final round of farewells has been really hectic. We think we managed to see everyone we had to... and them some. There just aren't enough hours in the day sometimes. Today was spent doing preliminary packing. Cupboards were emptied, rubbish taken out and things in the house have been tagged with different coloured bits of paper. It almost looks like a confetti storm has hit the place. And the job is only just started. I walked into the kitchen at about lunch time and there was Lexie proud as punch on the kitchen floor with a bag of Doritos in her hands. was all I could hear. Needless to say there isn't much left in the way of edible chips in the bag anymore. Anyone for breadcrumbs? We decided this week that Lexie really needed some solid foods. She was sooo interested in everything we were eating, trying to grab it out of our hands and just giving definite hungry signs so we just decided to do it.....and Lexie LOVED it. She ate it all up with barely a drip leaving her mouth, then screamed for more when it was all gone.

Tomorrow we have the movers.....2 days of complete household disruption. We think we've given family everything we need to and have started packing what we think we'll need. Only time will tell whether we are right. The house? Still don't know. Showed some tenants through over the weekend but haven't heard anything as to the "if and when" they are taking the place. This is probably the most nerve-wracking part of the move. Will we be able to live with 2 mortgages - one relatively cheap and the other? Well let's just say, if the bank keeps raising interest rates above and beyond those of the Reserve Bank, I'm going to have to sell blood. Time will tell. At this point we only have 4 more sleeps until the plane trip.....the clock is ticking.