Walking?...Walking?...On what? Surely you have to take the car?

Yesterday morning I woke up and found that we were out of fresh fruit and veggies in the house. As Andy had taken the car to work I couldn't take the car and go to the supermarket so I decided to see what I could do without a car. After a bit of research I found that I had two options. Either walk up to the Stop and Shop that we normally go to, about 1.8 miles there and 1.8 miles back, or catch a bus to the Shaw's supermarket a bit further away. As I hate trying to catch buses with the stroller, I figured that if I caught the bus Lexie would have to be in the wrap then anything I purchased I would have to carry by hand, that didn't sound like a great idea so I decided to put Lexie in the stroller and walk to the stop and shop. It actually turned out to be an easy walk, about 30 mins, nice and flat all the way, with a good foot path, however just when I thought it was all going well we hit a snag......At the junction of Taunton street and Highway 1, within view of my goal, the footpath stopped. I had no way of getting across the highway and even if I did there was no where to walk on the other side. I managed to run across the highway without too many problems (avoiding the policeman on the corner as I wasn't too sure what their laws on Jay walking are), but then I had a real problem, on the road leading to the supermarket there was absolutely no where to walk, no shoulder of the road, no verge nothing so I ended up just running down the road when no cars were coming....really safe. I just don't understand, they all complain about how terrible the petrol prices are, yet they make it impossible not to use a car....I was so annoyed. When it came time to go home I decided that the safest way to navigate the area was just to get to the island in the middle of the road and walk down that. I got quite a few weird looks, but hey! what can you do. But it looks like I wont be able to try that again. Next time I'll try the bus to Shaws..... On the other hand their supermarkets have implemented this new system which makes it much easier for me to shop with a Lexie in tow. It's calle Easy shop. As you walk into the store you swipe your savings card then it allows you to pick up a hand held scanner. You grab some bags then as you go around the shop you scan your item then put it straight into a bag. Totally eliminates the need to go through the checkout. Once you have all you want you can go to the self service check out , scan end of shop and pay as you would normally. I'm still not sure how they stop people form shop lifting, they do do random checks but it would be so easy to shop lift if you wanted to. But for me it eliminates that whole having to get everything out of the cart, then packed into bags and back into the cart whilst having a big lump strapped to my chest. On another note, it seems that Lexie has picked up a cold. Nothing serious, just a nice runny nose, a little cough and extra tiredness. Shes doing lots of "creaking" but other than that it doesn't seem to be bothering her too much. Hopefully it stays that way. Its a long weekend here this weekend, Andy has taken a couple of extra days off as well so we have a nice 5 days of relaxing in front of us (assuming Lexie lets us of course). Hi all, just want to add a little extra. Thanks to an Aussie friend who was visiting here, we got a "care package" from Australia. Tim Tams, Jaffas and Minties. Yum! But still no Bundy Rum. You can't get it imported. Full stop! Someone has to carry it across with them (duty free). It's available in Canada from a few places, but not here. And we can't import it from there either. So if anyone plans to come and visit...BUNDY RUM PLEASE!!! We've found a site that supplies all Aussie products for prices that are really quite cheap. And they ship anywhere within 24 hours. Vegemite is freely available so my advice for any visitors planning to visit us is... don't waste valuable luggage space by packing it. Save the space for something good. And I'm still trying to get my head around maple syrup-flavoured peanut butter. A disturbing mix but it tastes great! On another note, we've been advised that the swimming pool in our complex closes September 1 for the season. It's still usable (if it remained open) but the temperatures here are getting distinctly cooler, so pool-use is definitely dropping off. I remember being in Dallas in October and wanting to go for a swim after days of 35C temperatures, only to find the pool there had been closed for the season. That was a stupid move-pools in that part of the world are still usable right into November! Anyway "don't mess with Texas" is what I've been told and I plan to follow that. I'm currently writing a letter to the Texan people to apologise for the comments I just made in this blog, in the interests of international detente. I'll let you know how that pans out.

A "Normal Week"

Well theres not much happening over here at the moment. We're doing some reasearch as to what appliances to buy once we move into the new house (only 34 days to go), fridge , washing machine etc, the owners of the house have offered us the dryer and the dining room set so we're all set there. This morning Lexie and I went to Gymboree. A play center for babies. Lexie had a good time playing with the other kids though she wasn't really into the equipment, they didn't give her enough time on each piece to get into it before moving onto the next piece. She was much more interested in playing with the hard plastic ball then anything else. I was very impressed however when she actually let go of me whilst standing. She managed a good few seconds standing there balanced before toppling. Shes getting steadier and steadier every day. Well I have a "date" this afternoon. I'm going out to the movies with the girls from Andy's work whilst Daddy looks after Lexie. Should be a good afternoon, I just hope that Lexie will go to sleep for Andy and not scream at him all night....we'll see.....

Go the Paw Sox

Wednesday night saw Lexie and I at our very first "ballgame". Andy of course has been to numerous games and wanted to share his experience with us so, tickets to the Red Sox being so expensive, we decided to go check out a Paw Sox game. The Paw Sox are the minors team that feed into the Boston Red Sox. As soon as he announced his intentions at work however the entire office decided that they wanted to come too, so pretty soon we ended up with a crowd of 20 odd people coming with us...

As it was on a Wednesday night I dropped Andy off at work in the morning and took the car for the day so that I could get to the game, whilst he got a lift with some of the guys from the office. We met up at the Irish pub just next to McCoy stadium for a few pre game drinkies then headed across to the stadium.

We all had a great night, I don't think I held Lexie for more than ten minutes for the entire night as she was passed from person to person, until about 10pm, when 7 hours after her last nap she fell asleep on the lap of one of Andy co-workers "Pam".

We were soooo proud of our little girl, she was such a good girl all night, had a great time playing with all these new friends. And even better, the Paw Sox actually won........

The next morning however wasn't quite so much fun! we didn't get home till around 11:30 pm, then had to be up again at 7 to get up to Millis as we had to do our home inspection on the new house so lexie was a little on the grumpy side, but still had fun playing with the cockateil that was in the house. Thankfully there were no major issues found with the house and all the small issues ( tree branches across some power lines, wobbly toilet etc), the existing owners have agreed to fix before we get into the house.

Today we've spent relaxing and catching up on sleep. I'm going to try attaching a video here, this is Lexie just after she learnt how to use her sippy cup.

And the Answer is........

Wait for it...wait for it.......The Millis house.

We have made a decision and put in an offer on the Millis house and afer a bit of tooin and froing the offer has been accepted. So as of the 29th September we will be the proud owners of a 4 bed 1.5 bath ranch style house in the town of Millis.

Here are some photos of the place

We're very excited of course, it'll be so nice not to be living out of a suitcase any more. Also not having to house hunt on weekends will be nice.

Dillema

Well the Unit in Turramurra is now officially sold....and now for the next hurdle. Figuring out what to buy over here. We've been back to look at the proprty that we were originally interested in and whilst its still in the running we're just not sure any more - it needs a little bit of work (new windows). We've also seen another house that is really really nice, the only problem is that the neighbour hood, whilst nice, is not as nice as that or the original house. So now we need to figure out - do we go for the house that needs a little bit opf work, in a really nice neighbourhood, or the great house in the less great neighbourhood. So I'm going out looking at another couple of places this week whilst Andy's in Chicago and then we will need to make a decision this weekend. Arghhhhh!!! As I said, Andy's on a training course in Chicago this week, he left this morning (Tuesday) and will be back Friday evening so its just the girls alone at home this week. Last weekend after house hunting the three of us went out to "The feast of St Rocco" a local fair in Franklin with lots of good Italian food, a number of rides etc. Had a late lunch of Calzones and Cannoli, then Andy played the games in Sideshow alley and won Lexie a little purple dog. A fun afternoon out.

Red White and Blue!

OK, OK I know its been a long time since the last post, but I promise to keep this page more up to date now. Its been a bit tough the last few weeks. Why? Well we moved house and access to the internet has been a bit sporadic in the new place. FM Global paid for accomodation for us, for a period of 40 days. This comprised the 30 days that we were due plus the original 10 days that are for househunting, that we didn't take advantage of. It would have been nice at the time and would have allowed us to make a decision on Turramurra much sooner. Once our time was up...."Oi! You lot! Scarper! Right sharp like!" So we did. Since we didn't have a place of our own to move into yet we went looking for some more temporary accomodation and found this unfurnished 2-bedroom unit, located in the town of Plainville, MA. Our unit is on the top floor of three, and there are 12 units in our block. Our building is one of 10 buildings in a large complex, but you wouldn't know it. There is heaps of space for Lexie to run around in, there is a pool and a fitness centre too. We're living in it for 3 months, as this was the shortest time we could get and we are hoping to be in our own place by the time this lease expires.

Howwever, being unfurnished, we had to rent some basic furniture - yes it's comfortable, but it's not ours! However it will definitely do us for the short term. So we've rented the basic stuff, gone out and used our allowance for electronic goods to purchase the necessary items such as TV, microwave etc. But the main problem was the lack of internet. We got an internet connection with the TV cable package, and we could have accessed it through Andy's work computer but it would have been so difficult and restrictive that we've had to wait till we got our own computer in order to get back on-line. In the mean time Jen's had some intermittant access to the internet through the "business center" (2 computers and a printer in a room above the rental office) in the complex but with Lexie crawling around its been a bit hard. So now for the big catch up! 4th July was spent in Providence. Red, white and blue bunting, and Old Glory everywhere. Best thing about 4th July is the fireworks. Visions of Catherine wheels, bottle rockets, sparkly fountains and more crossed our minds many times in the lead up to the 4th July Holiday. This was going to be so much fun - Andy hadn't lit a firework since Queen's Birthday weekend 1980! But there was a hitch! Even though one of the things that you have on the 4th July is fireworks - there are 4 states in the USA which ban fireworks completely. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are two of them! What a bummer! You can go to see a fireworks show, but you can't let off your own. Of course there is nothing to say that you can't go across the border into Connecticut, New Hampshire or Vermont to buy fireworks and then sneak them back into Rhode Island, but you have to run the gauntlet at the state border. The Massachusetts and Rhode Island police patrol all the major roads and run random car checks to find and confiscate fireworks. It's like being in prison. The City of Providence normally has a fireworks celebration on Capitol Hill - but not this year. Due to the construction of several new high rise buildings around the launch site, the City cancelled the display siting safety reasons. The decision was communicated to the public on the 3rd July - however the city reached the decision on the 2nd May!! Native Rhode Islanders were very annoyed.

Well in the days after July 4th Jen finally managed to get some good photos of Providence so here they are.

Looking up the river towards Providence.

Looking out over Waterplace Park

Looking along the canal

Our building. Avalon at Centre Place

We moved out of Providence on the 8th July and into Plainville. Plainville reminds us of Dural. There are market stalls selling veggies all around. There's not a great deal to do around here without a car, but in our explorations Lexie and Jen found the World War 1 Memorial park in the next town of North Attleborough which has a minature zoo with horses and donkeys and llamas and ducks etc. Lexie and Jen had a lot of fun patting the animals and Lexie even managed to feed a carrot or two to one of the horses. She thought that was amazing. Well onto Lexie.

She's really coming along in leaps and bounds. She's gone from scooting on her bottom to full-on crawling now. She still loves cruising around the furniture and pulls herself up on just about anything these days but still no steps without holding onto something thankfully, she's hard enough to keep track of whens she's just crawling. Jen doesn't think she's' ready for Lexie to walk just yet!

Lexie now has a total of four teeth, the two on the bottom have been joined by two on the top and she's got a nice chomp on her these days. (Can I just say OUCH!!! - Jen) Still no hair though, just like her Daddy. She's still not sleeping well. This week we're trying something different just lying down with her to try asnd get her to sleep so far so good but we'll see in a weeks time whether this goes out the window too. She seems to have a couple of really good sleeping days then she'll spend the next two weeks screaming anytime your even think the word bed! We had a bit of a scare last week when she had a fever for three days straight. That really wasn't fun, especially as it was the week that Andy was down in Rome Georgia for work so Jen was all by herself. Jen got a bit stressed about it all and Andy felt completyely helpless when he got these upset phone calls and couldn't do a thing about it. And unfortunately we haven't set up doctors or anything yet so Jen spent two days calling around trying to get her into see and doctor. Unfortunately the doctor that the health insurance people recommended turned out to be a specialist who wouldn't see anyone without full medical records (which of course we don't have). It was really quite a trying experience. Andy let them have it with an abusive (well..politely rude anyway) phone call after what they told Jen. What rubbish! No wonder Jen was upset! Jen had her first outing without Lexie the other day. The girls from Andy's work were plainng a dinner and movie and invited Jen to come along (Andy pushed Jen to go to help her get over the whole doctor charade the previous week, not that she needed much in the way of persuasion) so Lexie was left with her Daddy and Mum went out for a nice Chinese meal. That was quite fun. Lexie and Jen also went and did a Gymboree class on Tuesday to try and meet some of the locals. Nothing really chnages, Lexie's still a bully! She needs to learn that eye gouging is not a nice way to inroduce yourself to new people! Unless you're on the footy field that is. Daddy is thinking he has a front-row forward in the making!

We took a trip to Salem MA on Sunday, last weekend. Andy had already been there, but thought it might be good to take Jen and Lexie for the day. It was hot and humid, but we really enjoyed ourselves. We visited the Salem Witch Museum, walked down to the Maritime Festival that was running all that weekend, and had lunch at the Salem Beerworks. Great food and they even had a Watermelon Ale. Yum! We followed the historical walk around town, that took us past all the sites, but did we take photos? NO! We forgot to pack the camera! Aarrggh! Jen bought a really nice scrying crystal at one of the "witch supply stores". Will she use it as a scrying crystal? Oh goodness, no. She just liked the look of the stone. Actually even Andy thinks it's cool! OK enough for now. We'll be in more contact now with the new PC. It's a beast with liquid cooling and some serious processing power. Unfortunately it's set up on a coffee table in the corner of the lounge room and barricaded aroound with cardboard boxes to prevent little hands from getting close. Andy can't wait until he has ihis desks back and can use the computer to it's full potential. We'll be getting the webcam up and running soon so should be able to speak to people in the next few days. Tomorrow is back to house hunting with the sale of the flat in Sydney now complete. Time to fins a new place! Bring it on!