Wipe, wipe, wipe

It's felt like a busy week with not much time for blogging unfortunately.  I think I may have to blog once a week from now on as it's hard to fit things in.

So this week has unfortunately involved sickness for both the girls.  They started getting runny noses on Monday (the downside of childcare I expect). By Tuesday afternoon Lydia was getting quite bad and on Wednesday she was not happy at all.  She slept most of Wednesday morning and that seemed to help her a lot.  By Thursday she was back to her smiley self.  Naomi managed to escape without getting too bad.  They both still have runny noses so tissues are never far from hand at the moment.

Naomi had her immunisations on Monday.  She was very brave and patient.  We had to wait a long time between seeing the nurse, then seeing the doctor, and then back to the nurses again for the actual jabs.  A long process.  Naomi was more shocked than anything when they put the needles in.  Two nurses put one each in her legs at the same time.  They then "reloaded" and jabbed her again (there were a few immunisations that she was short of).  It was for the second load that she had begun crying.  But Dad blew some bubbles in the room and I gave her a cuddle and she quickly stopped.  I was very impressed with her.  Thank you for your prayers.  She didn't suffer any side effects over the next few days other than bruises from where the needles had gone in.

Tuesday was Mum & Dad's wedding anniversary so we drove them to a restaurant in the evening for a romantic night.  But it was sad when they returned as it marked the end of Dad's stay.  I was very sad as it's been such a wonderful time.  Both kids seemed to love having him around. Pete drove him to the airport in the morning but nearly didn't.  Dad's alarm didn't go off so when Pete got up, expecting to find Dad eating his breakfast, he found silence and darkness.  Lucky Pete was taking him and not a taxi that would have just left if no one was ready.  But Dad got up quickly and got dressed and made it to the airport on time.

A good thing that happened this week was Naomi getting some full days at childcare. To start with they only had 3 mornings free but now some full days have come up.  So from 8th November she will stay all day.  Should be a good thing that she can join in for all the day's activities.  I'm hoping it means I can get a lot more done without having to drag her around all the boring things (so far Lydia hasn't been too bothered by the boring things!).

I also went along to a Mum's group this week.  It's a new group that someone has decided to start up as she is new to Anchorage.  It turns out that quite a few of the mums are new in town so I felt in the right place.  The Mum organising the group is arranging things for 3 days a week mostly.  Unfortunately, they are the days that Naomi is at childcare currently but once she starts full days we'll be able to make at least one of the meetups.  The group is aimed at the toddlers so it's a bit weird to go without Naomi.  Maybe once I've got to know them a bit I could go without her, particularly if the activity is something Lydia would like.

I joined the gym this week with my membership starting next week.  After 90 days we can cancel if we're not using it.  They have a crèche so I'm hoping the girls will like it and I can go during the week, during the day.  It's Pete who's not sure if he'll use it enough as he's so busy with work.  It's not Re-Creation but it'll do for while we're here.

On Mum's last day, Pete stayed home with the girls while Mum and I attacked the shops one last time.  We found another great sale and a really good shop.  It's a bit of a drive away but worth it I think.  We got some take-away for our last dinner together for this trip which was yummy but tinged with sadness at the thought of saying goodbye in the morning.

As expected it was very hard to say goodbye.  The girls don't really understand what's going on but I was a mess.  Lots of crying.  It's been so wonderful having Mum around, on so many levels.  Someone to talk to, she's helped with the kids, yummy meals she's cooked and the list could go on and on.  I'm going to feel very lonely without her.  She only left this morning so I'm still quite raw.  Won't say anything else, otherwise the tears may start again and water and computers don't mix too well!

Pete is going to New Orleans tomorrow.  A trip he had told me about a few weeks ago but I had completely forgotten about.  He leaves early in the morning and gets back very late on Thursday night.  So I feel a bit like a rabbit in headlights.  I've gone from having two extra helpers as well as a husband to just me.  It'll be an exhausting week.  We've asked Rachel (the girl who came to babysit for us when we went to the mayor's ball the other week) to come and help me out for a few afternoons.  It means an extra person to play with Naomi and help out with the awful bath/bed time routine.  One of them usually makes a fuss at that time so it'll be good to have someone to help me.  So hopefully the time will pass quickly while Pete is away.

It's been Halloween night tonight and quite a change from what we're used to.  Naomi loved having lots of Trick and Treaters at the house (although there were a few masks that scared her a bit).  We only just had enough candy (got to use the right words) for everyone and we'd bought over 150 pieces!  There were some great costumes and some really poor attempts.  But for the most part everyone was really polite and grateful which made it an enjoyable experience.  I'm actually looking forward to next year and taking Naomi out all dressed up (although we may have to trade her candy for a toy at the end of the night!).

That's about it - a busy week and a sad end to it.  Fingers crossed we all survive the next week.  Going to be a challenge.  Thankfully the snow hasn't fallen where we are quite yet but its creeping down the mountain and it won't be long now.  That may be one challenge too many for me this week!  Wish me luck!

Travelling and accents

The last few days have just been me, Mum and Dad and the girls as Pete has been away at a conference. It hasn't really felt like a weekend until the end and now it's over and into another week. Sad as it's the last week with Mum and Dad. In fact Dad leaves on Wednesday, but Mum not till Sunday.

Pete's conference has been good. Tiring for him as he's had whole days talking to new people and then more meet and greets at evening functions. But overall he was pleased with how it all went.

We've been doing more shopping (of course). I start to realise just how much shopping we're doing when Naomi's bedtime prayer goes something like this:

"Thank you God for the shopping trolley," (a special one with a kids car on the front)," and thank you God for the shops and the other shops and the other shop". Pete did look at me as if to say "no prizes for guessing what you've been doing while I've been away!"

I've spent a long time on the phone trying to sort out finding us a local doctor but have met all sorts of opposition on the insurance side of things. It's incredibly complicated. We have an international policy, looked after in the US by an American insurance company, and they don't seem to have any affiliated doctors in Anchorage. Eventually, I think I've managed to find somewhere for the kids to go but not Pete and I yet. I don't think we'll have out of pocket expenses but I'll believe that after the first appointment. We're taking Naomi tomorrow to get her immunisations and physical that she needs to be properly enrolled into her childcare. They have a slightly different schedule from Australia for immunisations so she has to have a couple more jabs. Not looking forward to it as she's much more aware now of what is going on and she's also pretty strong and willful! Hopefully between Mum & Dad, the doctor and I, we should manage to get the needles into her. Any prayers appreciated.

Not sure if I mentioned that we bought a chest freezer for our garage and Mum and Dad kindly took me to Costco to stock it up. Mum also bought me a cookbook focussing on freezing meals so I plan to do more bulk cooking so that on nights I can't be bothered to cook, I can just whip a home cooked meal out of the freezer. I'm sadly excited by this new way of doing our meals.

A concerning part of the last few days has been Naomi saying her first American word. At childcare they watched an episode of Spot the Dog. She was talking about it afterwards but we couldn't understand what she was talking about. The next day Mum gave her a Spot the Dog sticker book. She immediately started saying the same word she had been saying after childcare which we had interpreted as Spud. She was saying "Spuut" rather than "Spot". It's very amusing hearing her. It'll be so interesting seeing how their accents develop from having an English parent, an Australian parent and American teachers and friends.

Mum & Dad continue to go above and beyond in helping us out. Dad has even had two days in the last four where he has cleaned poo out of the bath after Lydia had a little accident. Not really necessary for a Grandpop but very much appreciated that I didn't have to do it. Mum is being an emotional support as well as providing incredible meals for us all and looking after the girls and a million other things. Dreading them leaving.

Church today was good but again Naomi started to act up afterwards. Managed to prevent the tantrums that we experienced last week but it's very interesting that there's something about it that she's not happy with. She doesn't cry when we leave her now and she seems to really like the lady who takes care of her in there. We're wondering if she's exhausted or maybe if they're giving her biscuits that are high in sugar and she's just reacting to that as she doesn't have much sugar in her diet. Guess we'll keep an eye on it and talk more to the lady in her room next week. I had to stay with Lydia for a while this week as last week she didn't fall asleep in the nursery there. So I stayed to get her to sleep and then she was absolutely fine.

Lydia is starting to get somewhere with her crawling now. She launches up onto her toes and hands in a push-up position and today she then leaned forward before coming down on her tummy. Not the most elegant way of moving forward but at least she managed to get to the toy which had been placed just out of her reach. Don't think it will be long before she is crawling about the place. Scary thought!

Obviously Naomi is over-the-moon to have her Daddy back. No more trips away for a little bit so she should be happy. That's all for now folks. Chat again soon.

And the fourth decade begins

It's been busy busy busy here! I picked a childcare centre for Naomi and she started attending today.  She will be going for 3 mornings a week to begin with and later this will probably become 2 or 3 full days.  Her first day went really well with no crying when I left her.  Hoping that continues but now that she knows Mummy is going to be leaving her there, she may not be so happy next time.  But let's think positively!

She's been a very good girl the last few days apart from a disastrous Sunday.  Not sure what the problem was but she had a big melt down after church and screamed the whole way home in the car.  Was fairly trying for the rest of the day too.  But then Monday morning arrived and she was the best little girl ever.  I suppose we all have our bad days!

She's also going really well on the potty training front.  We're haven't fully started yet, but she sits on the potty first thing in the morning and before bathtime in the evening.  She clearly knows what she's supposed to be doing now as most days she has some success at one or the other or both.  So I think it's time to be buying some big girls pants and get started!  Not looking forward to the accidents though!

I suppose other than the childcare, the big thing for this week was my birthday.  The big three-oh!  I had a lovely day.  Lydia was brought to me in bed for feeding and then taken away so I could go back to sleep.  Was so luxurious to have some extra sleep in the morning.  Then Mum and I went to downtown Anchorage to do some shopping.  It was really good fun discovering the new shops and best of all there was a big sale on in one of the shops so I got lots of new clothes.  I managed to save more than I spent in the sale.  Very successful.  Mum & I then had lunch together at a lovely Steakhouse.

In the afternoon, we had some birthday cake.  Kev, you would have been proud of the size of this cake!  Take 2 chocolate mud layer cakes and put them on top of each other and you have my birthday cake.  It was fabulous.  A chocoholics dream!  He then directed us all to the basement where he had prepared a birthday game for me to play.  He'd taken a huge piece of cardboard and fashioned a spinner onto it and drawn a dial with the numbers 1-30.  I was told to spin and that every spin won a prize!  That's 30 prizes people!  I got some lovely gifts, ranging from DVDs (The Unit as it's a bit difficult to borrow Pat and Danni's copy now!) to candles to a giant bucket/tin of popcorn (an essential keepsake for all future popcorn eating so I'm told!).  And the grand prize was a holiday.  As Pete's next birthday is a big one too, we've decided to get each other a holiday next year somewhere special.  When and where still to be decided.  It was a really fun game and Naomi loved helping with giving me all the presents and spinning the dial.

Then in the evening Pete and I made our way to Mamma Mia! the musical at the theatre.  It was fabulous.  Only downside was that we couldn't dance along to all the songs.  We sang our hearts out in the car on the way home.  Very fun.

Pete is off to Fairbanks tomorrow (another part of Alaska which is a flight away) for a conference. So we'll be trying to cope with the kids on our own until Sunday. Hopefully shouldn't cause too much problem with Mum & Dad being the amazing help that they are. They're helping me with the kids, helping me shop, helping me cook for Lydia, cooking for the rest of us, repairing things, researching things on the internet, and the list goes on and on. I'm not sure what I would have done without them or what I'll do when they leave. But they're definitely helping me to be set up here so that when they do leave more things will be in place to enable us to start a more routine and normal way of life (not that I know what normal is, especially in Alaska!).

The Help Arrives

Yippee!! Mum and Dad are here. They arrived on Monday afternoon and I can't believe I was coping without them. They are being so incredibly helpful. Naomi and I made a big sign to hold up for them at the airport. She was very proud of it and they seemed to like it. It was so fun showing off our house to them and we got all the right "ooh" and "aah" noises from them. Wasn't the nicest day weather wise so we had to wait a couple of days for them to get the magnificent views of the mountains but now they've seen them, Dad especially, thinks they are incredible.

And they got their Alaskan welcome from our resident moose. Seems like this Mummy and 2 babies must live somewhere near our house as it seems like the same ones we've seen each time. And don't be fooled by the term babies – they're still the size of a small horse. This time they came right up our driveway and were right outside the window. They made their way round the house so we were following them round trying to get the best photo of them.

It's been a busy but productive few days for most of us. Pete is getting frustrated by the amount of red tape he comes across at every turn and seems to spend most of his day in meetings and then needs to do his actual work after that. But he's still enjoying the new challenges the job is presenting for him. The rest of us have been entertaining kids, cooking endless meals for all members of the family, fixing up parts of the house (wifi, surround sound, stopping squeaking doors etc) and of course, shopping! We also got in a trip to the zoo which was fun but fairly cold. The temperature is definitely on a downwards slope.

I had a bit of an ill spell on Tuesday. Nothing major that some paracetamol couldn't solve but I still had a lack of energy for the day. Think the major thing is a lack of sleep. Even with the incredible help that Mum and Dad are being, I still seem to end up doing lots in the evenings and not getting to bed until really late. I'm looking forward to my birthday on Saturday when I've been promised that after feeding Lydia I can go back to bed for a bit! Not quite a lie-in but close enough. And then I'm supposed to be doing some shopping with Mum (no we haven't done enough yet) and then Pete and I are going to the theatre to see Mamma Mia! Should be a good day. And there's snow forecast too. Think that will be a first for me on my birthday.

Lydia has been a bit out of sorts the last couple of days. For the majority of the day she is fine but then she'll get distressed, usually around meal times. Today after she had eaten hardly any breakfast I lifted her out of her high chair and into her baby rocking chair where she proceeded to do the largest vomit I've seen from her. Poor thing. Not that she seemed that bothered by it 30 seconds later. Maybe she had an upset tummy. She was a bit distressed later in the morning but slept well at lunchtime and was fine for most of the afternoon until it got close to bedtime where she got grumpy again. There may also be a tooth coming through as well.

Tried to upload the video of the house again but it doesn't seem to want to do it. Maybe I'll try Facebook (apologies to those of you not on Facebook).

I visited a few childcare centres today for Naomi. They vary in location, availability and style. But I think I'll go with the one that happens to be the closest as I liked the centre and program and they also had a couple of half days available now and then I could go on the waitlist for some full days instead in the future. Fingers crossed that Naomi will be happy there.

I had written some more to today's blog but I had that joy tonight that most of us experience at some point with computers, of the program crashing before you've hit save! So that's all for now folks. I'm off to bed. Good night (or morning depending where in the world you are!)

A father's nightmare

Only one main exciting thing has happened in the last few days: Pete got his new car!  He is very excited.  He actually got a brand new one as he was able to get a good deal.  So he now has a Dodge Ram (white) and I have a Chevy Traverse (Maroon).  We are definitely doing the American thing!  Pete is so excited about his huge truck.

I've done various shopping trips over the last few days trying to fit our house out with essentials like chopping boards and clothes airers as well as fill our pantry a bit.  Over the weekend Pete looked after the girls so I could go and enjoy the shops on my own.  Good to have a break for a bit.

At the end of this week we finally dropped Lydia's last feed of the day (1030pm).  She was barely taking anything and now that we're settled in the house we thought it was about time we saw if she could go right through the night.  Unfortunately the first night wasn't great.  She woke up at 430am but was only awake for about 15mins.  And now the last two nights she has gone right through for 12+ hours.  Yippee!!  I kept expressing right up until we dropped the feed and so now I've been ramping down how much I express and tomorrow is the last one! Another yippee!!!  So now we have two little girls who sleep very well – praise God.

More playcentre adventures with Naomi.  We went to a different location one this time.  Same company, different centre.  So it was very similar.  This one had a racing track bouncy castle.  It was like an assault course that 2 people go round in opposite directions and race each other.  I had Lydia strapped in the Baby Bjorn on my front but Naomi couldn't figure out what she was supposed to do on this assault course.  So Lydia and I joined her in there.  All fine until we came across an obstacle where you have to squeeze through a small gap.  And this is made for kids so small is really quite small.  So here was I, practically doing the splits to get myself through, pushing the lower barrier down so Lydia didn't scrape her nose on it and thankfully I came out ok the other side.  It was quite a challenge but great to be doing fun stuff with Naomi.  She loved it and was exhausted by the end. 

Naomi also had a classic line this week.  She likes to say what her favourite things are sometimes.  So she'll say purple is her favourite, or Jeff is her favourite (Wiggle).  The other day some boys were running past our house in the street and she was watching them.  She turned to Pete and said "Boys are my favourite".  A father's worse nightmare.  She followed it up with "I like boys".  She's 2!  We're not supposed to be dealing with this yet!

Pete and I went to the mayor's charity ball on Saturday night.  Was really fun to get all dressed up and the warm hospitality here continued with the people we were sitting with.  We're getting so many offers to dinner it's hard to keep track.  We managed to get a babysitter the night before which was a relief.  A colleague of Pete's knew a teenage girl we could ask.  She was lovely.  She came round while the girls were still up and Naomi just wanted to show off to her.  So I felt happy about leaving her with them because I'd been a bit nervous about someone new and someone young.  I'd be happy to use her again if we needed to but apparently there may be someone on our street who babysits.  That would probably be more convenient.  We'll see.

So I promised you some photos.  I've also got a couple of videos but they're taking a bit long to upload right now.  I'll put those up next time.  Here are the photos for now.

Moose outside our house

Kitchen to the eating area 

 Playroom

 Sitting room with fireplace

 Sitting room from balcony above

 Windows with view of the mountains and the inlet seen from balcony at the top of the stairs

Kid's bathroom (1 of 4 bathrooms!)

Corridor to guest room and laundry and bathroom (Lydia making a staring appearance)

Lydia's bedroom

Naomi's bedroom (sunset coming through the window) 

From the top of the stairs across the balcony towards the master bedroom

 

Master bedroom

 View from the master bedroom tonight

Master bathroom



Master bathroom spa

So there are some shots of our house.  I'm not the best photographer and there is a whole floor of the house I didn't take any pictures of.  But hopefully you'll all be coming to visit soon so it won't matter anyway!!

Radio silence (well internet silence)

We're online! After a few days without the internet (or longer if you count the intermittent wifi signal in the hotel) we finally have access to the internet again. So here is our update of the last few days.

Church on Sunday. We're still trying to get used to the new church. Lydia is ok as she's too young to get the separation anxiety thing. Naomi screams the place down when we leave her but apparently she is calm within a couple of minutes. The worship is less animated than we've been used to so that is taking some adjusting but the teaching is good. It's difficult with the kids to consider trying different churches to see what a good home for us would be. The ministry for the children is so awesome where we've found so that may win us over. But we'll stick with where we are for now and just keep assessing.

Pete took Naomi swimming in the afternoon and they were there for ages. They had great fun. Good for both of them to use up some energy! Naomi had on a life vest type thing for kids so now she is throwing herself in the water without Pete catching her and she floats around on her own too. Sometimes she wants to feel Dad's reassuring hand but mostly she has so much confidence. Good to see. Pete and I then had a good evening watching Robin Hood in the hotel room. Was nice just to stop and not think about all the things going on and what we could/should be doing.

Monday was a nothing sort of day but felt busy. I bought Naomi some shoes in the morning which she is still trying to get used to putting on herself. We then went over to the house in the afternoon to see if the beds had been delivered and whether we would be ready to move in on Tuesday. Beds were there but the frame for Naomi's bed (goes underneath the mattress base here) was out of shape and the headboard put together incorrectly. But nothing significant enough to stop us moving in so we spent Monday evening packing a load of suitcases and I did a trip to the house so I could get some stuff organised before the kids were there too. I wish I had more time to arrange everything without the kids around. I'd love to get the house organised so that everything had a home. With such a beautiful house it's a shame to just have stuff dumped everywhere. Maybe when Mum and Dad arrive next week I can do some of that and really make our house a home.

So we moved in on Tuesday. The cable guy came and connected the TV but as you can tell from the silence, the internet didn't get connected properly. We've spent a few days trying to get it sorted and finally someone came out with a new modem for us today. Lydia's been having trouble adjusted to her new cot (crib here). She's been waking up at lunchtime and needing me to go in and resettle her and sometimes in the evening too. So far today she's been ok and has settled herself back to sleep. Hoping that soon she'll stop waking up and crying at all. When I don't get the break at lunchtime I tend to get a bit overwhelmed and this happened on Tuesday. Was feeling homesick and just wanted everything back to normal so I had a little cry which always helps.

Naomi got her "big girl's bed" and seems to love it. We bought a blow up mattress for the floor in case she rolls out but we haven't heard her fall down so I think she's been ok. She looks very cute in it. She doesn't really seem to know what to do with the pillow as she's not had one in her cot before. She either doesn't use it or has her whole top half of her body lying on it!

As I get more things unpacked the place is starting to feel more like home. Will be good to get our own furniture in here though.

I got my new mobile/cell phone too. I got an iPhone 4 which I'm very excited about – it's beautiful! I'll be sending out a contact details email in the coming days so let me know if you haven't received anything in about a week and I'll let you know the best way to contact us.

The rental furniture company is not proving very reliable so far. Finally got our bedroom set delivered but one piece had been damaged in shipping so they took it away and didn't deliver the next day when they said they would. Finally arrived after lots of phone calls to them. But we're still missing the remote control for the DVD player so we'll be waiting for another visit from them sometime soon.

I've been doing lots of cooking for Lydia. These early stages of solids are tough going. There's so much cooking to do to ensure she gets a variety of meals. And when I have no food stock in the house it's quite a chore to cook any new meal. Slowly building up a supply of things but it feels like I'm dragging the kids to the shops everyday at the moment which Naomi is getting very fed up with (hopefully she'll learn that shopping can be fun!).

Stayed inside on Wednesday afternoon and while Naomi was being difficult for most of that time we did have a fun moment when I happened to glance out the window and saw two moose in our neighbours garden. It's weird seeing such a large animal happily chomping on the plants and trees right in front of the house. I got a photo but haven't loaded it onto the computer yet. I'll put that and some of the house up next time.

Pete was able to pick up a self install kit for our home phone and we got that connected today. At least that's one thing that has gone reasonably well and quickly. Nearly all the boxes from our air freight are unpacked now (just some clothes and a few toys still to go). We did find three broken casserole dishes so we may make a claim on those. But nothing sentimental has been damaged so far. Hopefully the same will be true of our air freight.

Ok, you're probably all a bit fed up of reading our boring tales. Let's end it there. Next time some exciting photos I promise!

Houses and car – check!

No prizes for guessing what two exciting things took up the last 2 days for us. Friday was spent at the new house. Our air freight arrived from Australia so Pete went to the house first thing to take that delivery. I then took the kids over later in the morning to wait for our rental furniture to arrive. It took them over 4 hours from when they first arrived, including a second trip to the warehouse and back as their truck was too small to deliver everything in one go. And after all that time we still didn't have one of the bedroom sets or a lead for the TV. So we arranged that on Saturday and they are arriving on Tuesday. We've got beds coming in a separate arrangement on Monday (hopefully, but like most things so far I'll believe it when I see it). So hopefully by Tuesday we should be ready to move in and sleep there. While the guys unloaded the furniture, Naomi & I unpacked a couple of the toy boxes from the air freight. Was really fun playing with lots of the old toys again. Her favourite cuddly toy is a big Woody (from Toy Story). I tried to give her clues that I was getting him out of the box but she couldn't guess. When I finally said "Woody" she looked a bit confused and then you could see the light go on in her head. Her mouth went open and she went "oh, oh , my BIG Woody!" She was so excited. I wish I had it on video. It was adorable. She gave him a big cuddle.

While we were at the house, Pete left work and went to each of the utility companies to sign us up. These processes all take time but hopefully everything went through ok & we have all the utilities. The cable (phone, internet & TV) won't be working straight away though. Someone is due to be coming to the house on Tuesday to do internet & TV but phone line may not be done until middle of the month. We may be able to speed that up once we have the internet and TV part done. More loops and as Pete says "we just keep on jumping".

I'll put photos up of the house, or maybe a video on Facebook, once we have all the furniture and we can do a proper tour to show you all.

Of course, Friday held AFL Grand Final 2010 The Sequel. And with a Pies win, Pete was very happy and jumping around the room!

We only had one incident on Friday with Naomi. As we were leaving the hotel room, I realised I had forgotten something. I asked her to come back into the room which of course translated in her head as please run off down the corridor. As I came out the room I heard the lift doors open (she loves to press the call lift button). Then I heard the doors close. As I got there – no Naomi! I could hear the doors open on a floor below and people talking – obviously discovering a small child on her own. Eventually they let the doors close again and the lift came up to get me. Lydia and I went down to the floor below and then to the ground floor. No sign of Naomi. Panic beginning to creep in now and thoughts of all the horrible stuff you see on TV are coming to mind. But I made my way to the front desk as that's where I would take a young child I found alone. And sure enough there she was. After thanking the nice man (mercifully not a nasty man) I tried to explain to Naomi how she mustn't run off but I don't think any of it was taken in.

Saturday we spent looking at cars. There was a silent auction type sale on so Pete had a brief look there and it turned out to be the same dealership we had previously visited. In the afternoon we went back to the dealership and saw a different car that we hadn't been able to have a look at yet. And to cut a long story and negotiation short, we got it! So this is my car. It's a 2009 Chevrolet Traverse. It has 8 seats (one less reason for not coming to visit us!). Pete is now feeling very poor but I'm super excited as I love it! It's going to take a bit of time to get used to how big it is but I know it'll be great for us. Now we just need to find one for Pete.

We've had various issues in the hotel, main one being the internet. We have a wifi connection in the room and the signal strength has been at best poor. It always cuts out on us, so apologies for not being in better touch with you all. And tonight after our big spend, we decided to get an in-room movie. After 45 mins fiddling with the remote, numerous calls to reception and one guy coming up to have a look, we realised we were not going to get our movie in. Very frustrating as I'd been looking forward to seeing it since I saw it advertised on the front desk when we arrived. Oh well.

Last thing I want to mention is how wonderful my second daughter is. They are both wonderful of course but Lydia keeps surprising me at how tolerant she is being throughout this whole settling process. She is being dragged around in the Baby Bjorn or the pram and is usually completely silent so we almost forget she's there. She gives huge grins to anyone who looks at her. She constantly has to be fed late as we finish up somewhere and she barely moans. We are truly blessed. Just wanted to give Lydia the good girl award for today!

The house is yours, or is it?

A lot can happen in a couple of days. So Wednesday was supposed to be the day Pete went to sign the lease agreement on the house. All very exciting that it would soon be ours. However, when he got there to do the inventory on the state of the house he found quite a few things wrong with the place. So we had to ask for repair guys to come in before we would sign. Some of the items were significant, like the doors on the back of the house didn't lock – very secure! So then Thursday he went back to check over everything and it was all ok, thankfully. Still not clean, so we don't intend to leave it spotless when we vacate. We're hoping to get a cleaner in on Friday before we actually move in, but we're paying for that. So after checking the house, Pete went to the real estate agent's office and signed the papers. Yippee!! We have a gorgeous new home! Now we're just praying that nothing breaks whilst we're there as we have to deal directly with the landlord, which comes with risks. But it's a fairly new build (2004) so hopefully nothing too disastrous will happen.

I have had a rather up and down couple of days, revolving around the terrible twos. I took them both to the Alaska Museum which has a section called Imaginarium. It's a science section which usually means lots of buttons for kids to press and they can see fun things happen. We'd been to Scienceworks in Melbourne before we left and it was brilliant (parents in Melbourne with young kids who haven't been, I highly recommend it). However, I was slightly unimpressed. It just wasn't as big as I had hoped. Obviously some of the exhibits require reading the signs and having some understanding of how the world works, and following the instructions to see the cool thing happen. So those ones go over Naomi's head. And unfortunately at this place that didn't leave many things for her to play with. There was a specific young kid's play area but it was almost a bit too young for her and she got bored easily. So it didn't take us long to be finished, which worked well as I needed to give Lydia her solids. So we made our way to one of the museum cafes and I started to feed Lydia. So of course Naomi took this as her cue to run off and out of sight. I had to keep going to find her. She was never far but I still wanted to keep her in my sight. When I announced we were leaving and not going back into the exhibits, she had a massive tantrum in the middle of the quiet atrium. The tantrum included a kick to Lydia's head so she was screaming too. Highly embarrassing. So I had to walk through the museum with two screaming children to get to the exit. Once at the car, I must admit I also decided to join the girls in having a little cry. I'm finding it really hard dealing with Naomi's playing up (even though I understand it, it's still hard to cope with).

Thankfully Pete came back to the hotel for lunch, so I was able to regain my sanity. We all traipsed off to the social security place to get our numbers. However, it turned out that only Pete was eligible for one so it was a bit of a waste of time for me and the girls. However, I did get to chat to Phyllis (our relocation consultant) and Shell has agreed to get her to buy the things we need in the house that we cannot rent. So I was able to give her a big shopping list from beds, to hand towels, to saucepans to pillowcases. Think it would be a fun shopping trip for her – I wish I was allowed to do it. But it's awesome that Shell is helping us out in getting settled before our shipping container arrives.

I also went to the first week of a 4 week class at church called Starting Point. It follows on from the welcome event we went to at the weekend. It breaks down some of the principles that the church lives by. Was quite interesting and good to have some time away from the hotel on my own. I had also missed having that time to study God's word during the week. I read my Bible every day but studying it and talking it out is very different. Think it made a difference to how I faced the following day. Pete will go to the class next week and hopefully we can both attend the following two weeks.

I went back to the play centre with Naomi today and she was very well behaved and didn't kick up a big fuss when I asked her to leave. Was good to get some energy out of her.

And a final point. You'll all be pleased to hear, that I now have straight hair again! Woohoo! My straighteners arrived and they are beautiful, complete with their own special little bag. Aaahh – life is good!