Dirty clothes, three fridges, and meat pies

Has it been a week already since I last posted? Where do I even start? I guess I should update more often so I don't get so behind. I guess I will just start where I left off last week.

Laundry Wednesday
The week we moved in was absolutely crazy and we were exhausted by the end of it (I think you got that from my last post). Okay so we share the washer and dryer on our floor with 3 other apartments and we have assigned times to do our laundry. For some reason our apartment has the least amount of time to do the wash- Sunday morning and Wednesday morning while the other apartments have at least a full day and a half if not more. Obviously we can't do laundry on Sunday morning since we go to church so that leaves Wednesday from 7 -12 in the morning.

Well from all the moving around we had acquired quite a bit of dirty laundry and I was SO excited for Wednesday morning to come so I could get our clothes washed and dried (we had been going for over a month without a dryer remember). I was pretty discouraged around this time because I didn't feel quite at home yet and our fridge wasn't working. I seriously set my alarm for 7 Wednesday morning and woke up extremely happy to clean our clothes. Well each apartment has a power point (outlet) to plug in the washer and they are all locked. So we got the key for ours and it turned out the lock was totally busted but Todd worked on it and about 20 minutes later he got the lock off. Phew! So we put in all our dirty underwear and waited for the washer to finish the cycle. When it did, we put our clothes in the dryer but we could not figure out how to turn it on! There was no "on" button and we tried everything we could think of but it did not start. We asked a neighbor but apparently she has her own washer and dryer in her apartment (maybe we can use her days in the future??) and she couldn't figure it out but she gave us the number of an older lady who is like the secretary of the apartment building.

We called her and sure enough she said the dryer was broken! Just our luck. Nothing seemed to be coming easy to us at this point. I hope we weren't the ones that broke it. However she was the sweetest lady ever and she offered to dry our clothes in her dryer. She did and she even folded all of our clothes before she happily returned them to us. We had all of our underwear/garments in the load and we wondered what she thought of that?! Sadly, we were not able to do all the laundry I had hoped for so I am looking forward once again to Laundry Wednesday (tomorrow). Hopefully all goes well so we can smell better this week.

Three Fridges
Well at the end of last week we had one fridge that wasn't working. We have now had three different fridges in our kitchen in the last week. Todd was able to call the guy we got the fridge from and he came and exchanged it with another older fridge he had and it works great now. Thank goodness the man was honest and made things right. We don't care that it is old and makes a really loud creaking noise when you open it...it works! We also found a queen bed online for free but we needed a truck to move it and after calling around to some ward members we realized nobody really had trucks so we had to scratch that plan. So I got back on gumtree (Sydney's craigslist) and found this guy who was selling a bunch of stuff because he was moving. He lived very close to us so he and Todd were able to move everything without a car. We ended up getting a bed, a couch with no legs, two tvs, a tv stand, dishes, silverware, toaster, and a brand new bar fridge that we are going to resell. The guy is actually moving back to England and along with his dishes he had teacups so we now have teacups. So, things are gradually coming together, and we are very happy about that.

Food
Since we're talking about food now, I think I'll take over, so this is Todd writing now. We've discovered a lot of new places in Mosman, our new suburb. Since it took so long to get a fridge, we've had to do some exploring for fresh food. Fortunately, there is a Pizza Hut less than a block away, so that has saved us a few times already! Only 5 bucks for a decently sized pizza- that's pretty good! We found the grocery store (Franklins) not too far away. The fruits and vegetables we buy at another store next door.

We have a made some good friends in the ward, Beth and Robbie. They are some awesome Aussies! We always have a good time trying to get each other's accent down. Well, one day Robbie busted out a can of tuna and ate it straight from the can. Todd was surprised and asked what on earth he was doing, and he said it made a really good snack. Soooo, next time we went out to the store, we bought some lemon-pepper flavored tuna and we loved it! We've also fallen in love with a typical Aussie meal: meat pies. Those are delicious.

Other News
As for some other things going on: Jett is crawling around and on top of everything. He has become a pro of lifting himself up and standing while holding on to things. Sometimes we will find him in his crib, sitting up and playing with a toy. Very cute.

Christianne is taking over the house and making it cozy and nice. She makes sure Jett is alright, and loves planning out adventures. She is also starting to get back to her headbands and figuring out how to sell them in Sydney.

I had my first couple of papers due this week. The hardest part is making sure words are spelled the right way: "colour" instead of "color" and "analyse" instead of "analyze." It's tricky! I also got a calling in the ward as ward executive secretary. It will be quite some work to do, but it will be fun to get a closer look at how the church works in Australia. Finally, now that we're all settled in, I'm looking for a good part-time job.

Balmoral Beach
The best part of where we live is that we are just a few minutes of a walk down to a nice beach. It is great! I have a feeling we will spend quite a few of our free afternoons there. Balmoral Beach is within Sydney Harbour, so the waves are quite small, which makes it great for kids and families to play in the water.

Here, Jett had his first experience with sand. He was a little worried about it at first, but now he loves it! We just let him go for it and get all dirty. You won't hear a peep from him and he could play for hours and hours. We douse him in sunscreen and keep him in the shade.

Mommy and Jett at Balmoral. The area around the beach is scenic and I'd love to go out and explore it a bit.

If you call Christianne's phone, you might get Jett instead. He is growing up fast.

One downside to going to the beach is just that- you have to go down! Awaba Street is a steep road down to get to the beach, which means it steep going up, too. It makes for a good, quick workout.

One thing about having not a lot of furniture right now is that Jett is free to crawl around and check out anything he wants. In this pic, he heard some birds, so he headed over to the window with his stuffed dugong to see what was going on.

At the beach again with the family. If you have food, be prepared to share it with Jett!

"The beach? Let's go!!"

Now that's one cute couple.

Having fun in the sand!

Mom and Jett watching TV. We just plugged it in the wall and turns out the TV picks up a few channels.

Something tells me we're supposed to be here. : )

Sweet Serendipity

Oh my goodness. I don't even know where to begin. I feel like so much has happened since I last blogged. Its been a crazy week.

SO last week we were still waiting to hear from our agent when our official move in date would be. We needed to leave our temporary apartment on Thursday. So we were a little stressed because they took so long to get back to us and when they finally did on Wednesday they had some horrible news for us...they said that there was another application and that they hadn't talked to the landlord yet about who would get the place for sure...

WHAT?! I was pretty upset because in their email they had been pretty clear that they were offering the place to US. It is kind of a long process to get into a place here so I was just crying to Todd telling him to make it right and make them give us the place. Ya, I was pretty emotional... I had spent so much time looking at and researching places online and we had felt so good about and I just couldn't imagine what we were going to do if we didn't have anywhere to stay. So of course we prayed about it and just waited to hear back from them. Thankfully it ended up we still got the place which was a huge sigh of relief but we wouldn't be able to move in until Saturday so we booked two nights staying at the temple accommodation. Yes, the church has a hotel in Sydney! Pretty cool. 50 bucks a night (that is VERY inexpensive here) and we needed to attend a few sessions while we were there.

On Thursday Mireya helped us move most of our stuff to the hotel but we couldn't all fit in the car so Todd had to come back and get me and Jett so we could go together. We said goodbye to some dear neighbors that have been so sweet to us ever since we moved in. We will miss Lindie, Tony, and Joy a lot! And they are sure going to miss Jett.

Me, Lindie, and Jett

So we all set out to get to the hotel and there was a lot of walking involved. Todd and I took turns going to the temple and watching Jett while we were there and Mireya invited us over to her place for an amazing lunch on Friday. Bright and early Saturday morning we had to catch a couple buses in order to meet with the agent to sign our lease.We had to get up and get everything ready to go and the room cleaned so we were cutting it close on time. We ended up running most the way to the bus stop (like a half mile away) while it poured rain on us. When we got on the bus nobody moved or gave us any room to sit down which was a little annoying so we had to make room for ourselves! The bus driver took off and that sent Todd flying...ahhh it was crazy and everyone was just staring us down. Todd and I just had to laugh about it.


When we got off the first bus I noticed Jett was really stinky and we needed somewhere to change him. Out of nowhere on the sidewalk there appeared this awesome porta potty type of thing but it was huge and nicer and it had a change table. We were both stunned at how perfect it was. So we got his diaper changed, Todd bought some more bus tickets and we barely made our bus. We even got off at the exact stop we needed to and we were able to sign the lease and get the keys. Oh and say goodbye to all of our savings! Did I mention how stinkin expensive it is to live here?

We then had some friends from the ward help us move our stuff from the hotel to our place. They live just down the road and they were such an awesome help. Thanks Robby and Beth if you ever read this! They are both Australian and we got a kick out of hearing them imitate American accents. It was so exciting to pull into our apartment complex because it was my first time ever seeing the place. It is full of natural light and such a cute little place. And of course the view is awesome!

That night we had a little bit of a hard time trying to get someone to deliver a fridge to us (the apartments here don't come with fridges). We ended up paying more than we wanted but whatever we were so excited because we had a fridge. Todd even spent like an hour deep cleaning it. Well he told us to wait before we plugged it in but he had a strong accent and we thought he said a couple of hours. Well Todd and I didn't know that when you move a fridge you need to wait at least a day before you turn it on to let the gases settle or something or else you will bust it. We did wait a good 12 hours but I don't think it was long enough because it is not getting cold enough which is pretty frustrating. Who knows if it was even working before he sold it to us???! We'll have to see what happens with that one.

That night Todd and I were absolutely exhausted. We slept in an empty apartment on our air mattress with a few light blankets and used our towels for pillows. Lol...that reminds me that we still don't have pillows and we need to get some soon. It rained all weekend and it was just a little depressing for me being in an empty apartment even though I know soon it will feel like home. But today the sun was out and we got a kitchen table and chairs and we are going to get a bed for free tomorrow so things are looking up. Hopefully we can get it looking like a home in the next week or so and I can post pictures!

Jett is having fun exploring the new place.

We had a visitor on our balcony!

So I was thinking about our experiences here and I remembered a song that I had heard on the radio by Lee DeWyze right before we came to Australia. I remember listening to it and thinking how much it was about to relate to us and our adventure here. Well it does! Its called Sweet Serendipity and it totally fits with everything we are going through right now. Love it. Plus I really like Lee. He reminds me of my little brother Michael who is on his way to Brazil for his mission. Have a listen!

Sydney Wildlife World

Last week we went back to Darling Harbour via a river ferry. It was a very scenic way to enter the city. Jett was really tired this day or something because he had a hard time. We forgot his dummy (binky) which helps him sleep and keeps him quiet...lol. We bought more dummies when we got home so that won't happen again.



We went to Sydney Wildlife World which was a really fun way to see wildlife from Australia without actually being in the wild.

Jett with the kangaroos...they were a bit lazy!

We saw some nasty spiders! Jett was excited. Mommy not so much...

Cutest picture of all time! Look at Jett cheesing it for the camera. I didn't even try to make him smile! Can you spot the koala?
I'm pretty sure this was my first time seeing a koala bear in real life! They are ridiculously cute. They sleep all day because they have such a low energy diet (eucalyptus leaves). I'm on the hunt for a cute stuffed animal koala for Jett.

This crocodile was definitely not as cute. It was huge! It looked really scary even though it was sleeping. After we saw all the animals we walked around trying to get Jett to fall asleep and then we decided to make the trip home once he finally fell asleep so we didn't get to stop for any food. BUT we did pick up some fresh salmon at a fish market on the way home and we cooked it for dinner and it was amazing!

Todd told me that he is going to take me out to Darling Harbour to eat at a nice seafood place for my birthday next month. Mmm I can't wait! I'm itching for a date night. Luckily, we've had some people in our ward volunteer to babysit so hopefully when we get settled into our new place we can take them up on their offers. We still don't know our exact move in date but it should be sometime this next weekend. As far as furniture goes we have a blow up mattress and a pack n play for Jett...thats all we need, right?! I'm still super excited because its been a month and a half already since we have really settled in somewhere (does 8 months count as settling in?) and I am ready to unpack my suitcase...even if it means I am just unpacking onto the floor.

The Japan earthquake/tsunami victims have been on my mind lately. It has been interesting to watch the news of both the Christchurch earthquake and Japan disaster in Australia because so many people in Australia have ties to these countries. There are still around 900 Australians that are unaccounted for in Japan. It also makes me think that disaster can strike anywhere at anytime and I wonder when something like this will happen again and really affect me or those I love? I hope it never happens but it doesn't hurt to be prepared for such a day.

Well only a few more hours until Todd gets back from his classes. I can't wait!

Aquarium

First off I need to post this picture. It just melts my heart. My little boy is getting cuter every day. He is so social and friendly with strangers. People everywhere just love him. He already has like 10 girl friends at church that adore him. Right now he is at such a fun stage because he is exploring every little thing and it makes him so excited to discover new things. I swear I kiss his little cheeks like 100x a day.

So today we decided to go to the Aquarium at Darling Harbour and it was loads of fun. Jett was amazing the whole day. We made sure we brought a little lemon for him to suck on which kept him occupied for awhile.

Jett and Mommy on the train

If you've been watching Amazing Race lately you will recognize this Anchor at Town Hall in Sydney!
I can't wait to go back to Darling Harbour. There are a lot of fun things to do and cool places to eat there. Plus it is beautiful! We only had time to go to the Aquarium today though. It was a little crazy at times because there was a huge tourist group of Asians that were totally into all the animals and taking pictures/videos of every single little fish and they weren't too courteous when we would try to get by with the stroller. We tried to avoid them as much as we could.

Jett watching the little penguins

Shark attack!

This is definitely my favorite picture of the day. I love how he is so excited about the fish and pointing to them.

Yes that is a shark!

My favorite animal there was the Dugongs. They are also known as "sea cows" because they graze on plants all day long. The aquarium has two of them and there are only 5 that are captive in the whole world. We got Jett his own little stuffed dugong and he loves it!




To top it off, Jett fell asleep on the train! That was a first for him. His nap only lasted like 15 minutes but STILL it was awesome.

Sunshine

Its the beginning of another beautiful week here in Sydney (well actually its already Tuesday) and so I really need to get caught up. We've been here 3 weeks already. Where is the time going? Last week after we went to the zoo we decided we better cool it with the intense sight seeing for Jett's sake so we took a couple days off and just ran some errands and Todd started school. On Thursday a lady from our ward, Mireya, volunteered to go out with us for the day. She is originally from Chile and has lived in Sydney for over 30 years. She has been taking us to and from church every Sunday which is really nice! She is such a kind and social lady.

Jett liked riding in the car for a change. He is so good in his car seat.

We went to Ku-ring-gai Chase national park and we spotted 3 wallabies on the side of the road! They are so cute in person.

The park was absolutely beautiful.

Our new friend Mireya with Jett and I

Handsome hubby

We even got a good look at a goanna-they are huge!

We did also did some mild bush walking. I say mild because there was a path and we didn't go too far into the bush. I did not like it though because I was terrified we were going to come across some huge spider or snake or something like that. We did have to walk under a spiders web that contained a big spider but that was it. I don't think I'll be doing a lot of bush walking while we are here! :-)

Mireya then took us to Newport Beach were we ate lunch. She packed us a picnic which was yummy and so sweet of her! She also watched Jett for us while Todd and I actually got to go into the water TOGETHER! It was salty. Lol...But fun. I kinda got tossed around a bit by the waves since I'm not used to swimming in the ocean. One time Todd was like..."where did she go?" and it took a few seconds before I finally came to the surface like 15 feet from where I was originally.
It was a great day and we are so grateful for Mireya's kindness and generosity. Friday we took Jett to the doctor in Paramatta and got him some medicine which I think is working. We also got some good food at a seafood place. Todd had Shrimp and chips and I had crab sticks, claws, and chips. It was GOOD but I prefer seafood not caked in batter (so unhealthy!). We then wandered around some shops looking for the train station and somehow we ended up inside this HUGE mall. Seriously we looked up and there were like 5 different floors. It was super fun but Jett was tired by the end. We pacified him by saving a lemon from lunch and letting him suck on it on the way home (he loved it). Lol...silly boy.

Well then On Saturday Todd went house hunting as you know from my last post. Well when he finally got home to me I found out he had a really eventful day. He ended up going to 4 inspections out of the 7 I had outlined for him because of some hiccups with the bus which caused him to miss 2 and another one ended up being cancelled. But I could tell that he was REALLY excited about this one apartment which I thought was strange since he never really has strong opinions about those sorts of things. He is just the kind of guy that would be happy living anywhere, you know? He started talking about it and his eyes just lit up.

But we couldn't get our hopes up because there were probably about 8-10 other people that inspected each property. So we decided we would apply for 3 and continue to look and go to inspections this next week. We have been hearing from everyone that it is really hard to get apartments...especially in the area we were looking at. We filled out all the application stuff and sent them in on Sunday night since they process the applications Monday morning. We had to give references, job details, copies of passports, bank statements, and anything to prove we were the best possible tenants for them. Luckily for me my husband is in PR and he wrote the most awesome cover letter ever for us! It sounded so good. He is very talented because yesterday we were contacted by all THREE properties and now we are going to get the apartment we wanted!

We just feel so blessed! Todd had such a good feeling about the place when he first saw it and that is what makes me happiest. Maybe the fact that it has lots of windows with lots of natural sunlight and this view has something to do with it:

Since our last apartment was in the basement this will be a very refreshing change! We'll move in a couple of weeks and I can't wait! Oh and did I mention they are putting in new carpets and paint right before we move in? We won't have a lot, but we have this view!! :-)

Right now Todd is at a job interview near the area where we will be living. I can't wait to hear how that goes but it will probably be awhile since we only have 1 cell phone. I just can't believe how well things are working out and I know that it is not just because of us but because we have some great family and friends praying for us. I'm sorry these posts are so long but this is kind of like my journal and I really want to remember these things. Todd is at school all day today. I've already cleaned the house spotless and written this blogpost so I wonder what I will do?

Searching for a home...

is what Todd is doing right now which leaves me here in our temporary apartment to blog about it. The house/apartment/flat search here is proving to be very difficult. I really really wanted to go with him but with Jett sick and all we decided it would be better to keep him home so he can sleep (which he is doing right now). The good news is we got to take Jett to the doctor yesterday and got some medicine for him from the chemist (pharmacist) and we just really want him to get better soon.

BUT I am going crazy right now not being able to communicate with Todd about how everything is going (we only have one cell phone). So how it works here is rental properties are listed online with an inspection time (usually on Saturdays) so everyone who is interested can show up and view it. Last Saturday we went to an inspection near the university and 30 people were there! 30! So it is quite competitive looking for housing and we are just praying we find the right place for us...and that we get it! We have finally narrowed our search down to an area where we want to live (there are a bazillion suberbs in sydney). I made a master plan of all the inspections I wanted Todd to visit, the train & bus schedule, etc. and I am very anxious to know how everything goes and how many places he actually gets to inspect. Too bad he won't be home for another 6 hours to tell me how things go. What did people do before cell phones? Lol.

So last week we went to the famous Bondi Beach. It was our best day with Jett as far as traveling goes which really made it a wonderful day. He was an angel. We were planning on doing the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee beach which is supposed to be beautiful but we didn't realize there were a bunch of stairs so we couldn't do it with our stroller and Jett. We will have to do that another time. We were bummed that we didn't bring our "costumes" (swimming suits) but we still had a great day just enjoying the beach. We won't be going there to swim again though because we found out while we were there that Bondi isn't exactly a family beach if you know what I mean! Its a shame too because it is a beautiful beach!

Todd eating the "Bondi Burger" at Bondi beach. We already have a favorite fast food place here.

We sure love it when he can get a nap in!

Last Saturday we did some inspections near Todd's school. We got to walk through campus again. It is beautiful. It was a long day full of walking but we made some decisions about where we want to live so it was a good productive day.

Jett fell asleep on the bus! Yes!

And Sunday we got to go back to church! I love our ward already. We have some great people in our ward. I'm excited to continue to get to know them and I hope we don't move out of the boundaries. Todd made some excellent pork chops for Sunday dinner. SO good. I feel like we are eating a lot of meat here. Maybe we can fatten up a little while we are here??

On Monday we set out for Taronga Zoo. It took two train rides, a ferry ride, and a short bus ride to get there. Now you can see why we are anxious to move closer to the city! Jett was done by the time we got to the zoo. My camera died so I didn't get any pics at the zoo only on the ferry. We made the trip short and sweet and todd took the train straight to school (his first day!) and I took Jett home alone. We can't wait to go back to the zoo and enjoy it a little more when we live closer.

I will have to update later on the rest of the week. I have a little boy calling for my complete attention...