A quick update

Well it’s about time that I got around to updating this site with what has been happening since we arrived. It’s hard to believe that we have been here for a month already!

So where to start…the girls have started school and are loving it. Sophie is in a grade 2/3 split and has settled in to an English class no problem. She even got a perfect score on her second spelling test. “Bravo”…or shall I saw “well done” instead. Sophie has made lots of friends and is really enjoying taking recorder lessons. She starts gymnastics next week.

Elise is fully engrained in Kindy now – she goes to school Monday and Wednesday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday from 9 – 3. They serve snacks and hot lunches from the kitchen within the Kindy. When I asked Elise what she had for lunch last Thursday, she replied with “I had 3 cheese and soy sauce sandwiches”. Very puzzled, I asked the lady in the kitchen the next day, she cleared it up for us – they were cheese and vegemite!!

I have fully embraced gardening the Aussie way. This means trying to keep plants alive with no rain and very strict watering restrictions…like watering once a week. What this means is that we have to conserve all gray water from dishes, laundry and baths to then carry it bucket by bucket to the garden. I am starting to get a nice green lawn and I have bought tones of flowers and pots to add some colour to the yard. Just to keep them alive, I have to water twice a day when it’s really hot. But the good news is that I have lots of gazanias, hibiscus, oleanders, vincas (like impatiens), mandevillas and even a frangipani (plumeria).

The people that we have met here are fantastic. They are so warm and kind and have embraced “the foreigners” and all of our strange customs and words like we are family. They all want to share their homes, their dinner tables and fantastic bottles of wine. The incredible people more than make up for the unbelievable take your breath away 39 degree heat.

Well, have to sign off for now.