We made it!

Hello! We made it! It's 80 degrees........and pouring rain. The kind of drenching rain that you run a block through and even your underwear gets soaked.  I know because that's what happened to me yesterday. But I was badly in need of a shower anyway.  Real tropical deluge. Very exciting. All our umbrellas are currently crossing the Pacific so we may have to pick a couple up today (rain in the forecast all week)

Yesterday we ventured out on a shopping trip between a swim at our new apartment and getting caught in the deluge. We bought a new coffee pot and a cold bottle of Australian wine. The grocery store was large and while it contained pretty much the same things as you would find in the states, everything seemed unfamiliar to me. I spent way too long staring at the aisles looking for a familiar brand (with no luck until the cheese aisle where I spotted some Kraft cheese) and wondering what "natural" means in Australian. Then I agonized over whether Made in Australia products were superior to Made in America products, finally decided they were, right before deciding it didn't matter.

The plane ride went smoothly. The girls thought is was super fun, which was great because as good as the girls did on the plane they completely melted down after landing. Especially when we had to throw the opened bag of goldfish away before customs (we hadn't declared it on the customs form). Wow. I am surprised you couldn't hear the screams in Seattle. Australians really are the nicest people in the world. Not only did we not get any dirty looks, the looks we did get were supportive and more than one person even stopped to help. Unbelievable. Nola was momentarily mollified by the cute drug sniffing dogs, but then lost it again when the dog sat down by mommy's bag and mommy had to go to the special area where customs agents went through every single thing she packed because the cute little dog smelled a super secret hard boiled egg we had forgotten to leave on the plane (or declare). When the custom agent let Nola slide down her metal suitcase ramp I realized it was probably going to be O.K.

Then things got even better when Mike was able to rent a "pink" (it's actually red but don't tell the girls) car that he somehow engineered all 10! of our bags into and we got to what turned out to be a great apartment. The girls went for a swim and then later played at a park across the street where we were caught in the torrential tropical down pour. AND I drove! Not far, but the route did include two intersections!

Nola has asked twice already about when she will be able to make friends. Kinda makes my heart hurt a little. Today, after buying umbrellas, we are going to try and buy a car. Then we might drive past the girls schools so they can see them. Depending on the rain we may hop on the river taxi and go check out South Bank where there are some great swimming pools made to look like natural swimming holes. But who knows really what will happen today! Maybe we'll find a house to rent! When our air shipments arrives I will be able to get on the computer and send some pictures, and try to get a blog started. I don't have all my email contacts on my iPhone so feel free to forward this to anyone who won't fall out of their chair with boredom by reading. G'day my friends! XOXO Julie