A little of everything

So, we still don't have internet at the house.  Jay's coworker Dave loaned us his internet for the weekend as he goes home and doesn't need it then.  Finally, it's been almost a week with no internet for me so I got lots to update.  We also don't have a phone yet either. 

Okay, so we've moved into our house.  We have furniture in most of the rooms with the last couple of rooms being furnished soon.  We get our other couch on Thursday and the guest bed has been ordered. 

Joe lost his first tooth on Tuesday!  Finally!!!  It is considered late at 7 1/2 years old.  He turned 7 1/2 late last month so we were happy he finally lost it.  The tooth fairy gave him 50 cents for it.  He was thrilled! 

He's got another loose one so we'll see how long it takes to come out. 

We played at an indoor playground at McDonald's and now Sam has some sort of creeping crud.  His eyes are yucky and his nose is running.  Yuck. 

We visited the Tomaree Education Center on Wednesday.  This is the local school for us.  It is a large campus with many many buildings.  It houses both the primary and high schools.  The primary and high school are separated by an "out of bounds" area.  Students are only allowed into the OOB area if with a teacher.  In the primary school, each little building houses 4-6 classrooms.  There are two classrooms per grade.  We had an interview and tour with the principal after she signed our paperwork.  We got to meet one of the two second grade teachers.  Tom seems very excited about going to school, while Joe seems hesitant.  We are eagerly awaiting permission to enroll for school.  The principal has already said that we don't have not "apply" to the school.  We will just bring our application on the same day that the boys will start.  Hopefully, that will be soon.  We will be working on finding a school for Sam next week. 

We decided to get cable tv.  This is the first time that we've had cable tv since college (9 years ago!).  It just got installed today.  Of course, we don't have the couch for the room with the tv so the boys just sat on the floor for Playhouse Disney.  They didn't seem to mind. 

We got my new car last weekend and I've spent the week relearning how to drive a manual transmission.  I've driven one for years between both my previous cars and Jay's cars, but this is the first time I've had to shift with my left hand.  The pattern for shifting is still the same, but just with a different hand.  It took some getting used to, but I am doing just fine now.  I really like my car and would recommend it to anyone.  It is not a big SUV, but a sporty wagon thing instead.  It's a Kia Rondo.  It seats 7 people and has pretty good gas consumption.  I'm pretty happy with it so far, though I do miss the room of my Pathfinder. 

One of the first things that I purchased this week was a blender.  I've been wanting a margarita.  Of course, they do not sell any sort of frozen limeade here in Australia.  I purchased some mix and used that, but I will have to come up with some sort of recipe that is closer to the limeade one. 
They also don't seem to sell black beans here, or at least I haven't found any.  It's tricky to make chicken and black bean enchilidas with no black beans.  Just chicken by itself wasn't the same. 

That's all I can think to update right now.  I'm sure I'm forgetting something though.

Car shopping

I really dislike shopping for cars.  I have always disliked it.  Before ever looking here in Australia, I had figured it would be pretty easy.  We have a cash advance from NGC so we know how much we can spend.  Not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.  Everything here is so much more expensive than anything in the States.  We are looking for two used cars, a small commuter for Jay and a 7 passenger for the family.  We are looking for a 7 passenger so that we have room for guests when they come visit, plus it is hard to fit 3 kids in car seats across the back of a 5 passenger vehicle. 
So, here's how expensive the cars are:  In the States, we spent about $25,000 on my truck (2006 Nissian Pathfinder) and we got it brand new.  Here we could get a 2005 Pathfinder with 80,000km (45,000 miles roughly) for $35,000.  Now, the US dollar is worth a little more than the Australian dollar, but not that much.
So, we cannot afford something as big as what we had in the US.  Then again, most vehicles here are smaller anyway.  The Pathfinder is by far the largest truck that available here.  That's okay, because we don't need anything bigger anyway.  We don't have to tow anything around here. 
We saw a couple of 7 passenger vehicles yesterday, but at over $30,000 each, they are out of our price range.  We will probably end up with a Kia.  That's pretty much the only brand of car that seems to be available in our price range.  Well, that's not completely true.  There are some Toyota Taragos available.  It's the same kind of van as our rental.  It has a lot of blind spots because of the way it is shaped.  I'd rather not get one of those.  We are trying to find something with less than 80,000km for us. 
There are several small cars available in Jay's price range for his car.  They are all compact cars that are all at least 10 years old.  We are hoping for a car with less than 200,000km for him.  Jay seems a bit nervous after having his last compact car squished.  Unfortunately, he's probably just going to end up with a compact car. 
We have an appointment to look at a Kia Rondo today.  It's a small 7 passenger wagon.  It is a 2010 and barely has any kilometers on it.  It is down in our price range so we are hoping that it works for us.  Not that we need something this new, but it's one of few cars that fit what we need.