Some more updates

Black Mountain Tower
A couple of weeks ago we went up to Black Mountain Tower. It is similar to the Space Needle in Seattle or the CN Tower in Toronto. It overlooks all of Canberra, ACT. It shows you how beautiful it is here. There is a revolving restaurant in it, however, we didn't go since we have kids. (Going out to eat in nice restaurants just isn't what it used to be with them) My mom and I were going to go eat there last night until we looked at the menu online and couldn't find anything that we dare try. I know... we are not very adventureous. However, we did leave the boys with Jeremy and went to a Chinese restaurant that I am relieved to say that we liked everything we ordered.

The Chinese Restaurant
As a side note I find it emotionally draining every time I go out anywhere because everything is different and I always feel like an outsider that doesn't know what to do. It's stressful to have to figure things out. For example: At the restaurant we went to, it was in the middle of some casual shops here in Kingston, so naturally you'd think it's one we can just walk in to and eat at on a whim. But, you needed to have a reservation to eat there or eat on the outside tables, which is what we decided to do. I found that the "Entree" is actually the appetizer and at this particular place they brought each course out in a different bowl and then put the food on your plate. We had many people ask us if we wanted a drink. (We are definitely the odd people out here since we don't drink.) We also sat next to some guy that didn't like Americans and kept talking about them to his wife through out dinner. When we were done eating we sat there FOREVER. The people that worked there kept coming out and looking at us but would never say anything. Finally we asked them if we could get the rest of our food for "Take Away" (which means "To Go" here) and they finally brought our check. The whole time I kept wondering if they were just waiting for us to ask for the check or what. At any rate, it's just little things like that. I really need to start getting more involved here and hanging out with people that are from here that can show me the ropes.

Weekend Plans & Our New Cars
On Friday this coming up week, my mom and I will be joining our Relief Society for an overnight retreat. I'm actually really looking forward to it. I've never been so excited to be involved in things at church. I really like our ward and want to try to find some place to live permanently that will remain in this ward. Our ward comprises of about 30 cities right now (but all the cities are VERY close together), so it is likely we would still be in the ward. We've decided to stay living more north in the main city even though Jeremy will be driving to work about 20-30 minutes south each day.

We found out that we could get 2 vehicles through his work that are almost new and that his work pays for all maintenance and gas. All the payments we make are pretax and we actually pay the same as if we were going to buy ONE older vehicle and pay for all of our own gas and maintenance. We have been SUPER blessed every step of the way on this trip... just as we were both promised numerous times in blessings we received while preparing to come here. The guy we bought vehicles from has even let us use a van for the last month at NO CHARGE until we figure things out. Who does that? What an awesome guy? It saved us almost $1,200 that we didn't have to pay in renting a car. We were going to buy this particular van at first and found out that we couldn't get a loan for it since we weren't Australian citizens. And although it was annoying that no one helped us with that info from the start, it actually benefitted us in the long run that we got to use a car for free that held my whole family, plus my mom during her stay, AND we get two vehicles for the same price. Jeremy got a little black 2009 Kia Rio and I'm getting a 2009 white Hyundai IMax (a large 8 seater van). It's wierd that we are going from a white 2009 van in UT to a white 2009 van here. At any rate, we are very blessed. I will post pics soon.

Not to vere from our weekend plans, but we are also going up to Sydney next Sunday and staying in our timeshare up there for a few days. I'm so glad they have timeshare resorts here and that we can still utilize it. I'm way excited! Jeremy already went to Sydney this last week -over Valentine's Day :( -for a few days for a training at work and said it was awesome! I can't wait to see it. I want to go to something showing at the Opera house before we go. We wanted to try to go to the Sydney Temple while we are there but found that they don't do clothes rentals there. We packed our temple clothes because in Utah you can just rent them. So, we will have to wait for our stuff before we go. We also found out that there is a hotel right next to the temple that is run by the church. If you are going to Sydney to visit the temple, you can stay there for $50/night. Isn't that amazing? In the future when we go, Jeremy and I can go with our kids and stay there and alternate who goes to a session while the other one stays with the kiddos.

"Good On Ya!"
On a funny ending note: Teagan said to me yesterday, completely out of the blue, "Good on ya mum". My mom and I burst out laughing. That is soooooooooooo Australian to say! Everyone here says, "Good on ya..." I can't believe that he's already picking things up.

Here is one of the commercials that I always have the tune in my head here. It's a bread commercial. They actually make this particular brand of bread about 3 blocks from where I'm living right now. This is probably where Teagan got the "good on ya" saying.