Date Night

Hi everybody!! It's Friday night here in New Zealand and Dugald and I are on a date. Right now. And I'm blogging!! I came down to meet him at the office for our night on the town but he had to finish up some stuff. There is a Borders across the street along with Kirks, the department store, but sitting here in front of the computer sounded fantastic to me - really. I'm SO glad he's late because I'm now able to catch up, for free, on some email and update the blog. The update is, we still don't have internet. Praying for it to happen Tuesday, with the phone and cable.

The girls have mattresses now though - no more sleeping on the floor, and their beds should arrive next week. They are amazing kids, really rolling with the punches on everything. It helps tremendously to have Sarah here - they LOVE her and it allows me to focus on all the minutiae involved with moving.

I told you how I had to study for my drivers test in my last blog. . . well, last week my sister-in-law Liz called and invited me to lunch which of course I was thrilled to do. However, it did involve driving right into the center of town, and more importantly, finding a parking space. In fear and trembling I did it though and even managed to parallel park the big ole van. We had a lovely lunch, so fun to catch up, and she drove me to all sorts of shops to show me where to buy things here. Back to the drivers licence - since I was already here I decided to go ahead and sit my test. So after our lunch and shopping I bid Liz farewell, re-parked the car (4 hour limit) and headed over to the AA to take it. When I got there it turned out that the proof of residence that I had was not adequate so they sent me over to the bank to get a print out of a statement with my address on it. I did that, returned, and handed over my Texas licence, passport and said bank statement. Well, it turns out Texas doesn't put an issue date on drivers licences. The Kiwis need proof that I have been driving in America for more than two years. SO, now we have to get in touch with Texas, have them send some sort of documentation that proves I've been driving there, then go back. After searching on the internet Dugald found a way to contact TX but it will be weeks before we get the document, and hopefully it will be what we need, and then I will toddle on down to the AA again, with four kids in tow, and take the test. I tried.

On a lighter and happier note - Meggie is now signed up for soccer and should start soon. She will be playing on a mixed boys and girls team so I told her she may not get to handle the ball as much as she is used to and she said, "Mommy I have been playing soccer for four years, I am not worried about the boys". Love it.

Josie and Katie are signed up for ballet and start next week - Josie is taking "Fairy Ballet" which is just PERFECT for her. We're hoping our container arrives soon so she can get her hands on the dress-up box because she is allowed to wear fairy costumes to her class. She's bummed that next week she'll have to go in a "plain" dress. Katie is a bit nervous about meeting new girls so she is hesitant about her class, but I am pretty sure she will love it. I'm also looking into horseback riding lessons for Meggie and Katie as that was promised to them as a part of the move.

The girls have also met two more of their NZ cousins - my other sister-in-law, Julie, has two of her children in school just up the street from us and they stopped by with a lovely bouquet of flowers to welcome us last week. Lloyd and Julie have five kids - four girls, then a boy - so they are busy, busy with activities but we hope to see them often. Dugald keeps telling me they got a boy on the 5th, wink, wink.

Today we went to the Botanic Gardens after we finished school and it was simply beautiful. It was a lovely walk, albeit steep, and there was a fantastic play area near the top. It kind of reminded me of Central Park in that it is this beautiful piece of green in a sea of houses and buildings.

Thank you again to all who have emailed. I've been down to the library to check my email on a regular basis but usually my time runs out before I can send many replies.

Time for us to go get some Indian food. . . .