We bought a car....

We have really enjoyed getting to know Win's cousins, and we went to Toby and Charlotte's place for new years day celebrations. They have a lovely home with a very lovable Lab called Lucy. The boys decided to lock themselves in Lucy's Crate. Isabelle was not feeling to perky, so she was enjoying some cuddles from Crystal.


















I took a photo of Lucy's Christmas present: a Dog Hiking Pack- So when they hike or camp they don't have to carry the dog's water and food... she can carry it herself. Brilliant idea.
Toby's kids got a great snow mobile thing for Christmas which the kids had a great time sliding down the front yard. The top house is Toby's and the lower ones are Crystal's (where we are).
The kids all helped to shovel the driveway. It was quite an effort because there was a lot of ice built up that needed to be chipped away.

We also went to the Ogden Temple with the kids on possibly one of the coldest days so far. The Water fountain had frozen into a mound of ice, quite interesting that it would freeze like that.
The kids were aghast when we said that they couldn't go into the temple until they were older. They stood out there like frozen little orphans peering into the warm interior and said "but why can't kids go in??" We explained that you needed to be very reverant in the temple and that when they were older and could understand the significance they would be able to go. Well then Isabelle pipes up "I will be REALLY reverant, I promise!" We would have liked to take them into the annex at least but we were in our casual clothes and it didn't seem right, so we just looked from the outside.
The Ogden temple is going to have a major facelift or makeover would be more accurate, apparantly they have an issue with local couples not wanting to get married at the Ogden temple because it is not as "aesthetically pleasing" as some of the others so the brides don't want their photos there. So there are plans to beautify the temple, but it will be closed for 2 years while they totally change the exterior. That will mean that we will be travelling 45 minutes to Bountiful or when the Brigham City temple is complete we will be able to travel 45 minutes to that one. Which surprises me, because being in Utah we didn't think that the temple would be as far away as it was in Adelaide!
Win and were planning to go to the Salt Lake Temple earlier this week but then we found out that it is closed for cleaning for 2 weeks... so we will have to wait a bit longer for that one. We would have gone earlier but due to sickness it hasn't been possible yet.

We also bought a car about a month ago. As you can see, it is much the same as our old car. All the cars have different names and are slightly different to their Australian counterparts. We bought a Toyota Sienna. A 7 seater with heated leather seats (a necessity in this climate!) and automatic opening doors (good for little people who can't close the rear doors).
We actually drove all the way down to Provo (about 1.30 hrs away) to buy this particular car because it was the only All Wheel Drive version that we could find. A lot of people hear drive big SUV's because they have the 4WD or AWD function that is great in the snow. We considered some 7 seater SUV's but because we have 4 kids in car seats they were too hard reach the back row to buckle up. Plus parking such a big car seemed unappealing to me. Oh, and trying to climb into them with a church skirt on was near impossible.
So we wanted a Van but didn't like that they were all 'front wheel drive'. The Toyota Sienna does occasionally show up in an All Wheel Drive but its an expensive upgrade so not many 2nd hand ones have it. We spotted this one on the internet, and drove down to Provo to buy it on New Years Eve. This particular dealership specialises in import all their cars from California where there is no snow and salt damage (here in Utah they salt the roads to melt the snow and it rusts the underneath of cars).
So Win and I bought the car, but then we had the dilemma of how to get it home, since he had driven a car down to Provo we now had two cars to drive home... and I had not attempted driving in Utah yet.
It was dark and freezing cold, with enough snow on the roads to make me very nervous.
So we set off for home, luckily it was mostly freeway driving between Provo and Ogden but it took more like 2 hours to get home because I was going as slow as I could. I was really nervous about the ice on the freeway, and we were in the slow lane trying not to lose each other. Fortunately because Win was going slow, every time someone cut in between Win's car and mine they would soon change lanes because of the speed we were going :)
I actually found that driving on the wrong side was not the biggest issue. Every time I went to turn on my indicator the windscreen wipers would start up... of course the wipers and blinkers are on the opposite side of the steering wheel here. Also I found that both Win and I would naturally drift to the right side of the lane, dangerously close to the curb or next lane. I really had to concentrate to keep the car over on the left, because you drive on 'Automatic' most of the time I suppose the driving patterns like where you position yourself in relation to the lane is a very ingrained habit.
We made it home OK and Win has since passed a written and practical driving test to get his Utah Licence. I have had to wait because I only got my Social Security Number this week, and you can't even open a bank account without the magic SS no. here!
The photos with the jumping castle were from a place that we went to down South with one of Win's mission buddies, Dan. This place had a whole warehouse full of jumping castles, with lots of slides. Adults get in free, so we joined the kids and had a lot of fun.