Embrace The Moose

In the last two weeks we have bought and closed on a house... although we are not in it yet as the previous owners wanted another week to move out.
Hopefully we will be in there tomorrow.
We also caught up with Holly on Monday. Holly (for those who don't know her, is married to Win's cousin, Chad and they live in Canberrra). She was here for her brother's wedding and stayed in a lovely hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.
We decided that we would drive up to Park City to do some outlet shopping and see some real snow for Holly's benefit. Well, we got what we wished for....
On the drive to SLC we saw signs warning that there was a snow storm expected at 3pm. The sky was blue and it was a lovely warm day in the car so it didn't seem too likely that this "storm" was really going to be anything much.
We picked up Holly, with me driving (Win had a LASIK eye appointment the next day so he couldn't wear contacts for the week preceding). Well, my driving didn't last long because I couldn't work out which Freeway the exit to take and we ended up halfway to Provo before Win decided to take the wheel.
Holly was kind enough to bring a great bag of Australian goodies for us to eat... including crunchies, shapes, cadbury chocolate, vegiemite and weetbix- we were pretty excited but the kids devoured a box of shapes before we left the hotel car park.
The outlet shops looked just as I remembered as a teenager and there were all the good kids clothing name brands to spend far too much money on.
By the time we were done it was around 6pm, dark and snowing heavily.
I started to wonder if we would be snowed in this side of the canyon but we were able to drive back to Salt Lake very slowly, with Win driving (who couldn't see very far ahead due to a lack of contacts) and the ABS breaks periodically shuddering as they tried to find a grip on the icy roads.
I think we may have turned Holly off snow after that....
Back at Holly's hotel we ordered in and talked and laughed until hotel security called to say that there had been "complaints" and that this was her first and final warning before she would be asked to leave the hotel. We made a hasty exit after that, not realising that our giggling had been so loud.
The next day Win had his eye appointment and booked in to have the corrective eye surgery for Monday 14th Feb (tomorrow). The appointment took hours and they had to dilate his pupils to saucers to do the tests. He is not eligible for the normal LASIK eye surgery where the recovery is almost instant because of his eyes, instead he will have the PKU surgery where they cut the cornea flap and then you regrow it. The recovery is more painful but the results should be the same.
The drive home was an hour long and he was on his own with huge dilated pupils which made the light very painful- like staring straight into the sun. He came home a bit traumatised from the drive, if I had realised that they would be doing that I would have gone with him to drive.
So his surgery is booked for the same day that we move into our new house and Win will not be able to lift or move anything in the week following. Should make moving FUN!
The rest of the week was spent furniture shopping, which has been more challenging than we expected. One thing that surprised us was that the prices are no cheaper here than at home.
In fact, I would say they are more expensive.
Now anyone that knows me knows that bargain hunting is a sport in my mind, but I have really struggled to find what I want at a reasonable price.
The quality is kind of Le Cornu in comparison but with a higher price tag.
The other thing that is the difference in style. Contemporary design, or European design is not big here in general. There is a big range in the 'mountain log cabin' style with moose trims on the accent pillows. Holly's advice to me was: "Embrace the moose" which has become my motto for the week.
So in an effort to embrace the moose Win and I finally settled on a few major pieces of furniture.
I wanted to go with white traditional pieces accented with greens and blues in contrast to the black and red tones that we had in our last house.
White furniture is not as easy to come by as I expected here, and so we did settle on a black dining table because there weren't a lot of options in the style that we wanted.
The other large item was a TV. It was hard not to stare longingly at the 65 inch, 3D capable TV on sale at RC Willey, especially when the salesman said "and its the last one before we are sold out at this price". We even went as far as putting it on hold, but then we came to our senses and realised that we didn't need to spend that much on a TV.
The new 3D TVs have incredible picture quality when they are viewed in 2D, even if you never use the 3D feature they are by far the best TVs available.
When we were shopping at Walmart and Win had to buy some eye drops for his surgery at the pharmacy. Without insurance the 3 small bottles cost $179. fortunately he asked if there were any generic brands available. They came back with a new total of $117- lucky he asked!
A few minutes later we were going through the check out when George fell straight out of the trolley; backwards and head first onto the concrete floor. He landed straight on the top of his head with no arms to break his fall.
Somehow walmart got wind of the incident and sent their people to check things out. The first worker called the manager over who quickly gave us ice packs for swelling. He picked out a tube of M&M's for George to munch on and then he handed out candy to all the other kids while he took down our contact details and names.
So off we went on our way, with George munching happily on M&M's unaware that Walmart was worrying about potential lawsuits.

Chelsea started school this week. She has an exceptionally nice teacher and the kids are all very welcoming. The school is only a couple years old so all the facilities are new and high tech.
She is in 'kindergarten' which is more like reception at home and she only goes for 3 hours in the afternoon... much to the delight of Chelsea.
The first day was "100th day" for the kindergarten kids and so they got to count out 100 lollies/cereal snacks and celebrate the momentous occasion. Of course for Chelsea it was "1st" day but that didn't seem to matter.
Americans sure know how to celebrate events. Since being here we have experienced Super Bowl weekend, Valentines Day and Scout Sunday all relatively unfamiliar celebrations but of great importance here. The shops sell appropriate themed food, the aisles are strewn with the colours and every thing goes on sale. Next up: Presidents Day. As long as our TV goes on sale, I say "bring on presidents day".
Also the sales AFTER the holiday are good... I plan to pick up some cheap valentines day themed pillows for the girl's beds when they are 80% off tomorrow!

The other lovely surprise since being here is that George has taken to Great Grandma Scott with particular fondness. He hovers around her like a bee to honey. He kisses her goodbye and shows her all the toys that are of interest. Because she is restricted to her chair most of the time the other kids tend to go off and play without much interaction but George really likes his Great Grandma and he even took off out of the car when we were going home to say a final goodbye to her. I know that Win had a special relationship with her when he was the same age, and George is- in every way- a "mini- me" of Win!

The weather seems to be warming up here and Spring is around the corner. We can't believe that we have been here 2 months now... and that Win's family have been so wonderful to us.
The days are clear and a little bit warmer, with 12C not being uncommon- as opposed to 0C.
We also witnessed two teenage boys sunbaking on a roof yesterday. They waved as we gawked. There was snow still piled in their front yard, but there they were, shirtless and soaking up the sun.
We will post some photos of the new house as soon as we have moved in!