Win's Eye Balls Get Scraped

So I watched Win have his eye ball scraped off this week.
He went in on Monday for the PKU procedure (similar to LASIK laser eye surgery but instead of cutting a flap of your cornea off, lasering a new eye shape and then putting the flap back in place they just plain scrape off the flap, laser the eye and then let your body regrow the flap over the following week). He didn't qualify for LASIK because of stigmatisms in both eyes, but the results are the same, just a tougher recovery.
We went into the waiting room and while reading magazines a woman came around offering freshly baked cookies- a nice touch. Then she came around again. and then again. I was starting to get shaky on sugar and anxiety so I had to turn down the wonderful things but Win had no such problems, he was eating warm cookies to the minute he went into surgery. He didn't seem to share my nervousness over the coming procedure at all. Mind you it might have been the Valium kicking in. I was a wreck and so when they led him into the operating room and I was able to sit right in front of a large glass window and watch the procedure with a TV screen showing his eye ball magnified I was not sure that I had the stomach.
It only went for 5 minutes or so all up, and probably only 2 minutes for each eye, the laser part was a non event entirely, although Win did say that he could smell his own burning eye ball flesh.
I think the worst part was seeing the metal eye clamps and the sticky tape being ripped off his eyelashes at the end (they use tape to hold the eyelashes out of the way).
Win got up and walked out of there a moment later and he said that he could see better than when he used to where glasses. That was a good sign!
His vision was supposed to get worse on day 2 as the cells started to heal over the eye. Win was pretty dopey from the Valium and I drove him home to sleep for the rest of the day.
I then went to the Real Estate Agency to pick up the keys to our new house. The secretary said "Oh no, they have already been picked up by your family".
Well, I tell you, the family is efficient here! So I got to our new house and there was Ida Mae and Crystal with all my kids stocking the pantry and bathrooms with hand soap, toilet paper, paper plates and cups and food. Then they got to work cleaning all the cupboards, fridge and every where else that needed cleaning.
They are so quick to help out, even when they have a million things going on in their own family.

That evening Charlotte and Toby rang to say that they could help move the couches that we had stored at Ida Mae's house. It took a lot of heavy lifting and we discovered that the sectional sofa we had bought would not fit through the basement stair doorway (after we had already carted one section down and had the second piece perched on the stair rail!). It was an enormous effort to get the over sized piece back up the stairs once we worked out that it would not fit, and there was not a word of complaint from any of them!! Fortunately Costco has a good returns policy on things!

The next day Win had another appointment for his eyes and so Crystal and Ida Mae took care of the kids and school pick ups while we drove the 1 hr trip to Sandy for Win's eyes.
They told Win that he was healing unusually fast (quite the talent.... that's why I married him!) and all was going great. His eye sight was at 20/25 which is the legal requirement for driving. We then spent the afternoon buying mattresses and making trips back to the new house.
Win has to take drops every few hours in his eyes and he wears sunglasses most of the day because he has light sensitivity. At night he wears these really funny plastic eye goggle/eye patches that have to be taped to his face. Its like looking at Louey the Fly because they have ventilation holes. The are to stop him from rubbing his eyes in the night and dislodging some freshly grown eye ball I suppose.

Today we spent the day painting. Well, I painted while Win tried to keep the kids out of the paint. The house had a fairly neutral colour scheme; oatmeal coloured carpet, white tiles,oatmeal white walls and one Utah brown feature wall in the main living room. I decided that I really wanted to add a little colour before we moved all the furniture in.
We are planning to complete the look soon with timber floors in the living area and dining room, I would like to take up the tiled area too but it would be a time consuming task that may be above my skill level.
I will post photos as soon as I can. I bought seven sample pots of paint before I settled on the right colour. Sample pots are the only way to paint, it is amazing how much variation there is when the paint goes on the wall. The sample colour swatches all looked nearly identical on the card but they were completely different on a large area.

While we have been working at the new house the neighbours dropped by to meet us. One one side we have a lovely older couple who work in the temple and helped us work out many of the electrical things in the house like the garage door opener and the thermostat... there house is almost the same as ours so they know the answer to most things we ask!
The neighbours on the other side are a lovely family about our age who moved in 6months ago. They have 3 small kids and they bought valentines day cookies to welcome us to the neighbourhood.
We are really excited about the neighbourhood after meeting them.

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!

You can make Pavlova in High Altitude

First up I want to say how pleased I was to hear that Cyclone Yasi missed Cairns the way that it did... we felt a lot of worry during the morning that it was happening there. Glad that Sarah and Daniel were able to make a cool cubby in their laundry though. You can count that as a family camping experience.

We had a very belated Australia day celebration, last night, which was as good as any a meal I could have hoped for.
We found an AUSTRALIAN leg of lamb for the occasion at COSTCO (more on the wonders of Costco soon)....
So we invited Josh and Josie Smith +children to our celebration and of course Crystal and family too. We scoured the shops for mint jelly and found some "Mint Apple Jelly" which had to do. I was planning to make mint sauce from scratch but there was no decent mint to be had.
The mint apple jelly was in the jams and spread section, so I was pretty sceptical that it would be the right flavour but it turned out to be quite good.
The Lamb was about $4.50 a pound for a boneless leg of lamb, which I think is around $9.90/kg- I was pleasantly surprised by this given that it was Australian Lamb and that it was a nice boneless cut.
We had to search for pumpkin or 'squash' as they call it. We found butternut pumpkin and also a round small orange pumpkin that was pretty similar to Jap in taste.
Plus we had roast spuds and sweet potato and carrots. We did also do a pork roast just because of the numbers, and just in case the lamb was horrible.

The best part though was the Pavlovas. I had heard that Pavlovas would not work here in the high altitude, the air collapses out of the egg whites and turns it flat in the oven.
So I did some research and decided to try making two different pavlovas- One made in the traditional way, and the other using chef's technique called "Italian meringue". Fortunately I had some idea about how to make Italian meringue because just before we left Australia my friend Kathy Vidulich made some of this meringue in a cooking day at my house.
So the traditional kind turned out with a slightly different texture. It looked like the eggs had melted a little and created that kind of yellow, bumpy,crystallised texture. It did not hold its 'peaks' once cooked but looked a bit more like a round cake shape.
The Italian meringue looked normal with white peaks and a cook consistency. It did bleed a little bit of the sugar syrup out the bottom of the pavlova and it was not quite as high as one at home, maybe a cm or two lower than it could have been but it looked pretty normal in the end.
Once they were topped with goodness (fruit and cream... no passion fruit unfortunately!) they were as good as any pavlova I had eaten.... but perhaps that was because they tasted like home :)

Crystal wants to learn how to make them so I will be making another one for FHE tomorrow night. This time I will try a slightly different technique with the Italian Meringue to see if it will work. Basically Italian Meringue is just were you whip the egg whites like normal, then add some cream of tartar and a pinch of salt. Then while that's mixing you put sugar and water in a saucepan and boil it for 5 or so minutes then you pour it into the egg whites as they are mixing. The hot sugar syrup cooks the egg whites with the heat so that it stabilises the meringue before you cook it.
Chefs use this technique so they can refrigerate the meringue or so it is less likely to collapse in other cooking but it works well for high altitude. I actually found it by reading a blog in Sweden!

So back to Costco... our favourite food shop, we went there for lunch 3 days in a row. You can fill up on all the samples that they hand out. On any given day there will be about 15-20 different stalls with products to sample- and these aren't piddly sample either. We have eaten steak, wieners, meatballs, cakes, pizza, chips, burritos, chocolate covered berries, fruit, specialty breads, muesli bars- and that's just in one day. The samples are actually a great idea because we would not have known what brands and products were worth trying if we hadn't sampled half the store :)

Then if you have any room left you get to the check outs and they have a cafeteria with yum food for $1. They do this hand dipped ice cream, like a magnum but twice the size and twice as good because they dip it in chocolate as you wait then they dip it in big chunky roast almonds.... really this is the most amazing ice cream for $1.50 imaginable. Its enough for three people.
We do shop at Costco occasionally too... but mostly we browse the 60 inch LED LCD tv aisle.

We went to Ikea but there prices were the same as back home. IKEA you are dead to me. Costco has won over our stomachs.

We went to the Olive Garden on Thursday and it was as good as I remembered. Do you all remember the unlimited bread sticks and salad??? They sent a ton of the bread and salad home with us in the doggy bag that had half our dinner it it.
They have this Chicken Ravioli with Gorgonzola cheese and pear.... it was so yummy I have since googled the recipe... I can't wait to be in a kitchen where I can try making it.
We have also found a good bread bakery where they make really good grainy (non sweetened) bread- on the down side it is $5 a loaf.... so we then went hunting for an alternative at Costco. for $2 we found a pretty good substitute that is not too sweet.

So today is the super bowl and many a church family is having a big shin dig to celebrate. Chelsea in fact was hijacked by a family down the street to celebrate with them.
We went into the local bank branch to put my name on the account. Well we were greeted with a table full of super bowl party food..... cupcakes topped with footballs, bags of chips, popcorn, cookies etc. The kids were invited to eat while we worked out the account details. It took quite a while because we were opening accounts for the kids as well. So for half an hour the kids filled up on food and then they came out with free piggy banks for the kids and sent us off with colouring in books and crayons. It was the craziest bank experience I have ever seen. When Win came back from opening the account originally he was given two stuffed ponys for the girls and they bought out drinks and cookies.
I think that we will be finding more excuses to do our banking in person :)

Chelsea starts school this week, so we will be busy making Valentines Day cards for all the class mates.... apparently a requirement here. She has been pretty happy about the extended school holidays but it will be good for her to meet some kids in the new neighbourhood... as well as start on the path to learning how to speak 'American'. She has converted over to the words pretty quickly. I got a note with "I love you MOM" the other day and she asks for "Ketchup" with her food.
Isabelle prefers to stick with her aussie words and tells Chelsea that she is calling it the wrong thing... however she does say "Oh Maaaan" like Cyrstal does... a lot.
George has taken to the food... today he got very excited about his "sloppy Joe" for lunch, he even got naked for the occasion so as not to cover himself in the sloppy stuff.... :P
George also embarrassed us last Sunday, in the middle of passing the Sacrament (when everyone was quiet) by calling out "I need a hair cut" the more we tried to silence him the louder he got to the point where he was standing on his chair calling out "I NEED A HAIRCUT". he probably did need a haircut but I have not idea why he chose sacrament meeting to voice it.
He then followed it up with "I want some banana lollies". ... I am surprised he remember those from Australia.

Isaiah is still our plodder, he spends a lot of time working on art projects of one sort or another. He discovered cutting and sticky taping and has been making endless "Kaleidoscopes". He snuck into Tim's office and drew a really beautiful picture of the family with rainbows and background on one of Tim's business documents. Tim said it was the nicest work document he'd ever had.

Well, we are going to be hanging out with Holly soon and going to Park City. Can't wait, she has also bought over some Australian food supplies which will be very appreciated.

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.

Tollhouse Cookies and the Tree House

Some of the activities that have been keeping us busy:
Discovered a tub of Toll House Cookies at Walmart.... for $2 (makes me want to do that crazy hand gesture thing that the $2 Cunnighams Man does in Adelaide, but I think the Americans would take it the wrong way).
George helped me make the cookies, very complex, involved a spoon and a cookie tray.
10 minutes later we were enjoying hot toll house cookies. Obesity, here we come ;)

Ok, not really, I did spend about an hour in the cereal aisle trying to find something that resembled weet-bix.
Just before we moved here I asked Kylie (my cousin who lived here for several years) what she would take with her to America and she said "Weet Bix".
I laughed and said "I don't think I'll be packing those."
I see now that she had a point. The only cereal I could find that did not have added frosting was a box of plain mini wheats. So I bought those, and planned to have banana and yogurt on top for breakfast. That was when I passed the refrigerated section and saw the tubs of Toll House cookies. I had the best of intentions before that.
















Win discovered a great place for the kids;
The Treehouse
It is an educational fun house where they have many different rooms and activities for little people to explore. They put on plays, puppet shows, craft time and stories. They have little old fashioned classrooms, stages for them to perform on, cows to milk, dress ups and tea houses from all over the world.
We bought a year pass for the family, and it looks like we might be there a lot! There are so many great things for the kids to do that it won't get old. They are also constantly changing the rooms to keep it new.
It is a fantastic place, and it is right next to the Ogden Temple.













































































Back at home I snapped this rather funny photo of Isabelle after I found her dressed up in my heals to go to the ladies room....
The photo of the cat was taken by one of the kids, it is one of their favourite things to chase the poor cats around and cuddle them to death. This cat was trying to hide under the table on a chair.

Sydney, Oprah and the Opera House

I know that I have not posted anything new for awhile. I will place most of the blame on the black plague that has been circulating in our house for the last couple weeks.
I had just recovered from a tummy bug and then I came down with what I am certain was swine flu. It really knocked me out for a few days, and ticked every box in the swine flu symptoms checklist, of course being here, going to a GP was not going to be a simple excercise so I just stayed at home and quietly died. The kids all had the flu too, everyone except Win and of course George... he has a nack for avoiding these things. The secret to his success I believe is that he keeps his puppy's tail firmly pressed under his nose to act as a filter against all the airborne germs.

It makes you appreciate good health all the more when you have been very sick for a couple weeks. I woke up from the first normal nights sleep last night and felt like a new person.


On the plus side of being sick, I watched some day time TV, and it just so happened that it was the airing of Oprahs' Australian Show.

I was pretty excited to see the show, each place they showed bought back such memories. The great barrier reef made me relive our honeymoon, and the episode on Sydney's harbour bridge and opera house bought back a mix of memories from when I was six and Nanny took me out on the Ferry to see the harbour, then all the years in between when I lived there, visited and more recently when we traveled to Sydney to get our visa .
Win and I flew to Sydney in late November, about 3 weeks before we left Australia, with all the kids in tow, for our visa interview at the U.S. consulate.
As some of you know Win came down with an almighty migraine the day before. He was so debillitated that I came home to find him passed out on the floor. He couldn't lift his head to drink, let alone fly to Sydney with 4 small kids.
However, we had booked our tickets and we could not reschedule the Consulate appointments. It was also 2 days before settlement on our house sale, so we had to do the final cleaning of our house that day. My Mum helped me clean our old house and later that night Joe Rice came around and gave Win a blessing. He blessed him that he would be able to have the strength to get through the next day in Sydney. Well, his migraine continued through out the night, and we we had to be up at 5am for our flight. It must have been about to the hour that we had to leave for the plane that his migraine eased, and the vomiting side effects subsided.
Win was extremely drained, but he was able to function that day, as we made it through the airport, onto trains and found our way around Sydney's CBD to the U.S. Embassy. There we had to sit around and wait for quite a time and Win had to go off and find a post office because we had forgotten to get the self addressed envelope that the embassy needed. I was left in the waiting room alone with the kids. They were particularly mischievious that day, I suppose the 5 am start and excitement of being in Sydney was taking a toll, because I can tell you that we cleared out that waiting room in 3 minutes flat! There were 3 areas of waiting rooms and all the single men that had been sitting in our area decided to relocate because of the noise.
There was one positive that came out of this. The Staff members realised the chaos was not good for morale so they rushed us through earlier than normal. So we were finished before lunch, and we had the rest of the day to kill in Sydney.
Because we were in walking distance to the Botanic gardens we and it was a hot day, we found a shady tree and left Win to lie underneath (remembering that he had not kept down any food
in the last 24 hours, he was very weak).
The kids and I decided to explore the botanic gardens and we walked all the way from one end to the other in an effort to see the sydney opera house. I wanted the kids to have seen it with their own eyes. The walk was a lot further than we originally thought and when we finally came around the curve in the boardwalk and it came into full view the kids didn't give it a second glance. All they were interested in was staring over the cement railing at the harbour, and the thing that captured their imagination? The rubbish in the water. "What if they kill the fish??" Who would do such a thing?" they kept asking. I think that their interest stemmed from "finding Nemo" because I did hear them discussing that 'Sydney was where Nemo lives (if you remember the Dentist that caught Nemo was looking out on the harbour).
So the Opera house was a non-event for the kids. Which brings me to the point of all this reminiscing- as we were watching Oprah's show in Sydney they showed the harbour and opera house and I said to the kids "Look, we saw that, remember?" they stared at me blankly and said "no we didn't". So note to self: Don't bother with the road trip to the Grand Canyon.

Fire Trucks, Friends and Frosty Roads

Win has a few missionary companions that he was excited to meet up with once we got here.
Two guys that he went through the MTC with live south of Salt Lake and offered to drive up and pick us up for the day to hang out. Ben and Garrett drove us to Riverton where we met their families and had a great lunch. The kids loved the kids sled cart that they had in the house and spent most of the day riding around the lounge room in it.
Then Ben (who is a Firefighter) took us to his work to show us around. The kids were very excited with the personal tour of the station, particularly when they got to ride in the truck around the block.
It was a blizzard outside and it took us hours to get home that night in the snow but we managed to drive via temple square where the kids got their first glimpse of Temple Square.

It was way too wild outside to actually get out of the car but it was lovely to see it all lit up on a stormy night.
There was a snow storm that was wide spread across the country that night, leaving the East Coast covered in record amounts of snow.
We saw a couple cars that slid across the roads out of control, one that we watched next to us narrowly miss hitting a fire hydrant. It made us re-think the sort of car we should buy. SUV's seem like a good option at the moment!