We have a house!

We finally have internet access at our new house. There's a lot of catching up to do!

I'm going to try to pick up where I left off. We went back into the Lexus dealership on Monday, the Queen's birthday. We had decided over the weekend not to lease a car, but buy a used car, a relatively cheap one. We decided on a used Audi station wagon. I must admit, I had little interest in the car selection process. It's just hard to get past the steering wheel misplacement. Since Monday was a public holiday the finance department wasn't open so we couldn't leave with the car. Bernard let us take his car again!

As of Tuesday (two weeks ago) we were still in the apartment. We were approved for the house but we had a few ends that needed to be tied up. We finally got our money situation sorted out, at least well enough to get into the house. I was so excited to have a place. It meant we could finally start to really settle into our new life. The Relocation company contacted various utility companies to get the process rolling. On Tuesday I had planned to get the apartment packed up. But, the floodgates had been opened with all of our utility connections. I spent most of the day on the phone giving the necessary information for power, gas, phone, internet, etc. Mark needed to go to the real estate office to sign the lease and we had to pay the first months rent along with the bond. That was a bit of a hassle because Mark was already planning on leaving work early to go to the dealership to pick up the car. Now he'd have to leave even earlier. I had to meet him at the real estate office because I had had half the money we needed. We agreed to meet at 4:00.

I needed to assemble our new stroller so I could make the trek to the train station. For the life of us we have no idea why we sold ALL of our strollers before we left California. We didn't really use them anymore, except for the jogging stroller. So, it kind of made sense to get rid of the rest, but not that one. The store had a choice of 2 apparent jogging strollers--one was over $700 and the other was $1400. We nearly choked. If there wasn't soooo much walking to do I would have opted not to get one, but we end up walking a few miles a day and that just isn't fair to the kids. And, we (Mark) plan to do some races so we'll need a good stroller for that. So, we bought the cheaper one. Unfortunately when I was putting it together I came across the big warning--not intended for running. Oh well. There doesn't seem to be a good reason why it can't be used as a jogging stroller. It does seem like they have better standards for strollers here.

So we headed to the train station. I had to wake the kids up from their nap--they had only been asleep for about 15 minutes. Kessler was really pissed and uncooperative. I had to convince him to stay in the stroller by holding his hand while I pushed the stroller. I was also balancing Mark's dry cleaning in a sophisticated white trash bag. I called Mark just after 4:00 to tell him we were running a little late. "You're not going to believe this", he said. "The bank closed at 4:00." He was right; I couldn't believe it. Mark headed to the real estate office to see if we had any options. The "I'm gonna do as little as I can to get by" receptionist said that we could pay with a credit card, but there would be a 3% fee. We were happy to have the option. She couldn't help us at that moment though because she had to go to the post office. And anyway, one of the property managers was at the property because a neighbor called to report the blaring house alarm. So.. we waited. When he and the receptionist returned Mark was down the street getting food for the kiddos. We did finally get it all squared away.

Next Mark needed to go to the dealership to get the car--only he didn't have his passport and they needed that to seal the deal. So, the kids and I rushed to the train station then schlepped up lovely Hampton Street back to the apartment. I scanned the passport and emailed it to the finance manager at the dealership. (I'm so glad we bought the printer/scanner!). Everything was good, except it wasn't! The external finance department wanted 10% down now. As you know, getting our money here has been difficult. (At the time of this writing, we still haven't received Mark's last 2 months worth of paychecks from the states). So, Bernard lent us another car for the evening so that we could move our 20 bags to the house.

At this point it was dark, late and cold. We scurried through the apartment attempting to pack as much as we could to take to the house. Mark hadn't seen it yet except for a few drive-bys a few days earlier. I was excited for him to see it and to see it again myself, without the owners' boxes everywhere. So, we pulled up to the gate and pressed the button on the remote. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. So Mark got out to inspect the gate. Nothing. We decided to just use the pedestrian gate which is slightly less convenient but not impossible. It's pitch black--we fumbled with the 20 keys on the key chain until the front door finally opened. We searched for the light switch and turned it on. Nothing. The power had obviously been turned off. That doesn't really make sense since the owners were in it over the weekend.

Oh well, there's still a job to be done. We realized that there's a beeping sound that hadn't stopped since we opened the door. A few seconds later we heard the blare of the alarm. At the property manager's office earlier in the day he happened to mention that you press 1 to stop the alarm. That's exactly what it does. It stops the blaring alarm, but it doesn't disarm it. So, every 20 seconds the alarm sounded. We know how to make friends with our neighbors!!

We were all beyond exhausted at this point. Mark had to return the car to the dealership by 7:30 the next morning. We still had 2 more loads to bring over from the apartment. Mark dropped us off at the apartment and made one more trip. We needed cleaning supplies for the apartment as well so he had to add a trip to the supermarket on his to do list. It was 10:00 p.m. at this point.

I did a bit more packing and got the kids in bed then crashed myself. Mark finally turned up after his late night errands and he was finally able to sleep as well.

We decided that Mark would drop me and the kids off at the house on the way to the dealership--we'd take our last load then. I had to be there for the delivery of our new mattress between 8:00 and 9:00. It actually was kind of lining up well, in theory anyway.

We rushed to get everything unloaded because Mark had to drop the car off and get to work by 9:00. We still had no power and it was freezing!! I spent some time unpacking but my fingers were so numb I couldn't feel them anymore. Besides, every 20 seconds I had to turn off the alarm. The rest of the time I had the constant beeping reminder that I'd have to turn off the alarm in 19, 18, 17.. seconds.

Mark had bought a loaf of banana bread for us the night before. What a life saver. We dug in, literally. At about 7:45 I realized that I had no cash, cash I needed to pay the delivery driver! There are so many things that I have been desperate for the last several weeks--one was definitely our new bed. The mattress at the apartment was extremely hard; I woke up aching everyday. I called Mark as if he could do anything. He had returned the car and was on the train to the city. There was nothing I could do but hope that I could sweet talk the guy into letting me drop the money off the next day. They showed up promptly at 8:00. I delivered the bad news.. he was more than understanding. Looking back I realize how pathetic I must have looked. The house had hardly anything in it. I was freezing; still only in a T-shirt because I just hadn't gotten around to finding something else to wear. It was so cold you could see our breath inside; in fact it was colder inside than it was outside. Then there was the constant beeping and blaring of the alarm. He told me not worry about bringing the money to him; just put it under the mat and he'd pick it up on the weekend. Thank you!!! With relief I closed the door and attempted to lock it. Hmmm.. you need a key to lock the door from the inside. Okay, I retrieved my keys and locked the door.

I went back to the kitchen because we had brought some milk over from the apartment; I wanted to make sure it made it to the fridge. That's when I realized our fridge is just that; a fridge with no freezer. How is that possible? I also realized that we didn't have a dryer. It said in the lease that one was provided. So, I called my relocation specialist, Fiona.. wonderful Fiona, and had her add that to the list of rental furniture that we were having delivered later in the day. I noticed a binder on the counter in the middle of our stuff. It didn't look familiar. I decided to investigate. It contained everything you ever wanted to know about 5 Plunket Street.. but specifically, how to turn off the damn alarm!!!! YAY!!!

I entered the code and the beeping stopped!!

Now, the kids had been feral since we arrived at the house. They couldn't move from one point to another without running, jumping and screaming. At least it was keeping their body temperature up and it wasn't the slighted bit annoying on my frayed nerves. I was too cold to do anything else so I decided to make the bed and.. get in!!! We had bought linens over the weekend.. which included the dooner (queue evil music). A dooner is a pristine white blanket on which you must put a dooner cover. Which is like a big pillow case with buttons. Similar to a duvet, but doonerare extremely common here. I set out to put the dooner in its cover with the dexterity of a fence post, cursing non stop. Dooners were invented by the devil. After several minutes of wrestling with the bastard I was able to button it; mind you the corners of the dooner were no where near the corners of the cover.

I convinced the kids to get in bed with me. That lasted all of 6 seconds. They kept finding excuses to get out of the bed, letting all the warm air out from under the dooner. We went outside for a bit because it really was warmer out than in. Only, I had to find the keys to unlock the front door. I decided to leave them in the door, which was a good idea until I needed to get out the back door. We came back inside; I think at this point I made the startling discovery that all the door handles and light switches were nearly at my eye level. The kids can't reach them. I know this because I heard screaming from somewhere within the house. In a panic I raced to save them only to find them standing on their tippy toes trying to reach the door handle. I spent the better part of the day opening doors, closing doors, turning on lights, finding keys to unlock doors, wiping bums, lifting kids to wash their hands. Any bets on how many times I asked myself, "what the hell have you done moving here!??!"

It was time to eat. The banana bread was gone. All we had left was regular bread. The kids wanted nothing to do with this. I finally decided they'd eat if they were hungry enough. Then wonderful Fiona turned up with hot chocolate and pastries! I told you--she's amazing. We jabbered on and on and we started talking about the power. She was surprised it had been turned off. We talked through it a bit and I recalled being told by the power company that I needed to turn off the main power switch before the power could be transferred. When I spoke with the people that arranged all the utilities connections, they said not to bother. It occurred that maybe the property manager had turned off the main power. Then the light bulb went off. Just this past week Fiona had power issues and had to turn the main breaker off at her house. So, she knew it would be outside. I never would have guessed this. So, we headed out to find it. And wouldn't you know it the main switch was off. As soon as we flipped it the outside lights came on! We raced in to turn on the heater! Woohoo, we had heat!!

Fiona did a walk through of the house to make sure all the scuffs and scratches were noted on the move-in sheet. Then she was off. The furniture rental people came by to drop off the dryer, 2 twin beds, a sofa set and a desk. Things were looking up. But, we were starving. The kids finally ate the bread.

...to be continued.