The move went well (enough), with our rental furniture from Lois delivered Tuesday, and our airfreight arriving on the Wednesday. Not sure these are the sort of images Pickfords would want to use in their advertising for "the careful movers". Still trying to locate a few bits and pieces, and not sure if they actually ended up coming here or whether they ended up in storage.
My Tiffany mug. More sobs!
We picked up Miss Abs Cadabs on the Thursday. She was very happy to see us. Lots of smooches, headrubs, and kisses. Poor thing is dying to chase squirrels but until she has her rabies vax, she's confined to barracks - and given the rigmarole of getting her over here, we're not going to leave her here in three years, which is what would happen if she is exposed to rabies without an immunization.
Isabella's been catching the school bus for just over a week, now, and LOVES it!! Ms Bowman is the lovely lady who picks her up and drops her off every day from our stop which is just down the hill on the corner but if it's raining, Ms Bowman will stop right outside the house! How's that for service?!
Isabella's bus and our house, on the right. The grass looks dead but it is actually dormant until spring.
Isabella missed the bus one morning, which isn't hard, as it comes at 7.40am, which can be a bit of challenge - she was beside herself, as she was going to miss out on her daily chitchat, with Tessa (the "big" girl who looked after her the first couple of days) and Jordan or Jordynne (there's one of each in her class!)
Chitchat is an area that Miss Isabella is struggling to keep under control during class. In her daily agenda entry yesterday, her teacher, Ms Stewart wrote:
"Apart from constant talking, Isabella is really well behaved."
Mm! There's worse things she could be in trouble for ... like putting glue on her neighbour's seat - no, that was the week before last ... to a boy she really likes. Isn't it more common for little boys to express a crush by pulling pigtails, etc?
Master Daniel's loving the house too, and the sloping backyard, whilst scrubby and root-ridden, does have the benefit of returning the ball to him as long as he throws it up the hill.
The house itself is huuuuuuuge!!! Let me take you on a tour ... (Minus the 4 1/2 bathrooms, the "mother-in-law-suite" and the double and single garages!!)
Dave's been working long and hard, often on the phone to colleagues in Australia until late into our evening. He's starting to feel more comfortable in the job, and the local ladies in the office think all our Aussie hubbies are just "so lovely". I think we're a lot more relaxed, and the "no worries" mentality seems to have a harmonious effect on the staff, so that's good.
I've been doing some intense nesting, and apart from Dave's clothes and the playroom, I'd pretty much unpacked everything and set up the house within the week. Needless to say, Gray - my friendly gym instructor hasn't seen me for a bit, though I did sneak in on Thursday for a yoga class to un-pretzel my back and shoulders!
Spring has sprung, and the pollen from the ubiquitous pine trees is dusting all external surfaces.
Speaking of nature, just before the Big Move, we went away for Presidents' Day long weekend, to Indian Springs, the oldest state park in the country.
We "camped" in a log cabin, went for little walks at and nearby nature reserve, and tried the "best BBQ in middle Georgia" - though we have seen billboards on the I-75, the main interstate that runs north to south, advertising two other BBQ joints with the same title!!
It was a lovely mental and physical segue from apartment to house living and the kids loved being able to run around and be free!!
The language and accent is still endlessly entertaining. This week I rang our referring real estate agent's property manager to get a referral for carpet cleaning. (LiAnne and Gary, our landlords, didn't get a chance to have them cleaned before they moved out - they're paying to have all sorts of things repaired for us, so it's not an issue. They just ran out of time.)
Lacie told me that they regularly use Beal, who's very good. "Beals?" I queried. "Yes, Beal" she replied. Feeling like a half-wit, I asked her to spell it for me.
"B-I-L-L"
Oh, that Bill! The Southern drawl strikes again!!
One of the local expats found a list of southern expressions, "bless your heart" being number 1. Funnily enough, LiAnne says that to me a lot. LiAnne is lovely and not actually from Georgia but some northern state. Gary, her husband is the local lad, though he seems very worldly. (http://www.businessinsider.com/southern-sayings-2013-10)
LiAnne looks like a cross between Julianne Moore and Gillian Anderson and is as sweet as southern sweet tea. We've been communicating quite a bit, as we're liaising for a few odd jobs to get done. She's constantly, saying things like: "oh, you guys are just soooo sweet! Do you drink wine? We'll have to get together for dinner - we'd have so much fun!!"
She also like to describe the neighbour's in the following terms: "they're good, hardworking, Christian people" ... We've not mentioned "the war" - why ruin a beautiful relationship?!
Regarding the "god" thing down here, I was recently invited, by SMS, to attend Isabella's school friend's church. We were warned that it was a cultural thing here to ask people where they worship, but I was a little surprised when it came. I workshopped my response with Dave over a cardrive while in Indian Springs, and decided that the best response would be a direct but polite one, with no hint of an apology. "Thank you for the kind invitation, but we don't go to church." It delivered the message, and we still got a play date afterwards, so perhaps Kennedy's mum decided we were ok in spite of our godlessness.
The religion thing is absolutely everywhere, and with a baptist church on almost every 2nd corner, it's hard to avoid. I've mentioned before how Krogers is particularly quiet on a Sunday morning before 11.30 so I love shopping then, along with with cheeky sideways glances that are shared between fellow heathens at that time of the day.
I should also mention that some of the bigger churches actually have a uniformed police officer directing the traffic from the departing faithful at the end of the service. Our estate is near SSBC, a funky abbreviation for the Southside Baptist Church. The car park for SBCC is almost as big as shopping centre car park - and they've been extending it. We have made mental notes to self to avoid leaving our estate around 12pm on a Sunday.
We had our first dinner party on Thursday night, which was fun. It was a couple of guys from work with one partner, and a visiting senior engineer. Isabella enjoyed giving them the tour of the 3 floors of the house, while I tried out the oven, cooking Teriyaki salmon, with Japanese rice, and sticky date puddings and sauce. The fish was a little over done, but the puddings were perfect, if I do say so myself!
Isabella recently participated in a Boosterthon at her school - a sponsored fun run ... She had a ball and managed to finish all 35 laps!!
Spot the Aussie!!
Hi Sophie, Great to see all these photos and read about your goings on (Sarina is fascinated, and impressed by the fun run, and the fact that you brought your cat over there) Also thank you for the sweet card. Bless your heart! ;)) Please let us know your postal address so we can "write you" ! I'm on the same email address, but snail mail is fun for the girls x0 emma
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