The view - again

I am a little addicted to taking views from our balcony! Now the cyclone has passed to the south of us, the weather has settled and by the look of the sky, tomorrow will be beautiful!

Cyclone watch

We, hopefully, left the terrorists behind, now we have to learn how to deal with a new type of emergency. In many ways it is the same preparation we had to make for the Kenyan general election. We are on cyclone watch as a tropical low is headed our way.  We are all supposed to be stocking up on food, water, batteries, candles etc... The supermarket has sold out of water so we need to find some empty containers to fill. It adds a little tension to the first week of a new school. Please pray this will come to nothing.

School

School started yesterday and seemed to go well. Everybody liked their teachers and made friends. Caleb has made a friend called Caleb!!! I include a picture of Ruben as it will be a few years before he will be included in school pictures!

A house at last!

Well, we looked at our 10th house on Monday. We all really liked it and the real estate agent called back on Tuesday to say we could have it. We signed the lease today and will move in around the 12th Feburary. I say around because that is also the day our orientation course starts. We will try and attend and move, but it may be a bit difficult. School starts on Tuesday, so please pray for the kids that they will settle in quickly and will enjoy it as much as their last school. Two more pictures of the view from here. Don't worry we have no view from the new house!

Out and about

After a depressing week house hunting, (it's much harder than we thought), we spent the weekend relaxing and getting out of the house. We take local advice as to where is croc free to swim. On Saturday afternoon we went to 'the rocks', a swimming hole complete with a huge rock to jump off, swinging vines, rapids and a bridge to jump off. The kids liked it so much we went again on Sunday, via Barron Gorge National Park.

Mareeba

Daniel made his first trip out to Mareeba this week, where he will be working some of the time. This week their were around 16 planes there for maintenance, mostly from Papua New Guinea and Arnhem land.

(Click on the photo if you want to see it bigger)

Hot, Hot, Hot!!!

It is kind of strange to live in a land where 90 percent of the population wear flip flops (or 'thongs' as they call them here. Not sure I will ever get used to calling them that!) It is totally acceptable and normal to wear shorts and t-shirt and a pair of flip flops to work, and so Daniel does. We packed all our warmer clothes away for when it gets cooler, although I'm not sure it ever really does. At the moment the temperature is high 30's possibly even 40 degrees C, with high humidity. In the winter (June/July), it falls to the high 20's!! So if you don't like really hot and humid, don't come and visit in December. Fortunately we have fans and air conditioning. One of the nicest places to be is the shopping malls which are beautifully air conditioned, even a little cool. Plus if you're out, you don't have to pay for the air conditioning! What you spend on heating your house, we will probably spend on cooling ours. At this time of year we leave the fans on 24/7 to stop everything going mouldy! Summer is the time you spend more time inside, and winter is when you go outside. At the moment we are mostly inside until about 4pm when we go swimming (all covered up) to cool down. Extreme UV is 11+; here it is 14!

Daniel has started work now and the kids and I spend our time trying to keep cool, and shopping. Shopping for school uniform and school supplies. We have also looked around a few houses. We found one we liked and have applied to rent it. We are still waiting to hear. Apparently there is quite a lot of competition in the rental market. Daniel hasn't seen the house, so I hope he likes it if we get it! If not we will be house hunting again this week. We have also had exciting trips to meet up with Daniel in his lunch hour to open a bank account, and to register ourselves for the Australian family allowance system. We are all about the fun! Not been great at taking photos, but here are a few - mostly of Ruben, and the view from the balcony.