July 30th

Perth winter....Here it is rainy, but only for a little bit and without much warning. yesterday around 3pm I decided I had enough of sitting in the apartment and listening to Cassie and Marcus whine, and beat each other up. Which by the way is now my life with Marcus moving his favorite thing is to grab her by the shirt and pull her down. Due to early watching of men fighting in cages, I believe Marcus thinks he can take anyone. I am sure I will now have the little monster on the playground, and will be saying "I'm sorry my child just ground your kids face into the sand"

I digress, so we went for a walk mainly for my sanity and stumbled across a Farmers Market, which had everything from a fresh flower stand, which had some beautiful flowers, all of which Cassie wanted to smell, to fresh meat and tons of veggies. We wandered around looking at all the sights, and then went outside to see Woolworth's a grocery store similar to Safeway! In we went and just in the nick of time given the clouds opened and the Aussies were dashing for cover under all the nicely provided awnings.

Cassie asked why are we here? Well to look and see I said remembering I did not yet have a bank card that worked and with only $50 I would be limited on what we could get, that and the fact that without a car, I have a stroller that usually contains 2 kids, on in and one on top, a backpack filled with bottle, sippy cup and diapers, new additions are umbrella, coats for the kids, rain cover for Marcus and my mobile phone. Not a ton of room left for food shopping.

Our apartment fridge is also one that could fit nicely into a university dorm room, and the night I made spaghetti Mike had to take shelves out to house our leftovers!

The store was wonderful, spread out in a handy fashion, with all the things I love to see. Oh wait looking for tylenol. Not to be found. There is Advil, and Paracetamol, and no I thought that was the brand name, but it is the drug. I stood there looking at the drug section for ages, until a gentleman came by and I ventured to ask - do you know if Tylonol exists? He looked surprised and confused. I have realized that my accent is sometimes a bit surprising, and men generally are not used to be asking for help. Needless to say I left without drugs and headed to the till. The cashier assured my my bank card would work, I was highly skeptical but decided to take the chance, being reasonably sure I stayed within the $50 I had. Nope, $51.90, damn! I searched through my whole wallet and was able to come up with $51.50, Arghhhh. Well I will out back the .....the same drug man behind me said,I have .40 if you would like, as I can see you have your hands full! Great Thanks I said. Stuffing the food under the stroller, picking up the bottle for the 100th time, I headed out into the rain, Marcus covered, Cassie on top, holding an umbrella and trying to push an overweight cart with one hand.....Life in Perth continues.

Life in Australia

Hi everyone,

I am going to try and keep up on the posting, but the regular caveat exists - I am really bad at sticking to it, and horrid at remembering to post often, so I will do my best.

We arrived in Perth on Sunday after a long and delayed trip. The kids were great for most of the time. The end of our flight to Sydney was tough on Marcus and Cassie was less then pleased with the delay in Sydney.

The last couple of days have been spent getting cell phones - mobile, bank accounts and trying to get oriented.

I will keep you updated on our progress and try and add photos from my phone. So far no idea how