In comparison to other weeks, it doesn’t feel like we’ve done a lot but we’re all pretty tired at the end of it! It must be all those early morning starts so that Harry can get to school on time – we don’t want him getting any tardy notes! Roll on September when it changes to a 9am start.
On the work front, I had two days out the office at a conference in Seattle which was good. The only downside is that having almost been organized at work I am now all behind again – I guess I need a productive week next week!
Tracy and the boys went over to our new house on Wednesday afternoon and got the keys – so it is officially ours! On Wednesday evening we went shopping at Pier 1 Imports and bought our first few things for the house. These were 2 lovely new bed side lamps (we don’t have any overhead lights in the master bedroom so we needed some lamps) and a giant knife and fork to go on the wall in the kitchen diner! We also checked out some TVs in BestBuys which we need ready for the cable guy coming round on Saturday to set it all up.
Harry went to Giovanne’s birthday party on Thursday which was held at 1-2-3 Jump. This place consists of dodgeball on trampolines. He was very sweaty when we picked him up but he had fun and that’s the main thing. After the party we returned to BestBuy to buy a hoover and two TVs. A 42″ for the lounge and a 32″ for our bedroom. Although they sound big, when we set them up in the house they look tiny! I can understand now why there are so many 65″ TVs on sale – they fit with the size of the rooms!
On Friday afternoon we opened another bank account, this time with US Bank. We have one with HSBC but they cannot setup direct debits to pay the rent – well, they will but they will charge us $30 for each monthly rent payment and $15 from the landlord for receiving it! The banking system over here seems a little bit backward but I’m not sure if that is just HSBC or banks as a whole!
Insurance for the new car and the house has also been sorted this week. There’s been a lot of form filling and payments so it would be good to get paid sometime soon – roll on those fortnightly pay checks! Although I should say bi-weekly – they have no idea what fortnights are over here! I am hoping to finally get paid next Friday for the first time!
On Friday night we had our traditional meal out in Kirkland. We won’t be having these on a regular basis once we have moved – will have to find new places to eat in Issaquah – so we thought we’d make the most of it. It was Tracy’s turn to choose where we ate and, surprise, surprise we ate at the Mexican! I had steak, prawn and chicken fajitas, Tracy had a burrito, Toby a taco and Harry was in the mood for new food and ordered the quesadilla’s (after he had asked the waitress what they were). Harry is getting rather confident – I think a couple of weeks at school has done him the world of good.
Saturday was another early start. We were over at the new house by 8:45am in order to put the bases on the TVs before cable guy arrived. Once I had unpacked them I realized that we didn’t have any screw drivers so a quick visit to the Home Depot was required. I’m not sure which came first but walking into Home Depot is like walking into B&Q in the UK. It could easily have been an early morning DIY shopping trip in Wellingborough. And when I say identical, they really are – even the way the aisles are laid out – the square walk round area with the power tools is exactly the same as B&Q. They even have the same self service checkouts – although these don’t talk at you quite as loudly as the B&Q ones.
Cable guy sorted the TVs – we have two setup and working but there are a total of 5 connection points around the house where we can plug new TVs in – just in case we need to have a TV in every room. We have our internet access setup with a connection speed called Blast! Not only does it sound good, it provides a 20mb connection speed which is about 4 times faster than what we had in Harrold and 20 times faster than Grampy’s!
The phone connection is sorted too but both these things required us to make another trip to BestBuys in order to buy a wireless router (pronounced “rout-er” over here) and some telephones.We do have a new telephone number but I have no idea what it is! There are so many new phone, mobile and PIN numbers to learn here – my brain cannot cope!
After sorting all that and having some lunch, Harry went off to play at Dane’s – a new friend from school. Dane has a treehouse in the garden so I think they will be having fun there most of the afternoon. Although when we dropped him off it sounded like they had a pretty busy, fun-filled afternoon lined up including making hotdogs.
While Harry played there, the rest of us played some tennis back at the apartment. It’s a lovely sunny afternoon, and while we played the largest golden eagles EVER flew over us. Typically this was the first time I had been down playing tennis and not taken the camera. They definitely know I want to take a picture and it’s clearly not going to happen. I’m thinking my best chance maybe going to a zoo. Maybe I will have more luck by Lake Sammamish?
… breaking news …. I just managed to get another fairly good eagle picture! Check it out here – it’s the one where he is looking to the left showing off his white bum!
After Tracy had finished being “floopy” we decided to head out again. The sun was shining so we thought we better make the most of it. We headed along the I-520 towards Redmond and then headed on down West Sammamish Parkway before stopping at 