A Day of Firsts

Today was a day of firsts. Georgia's first morning sleeping until 7am since we arrived, Bill's first time driving on the wrong side of the road, our first day in our new house, and our first family meal in it. There may be more, but those pretty much sum it up. It was a GREAT day. We are sitting in the guest bedroom likely ready to pass out at 8:38pm (drinking wine out of little plastic cups), but are thinking about our day and what we'll do next. The day started out in a rush, but ended like any other day in our house in Humble...with just much less furniture, food, cooking utensils, etc. We rushed this morning to check out of the hotel as the employees of the hotel were having at fire drill. Bill nervous about driving for the first time rushed to get all of our many bags loaded into the car. I had to take the kids and a few bags to the lobby as we were riding with our driver and Bill was to meet us at the front and follow us to our new house. The blocked off entrance where we are normally picked up gave me a panic about how Bill was going to figure out where to go. Luckily everything was pretty easy and we were off (Reid got to see a firetruck on our way out). Either thankfully or good prep on our part it was Saturday morning and there was no morning traffic to contend with. We pulled up to our house and Bill was right there behind us. He got out of the car with his arms in the air...."I DID IT". Very exciting. We unloaded a few of our things and got the carseats loaded in the new car (a Nissan X-Trail). We wanted to head to a mall following our driver again. To say we were overjoyed to be independent is an understatement for sure. I was so thrilled to have the kids in their carseats ( I should put that in CAPS) and I was so happy not to be riding in the backseat worried about when to tell someone to drop us off or pick us up. I have pictures to prove there was sheer joy, but I'll have to add those tomorrow.
It was very easy to get to the mall so I have no problem driving the kids there while Bill is away next week - he leaves tomorrow BTW. Not terribly happy about that, but he does have to keep us in the black. I'm not entirely sure the mall we went to has a whole name...there is The Curve, Ikea and the Ikano Power Center. It is a really great place. We've been there 3 times already I think looking for furniture. Today we went back to order a couch for the guest room and desks for the office at Ikea. Luckily most of the items were in stock. Just one thing was out and it will be in next week. Anyway, we wanted to go ahead and get something to sit on as right now we only have our stairs and our mattresses. Those things will be delivered tomorrow along with a tv and surround system so we will finally have something to sit on and another form of entertainment. Bill was adamant about getting something for us to sit on before he left. I was hopeful that we would find things for the main living area, but knew we had a tight time line. I'm glad we found this nice couch that will fit perfectly in the guest room. I'm excited to decorate around it. So sometime tomorrow afternoon we will have a couch, a working tv and dvd player. Now if we could just get the pool cleaned we would be in business. I didn't mention earlier that when we arrived at the mall we ate a place called Italiannes. Expecting something between a Spaghetti Warehouse and Olive Garden we were actually pleasantly surprised. The food was pretty good and the glass of wine was the size of Texas (mom.dad.Doug think birthday glass of wine :) ) Later that day we drove to the grocery store all by ourselves. The grocery store will take getting used to because of the layout. The store is two stories. Upstairs contains the non-halal food (pork), alcohol, and some other things. So you have to shop non cold stuff downstairs, then leave your cart and go upstairs cause you got have bacon and wine, and then go back downstairs to get your cold and frozen items. I could reorganize the hell out of that grocery store! What a fun thing that would be! So we stocked up on things and guess what?! Our first night cooking in Asia and we make... Mexican! Well sort of. My quick and easy go to meal is always ground meat and a can of beans on a tortilla with a little cheese. So that's what we had with just salt and pepper because I have nothing else yet and some onion and garlic. They actually turned out pretty good. Reid even ate them. We had wine in our little plastic punch cups and I just remembered Baskin Robbins chocolate ice cream that we didn't eat. Oh well - I can have that after the kids go to bed tomorrow! A few hiccups here and there in the house today. Learning how they do things here( like use the oven or turn on the pump switch to get water pressure on the third floor), which light switches turn on which lights, and blowing a fuse. Ah...such is learning a new home in a new world. I think that is about it for today. The day was full of memories and I will never forget it. I am so happy to be in our house with my family...it certainly feels a little more like home already.