What an interesting start to the next several years... I have to admit that while I was watching the plane touch down in Perth, the "what the hell are you doing" thought crossed my mind for a second. And the same thought crossed again when our relocation company forgot to schedule a transfer for us from the airport to our temporary apartment.  Luckily, Sam's new boss and wife (Dave & Jane) showed up just as panic was setting in.   On the drive to the apartment, the only thing I could think was how beautiful it is here.  The parks are immaculate and you can tell this is just like everyone, who knew anything about Perth, said it would be - an outdoor family lifestyle. The weather is fabulous and 90 here feels like low 70s at home-guess because of the lack of humidity or the type of humidity produced in Texas! Our temporary apartment is nice - 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, with a large living room and all the normal stuff in the kitchen.  We have a lovely patio and full size washer with a mini dryer and outdoor clothesline (this reminded me of my Gran because she used to dry her clothes on the line).  We have evaporative cooling in this unit, aka swamp cooler, but it works quite well.  However, you have to forget every time you were told to SHUT THE DOOR by your parents because this type of system requires you leave windows and doors open for it to cool your house. I have to say that I really like it, cool in the house while letting all that fresh Aussie air in!  However, the apartment doesn't have Internet, so my posts will likely be less frequent, unless I find a new favorite free wi-fi spot.  This also means we can't use our home phone number. We are going to work on figuring out our communication options.  Not having Internet in the house is hard! A comfort we are definitely missing!  Our realtor took me to the mall today so we can make the things happen, but we are limited on data until we get into our permanent home. We are doing pretty well for our first few days here.  Lainey only had one meltdown because she was so tired from the flight.  Sunday the kids fell asleep at 4:00 pm and there was no waking them, so we let them sleep and  an hour and a half later we joined them.  Come 2:00 am Lainey was standing at the corner of our bed saying she was not sleepy anymore. (sigh) We all were up really EARLy for Sam's first day of work.  He looked great in his formal business attire, which is something new for him.  I fixed his lunch and he was off to catch public transport into the city.  Definitely as different start to the day for both of us. Sam got home from work at a decent hour (had a great first day), I fixed dinner and we topped off the evening with some play time at the park.  I've done grocery shopping twice.  Dave and Jane kindly took us to Cole's, the local neighborhood grocery store, which is about the size of a Dollar General.  It had everything we needed though.  As expected, the average cost is about $1 more per item than in Texas.  There are some things that cost significantly more -like bananas and laundry detergent.  I'm sure that list will be longer.  They don't have regular Cheetos, rather they have Cheetos cheese and bacon balls! LOL! Cheese puffs with bacon flavor.  I haven't tasted them yet...they smell a bit like dog treats but Lindsey says they taste good!  The meats and cheeses are fabulous!  And they have Diet Coke here after all - I'm still going to try to ween myself off of it though.   I went back shopping Monday morning with the kids. We walked - well Lindsey and I did  and the kids rode in the stroller.  We stopped at a small park that was on the way and Harrison found a new toy he liked - a digger in sand! He was in heaven!  It is so cool and pleasant, especially in the shade. We picked up some soap and food storage items and trekked home.  :-) The exercise was good! It has been a good day.  Our rental car arrived today and I managed to get us to the park this evening without driving on the incorrect side of the road.  However, I keep washing the windshield instead of turning on the blinker.  We are also ready to start hunting for a house to rent, which we will start doing on Wednesday morning  I am definitely ready to settle into something that we can call our own and start formulating some sort of a routine.   For now, the dizziness from the long flight is fading, and I can say without a doubt that I am happy to be here.   Peace, Wendy