Settling into Houston

We finally found a house to rent in a beautiful suburb in northern Houston; we love our neighborhood with all the trees and our quiet cul-de-sac. Took me two l-o-n-g weeks to unpack what seemed like a zillion boxes but we got out all the important stuff and the rest will just have to wait because I am so sick of boxes, I can't tell you! Amazingly all of our stuff arrived the same week, long term storage from Wisconsin and shock of shocks, our container from Australia! WOW!
As previously mentioned we did tour the Johnson Space Center while Alex was here over Labor Day, which was amazing! For my Aussie friends: this is the place as in "Houston, we have a problem....." They have an entire rocket laying on it's side in a huge building - it would have been Apollo 18 but the mission was canceled. (it's just a few feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty!) I am standing in front of one of the huge Saturn 5 rockets.
We also went for a walk in nearby Bravos Bend State Park and look what we saw? Yikes! he was a big 'un!




My sister Marilyn and hubby John arrived on 1 October for a visit; we were excited to welcome them to Texas but the best part was they brought Rio to us! They were wonderful to dog-sit him the last 2 months as we were traveling and getting settled in. So now he can keep me company as well as happily chase the many squirrels in our large back yard. He and I have already found several nice nearby walking trails.


Now hopefully life will slooowwww down which sounds so good to us about right now. Our new Ward seems very friendly and the beautiful Houston Temple is only 20 minutes from our house. We're currently enjoying watching the MLB playoffs and cheering for the Angels, Dodgers, Philies, anyone but the Yankees! That's me talking, not Roy.
Roy is super busy at work and Alex is relearning about cold weather and hopefully studying hard at BYU-I.
All is well. All is well.

Where in the world are they?

Sorry to have been out of touch for a while. We've had a crazy last several weeks. OK, Reader's Digest version:
We somehow managed to get organized, pack and leave Auz in 3 weeks on August 3rd. We have to say, we never could have done it without the help of many of our wonderful Aussie friends, especially Paul and Jill Antuar. Rio left a few days before and is now happily temporarily staying with my sister in Tennessee until we get settled in Houston - thank you John and Marilyn!
Since then, we've visited favorite places and dear friends - many thanks to the Tilley's on the North Coast and Tony and LaRee in Sacramento for hosting us. Onto Utah while we waited for Alex to take his finals and Roy pestered the trout in the Provo River near Heber. Many, many more thanks to Karen and Doug who always generously open their home in Bountiful to us. We then enjoyed a fun week with all our kids and grandkids in Park City Utah - some of us tried the Alpine slide, ATV's, jet skis on nearby Jordenielle Reservior and all enjoyed a day at the Hogle Zoo.
Alex then "lost" some wisdom teeth (boy, was he glad he only had two!) while Dad headed down to Houston. ALex and I joined him a few days later. Since then have been house hunting, car shopping, driver's license test taking....... hasn't been all work and no play, though. Enjoyed a fun Astro baseball game, a drive to Galvaston, walking around/through Bravos Bend State Park to see alligators and a day at the Johnson Space Center. whewwwww!
Alex starts Fall semester at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg this week, so he's excited for that.
I promise to post some pictures of the above adventures as well as our last Auz adventure out to see Uluru. Soon!

A word about Vegemite

Please, no offense to our wonderful Aussie friends but about Vegemite; in one word - it's pretty awful.

Just in case you're wondering..... it is made from leftover brewers' yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacturing, and various vegetable and spice additives. The taste may be described as salty, slightly bitter, and malty - somewhat similar to the taste of beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky, much like peanut butter. It is not as intensely flavoured as the British Marmite and is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite.

(thank you Wikipedia).

A favorite breakfast is the above - Vegemite on toast. and I'm also told that Vegemite goes well with cheese spread, kind of like our peanut butter and jelly. Haven't tried it.

I must also say that Alex likes Vegemite - took some to Provo with him and has been having fun attempting to convert his roommates; so far no luck.

Did you know?

In Australia:

all eggs are brown

all cheddar cheese is white

take out food is called "take away"

there is no one cent coin, so obviously is rounded up or down to the nearest five cents.

The coins are 5, 10, 20 ,50, 1 dollar and 2 dollars - your wallet can get really heavy!

the paper money is different colors - very cool!

movie tickets costs $15 apiece! You choose your seat or they assign you one and you have to sit in that seat. Our first time at the movies, we did not know this and sat in someone else's seat and he was not happy with us!

there is no frozen juice concentrate here; most fruit juice is a liquid called "cordial" that is concentrated.

cannot find semi-sweet chocolate chips

electricity is insanely expensive!!

cell phones are called "mobiles"

bathrooms are called toilets

it is one of the few countries in the world that eats their national symbol. We've seen Emu jerky and yes, you can buy kangaroo meat at the grocery store. I have only seen it "minced" or ground up. We have yet to try some.

all school children in private or public (state) schools are required to wear uniforms, complete with hats, and each schools' uniform is different. These cute little girls are my next door neighbors in their sports day and regular uniform, and the little boys are my friend Jen's sons - different school.

High school female students must either wear their hair pulled back or up in a bun. Grade 11 or 12 boys are required to wear ties. Girls' uniforms are dresses or skirts & blouses.

The Mall shops close at 5pm every night except for Thursday when they stay open until 9pm. Grocery stores close between 7 -8pm. That has taken some real getting used too!

Pharmacies are called "Chemist" and Doctor offices are called "surgery".

French fries or "chips" are dipped in meat gravy rather than ketsup. (which is called 'tomato sauce' and really is just plain tomato sauce.)

Sales tax is built into the price of everything: what price you see marked is exactly what you pay. That general sales tax (GST) is 10%!

Jello is called 'jelly' and is a dessert not a salad! A favorite is to put jelly over a scoop of ice cream.

In case you haven't heard....

Yes, the rumors you may have heard are true. Roy's company is transferring him again so we're moving back to the US next month. Got one of those phone calls: "I've got good news and bad news - the good news is we've still got a job. The bad news - it's in Houston, Texas". (no offense to our friends in Texas.)
So we're very sad to be leaving Australia alot sooner than we had expected -there is so much more of this beautiful country that we wanted to see and we've made some wonderful friends here. We'll just have to come back!

We're looking forward to being closer to our grandkids though. :)
Needless to say, the next 4 weeks are going to be crazy!

Another book recommendation

I just wanted to pass along the name of another great book I just finished reading.

3 Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

The work that Greg has done to build schools in Pakistan and now Afghanistan is so inspiring and courageous, it often brings me to tears.
To learn more about Greg, the book, and his Central Asia Institute, visit these websites; they tell the story better than I can.

www.threecupsoftea.com

www.ikat.org

gregmortenson.blogspot.com

caivideos.blogspot.com

Suffice it to say, I loved this book! It has moved near the top of my 10 most favorite books list.
God bless you Greg Mortenson, literally.

Gladstone

This last weekend I zipped up to spend the weekend with Roy in Gladstone (or as the Aussies pronounce it "Glad-stun"); you might remember he's been working up there for the past several months. Gladstone is 550 km (344 miles) north of us here in "Brissy" on the coast - a 6 hour drive or 1 hour flight. For a new adventure I took the "Tilt Train", which also took about 6 hours. I was informed by my exasperated taxi driver, it's called the Tilt train because it goes so fast, it "tilts" around the turns. At one time we were speeding along about 155km/hr. (~97 miles/hr). It was a very pleasant, relaxing ride.

Gladstone is a small city with a population of about 30,000; much, much smaller than Brisbane. It owes it existence to it's deep water harbor where very large ships can be loaded with coal for example.

On Sat. on our way to the beach towns of Yeppoon and Emu Park, we drove north past the larger town of Rockhampton or as the locals affectionately call it, "Rocky" - now you don't see a welcome sign like that everyday! That is one big cow!

More wonderful road signs! (but we didn't see any.)

This "Singing Ship" had hollow pipes and when the wind whistled through them, it made the coolest, eeriest sound! Fantastic views too! Those are islands off in the distance.

On Sunday after attending the Gladstone Branch's Sacrament meeting, we drove almost 2 hours South to another beach town -1770, so called because the revered James Cook of the Royal Navy landed there, guess when?

Like most Woodward adventures we did have rain, but lucky for us, it came at night so we enjoyed sunny, kinda warm days. It is wintertime here after all but with daytime temps around 22*C (mid 70's F) it feels great to us.

Roy also found 2 new birds so you know it was a really good weekend.