Well, we have well and truly got into the holiday spirit having had our first Thanksgiving day! Steve has been off since Wednesday lunchtime when we took delivery of our new car (Tigger) - strange that these two things happened at the same time!!!
Actually, really enjoying the car as it's a compact SUV which means we are small and nippy amongst these huge beasts on the road. I managed to get out and about on my own - just up to the supermarket - but it was good to get out onto the roads and I kept to the right side all the way!!!
On Thursday morning we were up and at our neighbours for 10:30 as we were eating our thanksgiving meal at 12. The boys were delighted as Angie's nephew (Laine) who is 10 was there so they all had a great day together.
We had the most delicious meal together and the boys got to try some new dishes. Angie had her Mum, brother, sister in law, 2 nieces, 1 nephew and three other friends there as well as us. Steve found a new audience to tell his stories to so we ended up staying until nearly 6pm.
I spent my time chatting to the ladies and going through the papers in preparation for Black Friday. Black Friday is basically a crazy sale day that starts at 4am. People here will queue/camp outside shops all night to get in to get a bargain and they have some really crazy deals here such as iPhone's for 99 cents. You do have to be first tin the line at 4am to get that kind of deal though.
The next day we were up at 6;20 am (well, the boys and I were) so after breakfast and dog walk we headed off to Fry's electronics. Steve needed to get a number of items for his new network and I did the boring shop of vacuum cleaner, toaster, coffee maker, home phones and hand held blender - which I just used to make smoothies for the boys and myself - very nice they are too!!
Having done a massive essentials shop at Fry's (nearly three hours in there!) we headed next door to get a bed for Tom from a shop called the Dump. It basically sells all the bits of furniture that were not sold in not in other stores - good for a bargain basically. We had been looking at beds for a few days now and it is not straightforward like buying one in the UK. You can't just buy a bed - you buy the frame and then the slats and mattress is extra on top and all in all seems quite expensive. Anyway, we found a bed which included the slats and were able to order a mattress to go on top.
By the time we had finished all of this it was early afternoon and my feet were killing me. We needed to drop our haul at the apartment before heading off for the next store (Toys R Us) for the boys. The local outlet mall was completely packed so we dipped into the toy shop and I brought 4 lamps in the sale at another store and then we left as it really was quite mad.
I wanted to go and sign up for our local Life time fitness club as this had been recommended to us by our landlady and I had also got an offer though that had to be used by yesterday where we pay no joining fee.
The club (no point just calling it a gym) was amazing. We had to be taken on a tour by a nice man called Chris in a suit. They don't just have a list of gym membership fees - this is serious stuff and requires being shown around before you even get to talk prices! It has a huge wall climbing area, two full size basketball courts, squash courts, childcare area with indoor gym (like Playday's had), computer and gaming area and out door play area and another smaller gym for scooter hockey whatever that is! At this point the boys were already dead keen but Steve and i both started to get an uneasy feeling of this is going to be pricey!!! Downstairs they also have a full hair and beauty salon, 6 full size outdoor tennis courts, indoor pools with slides and hot tubs, massive outdoor pool with the same and a cafe.
Upstairs is like a field of gym equipment - hundreds of bikes, treadmills, StairMasters and weights machines. On top of that two huge dance studios - one with 80 spin bikes in it! I was now planning how to convince Steve, that despite the cost it would be so worthwhile for us to join as a family!
So finally tour done we head back to Chris's office to talk money and fill in the forms. I had in my head that for our family it would cost between $350 and $450 per month and Steve had an even higher figure in his head - I mean when you see these facilities they are incredible. So you can imagine how we felt when Chris told us that to be members of the gym with full and free access to any of the areas (plus FREE childcare for up to 2 ours per day) would cost us, as a family, $130 per month!!!!
We managed to not appear over excited by all this but signed up, booked in for our initial assessments on Sunday 5th December and headed out the door at which point we both giggled!!! Unbelievable!!
I think we were all pretty exhausted yesterday so today the plan is to chill out a bit and try and get our Christmas cards done. We also need to head off to Southlake to get Tom's new glasses and some new clothes for the boys to wear to school next week. I also plan to start packing up. Can't believe that it is now a matter of days and we will be there. No sign of our container although it has arrived in Houston last week but with the Thanksgiving holiday in between it looks unlikely we will have our furniture by next Wednesday. We may have to camp out for a bit but we also have the apartment until the 15th so we can live between the two if needs be.
Well, that's it folks. We see there is snow there - must be lovely - wonder if you will have a white Christmas? It has finally got much colder here although I hear from the locals this is just a blip and things will get warmer again next week. I don't mind once our things arrive because at least we will have the things we need!!!
I suspect I may not be blogging again until we are in Shady Glen so watch this space late next week!
Love to you all, Bex
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