Photos of the House ... after much delay

I promised Mum some time ago taht I'd put up some photos of the house that we're living in and decided that tonight I should finally get around to honouring my commitment. Of course, I haven't managed to include any of the outside of the house ... a task for another day.


Emily on the Stairs


Looking down on the living room on the stairs.


Upstairs Bathroom


Thomas and Emily's bedroom


Michael and Sam's bedroom


Our Room 1


Our Room 2


Our Room 3


View from Michael and Sam's Room


I'll have to get some external ones to post soon ..

Spiral

One of the most common things that we heard before we left home was a series of comments along the lines of, “hope you’ve got your long johns,” or “You’re going to be freezing over there,” at which point we had to stop and point out to people that its actually summer in Fort McMurray at this point in time.

In the time that we’ve been here, the mercury has rarely dropped below 30C as a daily high and its been a struggle. Not so much because of the intense heat, because it isn’t as hot as it gets at home. The real problem is the fact that we’ve become accustomed to having air conditioning at our disposal and this has proven most problematic at night.

Because, in addition to the heat, there’s the rather extreme hours of sunlight to deal with. Take daylight savings in Adelaide and then extend it in either direction by an hour or two.

When we arrived two weeks ago, 11pm at night looked like early dusk and at 4:30am it was daylight again. In order to combat this, we put up tin foil over all of the windows in an attempt to darken the house. It wasn’t perfect, nor perhaps as effective as we’d like, but it did make a significant difference. The problem with it is that for it to work properly you have to close the window.

And the thing that they seem to have done really well here (and I put this down to the fact that in winter it gets down to stupid temperatures like -37C) is keep the heat IN the house. So when the windows and doors are closed, it’s like being in an oven. No air-conditioning, no fans, no breeze. It’s a bastard.

So every night, we try and get the kids to sleep and then get ourselves to sleep. And there’s nothing quite like laying in bed and feeling a bead of sweat traversing your forehead.

And it ends up in this painful spiral. The kids get up early because of the daylight, they go to bed late because you blink and suddenly its 8:30pm and you haven’t managed to mobilise them. And then they’re cranky because they haven’t got enough sleep and you’re cranky because you don’t sleep well in puddles and and and arrrrrrrgh!

But we’re getting there. Emily is possibly the worst to deal with because since we’ve left home we’ve been cutting out her day sleep (yes, amazingly she was still happy to have one most days even at almost 4.5 years … I think its because her mouth never stops and uses up all of her energy). So this spiral was accentuated for her. And then there was an added complication. We’d get to about 4 in the afternoon and she was bush-whacked. She simply couldn’t keep her eyes open and especially if she was in the car, she’d drop off to sleep.

Great. So at 4pm she’d get just enough sleep that when we did try to put her to bed on time, she’d be an absolute horror (yes, that angelic little face can hide a lot). And then it would be 9:30pm before we’d managed to wrestle her to the land of sleep bobo’s. But she’d still get up early because of the sunlight and those other things … what are they called? Oh yeah, brothers! Because they’re all doubled up in the two bedrooms that we don’t occupy and that means one up all up of course. And then because she got up early, she get’s to about 4 pm and can hardly keep her eyes open …

You get the idea.

The other night she was so tired and distraught that she won the honor of being the first. Through her desperate sobs came the heart wrenching cry, “I want to go back to my OTHER home!”

She’s been fine since though.

Bring on the snow, I say! (and yes, I know that will probably last for about 2 days before I am sick of it too).

Harry Potter?

t’s that time of year when Harry Potter mania blazes through the world again. Crazy midnight sales of books, parties, all the sorts of thing that you would never had associated with a book release prior to the whole Hogwarts phenomenon.

So last night, as the clock moved from 11:59 on the 20th of July to 12:00 on the 21st, I considered driving into town to obtain a copy of the book, a) because I happened to be awake anyway and b) because it would be a great surprise for Michael when he got up in the morning.

I set off down the street and got the first surprise as I reached the traffic lights. They were flashing orange. All of them. I slowed down and took the corner cautiously. Then I reached the next intersection. That also had a complete set of flashing lights. And the next. But this was clearly no blackout, because there were streetlights and lights and everything everywhere. I’m not entirely sure what the purpose was, but it did remind me of the stories that my Mum used to tell me of them turning out the lights after midnight way back when she was just a young thing dating my father.

The next surprise I received was in town. I slowed down to take a right hand turn through the red light (yes, over here, if you’re undertaking a turn around the curb (like a left hand turn at home) there’s not turn right lane with care line, you just do it through the red light ... sure takes some getting used to.

Anyway, I slowed down and stopped as required, noting the three young men walking along the footpath as I slowed down. As I then moved to go around the corner and down the street, one of them was kind enough to take an extra step, raise his foot and boot the side of the car! I wasn’t silly enough to stop, after all, there were three of them and I’m a coward! But it was an interesting introduction to late nights in Fort Mac. (I can’t say that we weren’t warned.)

A little shaky from the unexpected experience, I drove on, seeking out Wal-Mart, figuring that even they would have heard of Harry and would do something, because I’d seen a notice about a Harry Potter launch in town and because in Edmonton, there were sure signs of midnight revelry and book launching.

But of course we’re in Fort Mac, and as I had so recently been reminded, this is hickville. And so when I reached Wal-Mart, I found nothing but acouple of dodgy looking characters in the carpark. I didn’t venture too close to them ... who knows what that might have prompted!

Dejected and sad, I returned home, Potterless. At least when I finally got out of the rented car it wasn’t dented!

Chocolate

From the small amount of time that I’ve spent here so far, i can only begin to assume that Canadians don’t get chocolate. They certainly don’t get it on a scale that I’m used to!

We were told soon after our arrival that we should guard the one block of Cadbury’s that we’d brought with us like gold, that we should feed the local stuff to the kids and save that block for ourselves.

I couldn’t understand. I mean I know that there’s bad chocolate out there, but this was stuff produced by the same company, just in a different place. They wouldn’t mess with it would they?

Well I had to know of course, so in a very brief time I acquired myself some of the local stuff and didn’t find it to be too bad (and hence breathed a rather large sigh of relief). Caroline however, said that she could indeed taste a difference and preferred the stuff from home. It wasn’t for me that it wasn’t different, just that it wasn’t different enough for me to give the stuff up. I think the best way that I can describe it is in that the local Cadbury tastes more like what nestle produces back home. It is different.

But then the thing that really got to me was a question of quantity. At home, it was only ever in the face of an absolute bargain that I would buy chocolate in anything less than a full family (300g?) block. SO naturally when I walked into the supermarket here, I expected to be confronted by the same vast range of choice in the same sized packaging.

I can’t begin to describe my disappointment. For a start, there wasn’t much in the way of choice. What the hell happened to Top Deck and Caramel and Peppermint and the array of different nut-impregnated chocolate that Cadbury produces back home.

And more importantly, what the hell is going on with only finding 100g blocks of chocolate?! For crying out loud, in quantities like that, you can’t even be expected to share the stuff! It wasn’t until today, some 2 weeks after that first foraging attempt that I managed to find a somewhat undersized 200g block of Cadbury. And there was no other choice than simple, plain, not quite right milk chocolate.

An absolute disgrace!

And don’t even get me started on the ‘cheezies’. You must have to grow up with that crap to like it (we were in search of something approximating a twisty).

Didn't we have a lovely day, the day we went to ...

Didn’t we have a lovely day the day we went to …

Over the weekend, we drove down to Edmonton so that we could have our airfreight released and hopefully get some things like bikes which will greatly enhance the range of things that the kids have to do whilst they are on holidays here in Fort Mac.

We spoke to a number of people, booked accommodation and set off, ready for a chance to see something different.

Four and a half hours later, we arrived at Air Canada at Edmonton International airport and picked up the paper work that we needed to then take to customs. It was about 15:50 and I was feeling quite relaxed about things, especially given that I had thought I was about to face one of those, “We don’t’ seem to have any paperwork here for you,” kind of moments when someone said, “Was that name Temby? I have your paperwork right here for you.”

So I took the paperwork and we made our way over to customs. We arrived there at about 15:55 and by the time I approached the counter after the previous customer had been served, it must have been 15:59.

As I explained why I was there, I was informed that they close at 16:00 and so when I had to get some paperwork from the car, she asked that I hurry as, “People are waiting to go home.” I can only assume she meant that she in particular was waiting to go home. First mis-step … no one had told us that they closed at 4pm.

So I grabbed the stuff from the car and was asked, “Is this the only freight that you’re bringing in?” To which I replied we had some sea freight coming later.

“Then I’ll need the inventory for that too.”

Right. Second problem and that was that we didn’t know we would need all our inventories, we thought that we only needed the one for the air freight as that was all we were releasing … something else that people had neglected to tell us. I considered my options and tried the path of letting her know that we’d just driven down from Fort McMurray to do this and that it was a long way with kids and we didn’t have the extra and was told, “You’ll have to come back, you only get one chance to declare stuff and it all has to be done at once.”

I’d heard stories about customer service in Canada from the other Aussies that are here and given this was about our ability to smoothly get our goods into the country, I didn’t want to push things too far. I wanted to shout and scream and throw the woman across the room, but I calmly walked out to inform Caroline how things had gone.

At which point she took the paperwork for me and stepped into the role of Superwife, to emerge a few minutes later having convinced the woman to process what we had with the promise that we’d fax down the remaining inventory when we returned to Fort Mac. What a marvel.

So after a brief moment of de-stressing, we made our way to our hotel, happy that we’d managed to at least partly achieve purpose number one of our trip.

When we went to check in though, we were informed that the room type that we’d booked (all of about 20 hours previously) was no longer available.

“We have something here in the smoking …” was about as far as we got before Caroline and I both interrupted and advised her just how unacceptable that option would be too us. So we ended up with the ‘Presidential Suite.”

Sounds grand doesn’t it? But when you’ve managed to get bargain basement pricing for your hotel, there’s usually a reason behind it. As it turned out, the presidential suite left a few things to be desired. Like the fact that despite there being 6 of us, there was only one king size bed and one queen size sofa bed.

Not to worry, we organized two portable singe beds for the remaining children. It was during the process of setting these up that we noticed that despite the amazing expanse of space that we had in this room … there were no blinds in the main part of the suite. Which simply does not work when you want children to sleep there and there’s about 19 hours of daylight every day!

So we moved again. And were settled in two adjoining rooms which were perfect.

Now if only the air conditioning had worked. After all, we are seeing temperatures that the Canadians aren’t used to and when its hitting 32C and the hotel AC isn’t working right it simply isn’t comfortable. Rather it sucks utterly.

So tired and sleepless, we tackled the West Edmonton Mall. Boy did that have some trying moments. But we survived and even made our way home again, all the way back to Fort McMurray, which as it was described on the radio this morning, “Is a great place to live … if you can find somewhere to live!”

Work - Day 1

Ok, so its a week after I wrote this, but I thought that I'd update it a little and share it with you anyway.

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With great anticipation this morning I waited to be picked up and brought into work. I really had no idea what I was in for, particularly as this is part of the whole hurry up and wait process before we move down to Sarnia.

It didn’t take long for more confusion to be added into the mix as on the way to work I was informed that the go-live for the Sarnia site had been put back to January, now 6 months out. What that means in terms of preparation etc I am yet to discover as I haven’t had the right opportunity to have the fully detailed discussion. I think I was still a little shell-shocked on the ride in and hadn’t had much of a chance to think about the implications.

My immediate thoughts were that it would mean putting the kids into school here in Fort Mac until Christmas and then move them down to Sarnia over the break to start in a new school then. But further information through the day has seeded some further clouds into the mix and I am in no better position than I was at the point when I walked out of the door this morning.

When the chief complaint that I’ve heard around here thus far is how hard it is to get some time with the boss, it doesn’t bode well for my ability to tie him down and get definitive answers, especially considering the fact that he probably doesn’t have a whole lot of them himself.

But there’s things in the air that will take a week or so to settle and so it might be a case of patience with a side of patience. I just hope that there’ll be something meaningful for me to sink my teeth into in the time it takes for all of that to settle out.

Day 1 is always a bit of a bugger and this one has proven to be true to that form.

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And here I am a week later. Not much has changed, though I do now have some focus as to where I’ll be working over the next couple of months, helping to get the Firebag site up and running. What does that mean? Not entirely sure at this point other than a 2 hour commute each way!

Nailing down information on likely timing for Sarnia and the like is a task that I am yet to find a way to complete. I don’t think anyone quite knows enough at this point to be able to provide me with the answer that I desperately crave.

A Sunday Walk

We arrived safely in Fort McMurray and on Sunday (arrived late Friday) we decided that other than exploring the 50 TV channels that seem to be available to us (the kids have never had cartoons available 24 hours a day before and I can assure you its not a good thing to have) we should go out for a walk in some of the country that surrounds the town of Fort Mac. We saw our first deer yesterday on our way into town and so Caroline suggested that we might see one on our way to the golf course, which I of course poo-pooed as being bloody unlikely as at the time we were on the road that runs alongside the housing development that we’re in.



Mother nature has a sense of humour though, so of course there was indeed a deer just across the road as we drove down towards the golf course.



There’s a golf course down the end of the road from where we live and so we thought that there might be a walking trail down there as well. We thought we’d found one and set off down the trail but the only thing that we managed to find was bugs; so many and large enough that we retreated home for the rid before venturing out again.



With the bugs taken care of, we had a little more time to spend looking at our surroundings and it was then that we discovered wild strawberries and raspberries growing alongside the path. It is amazing what a little free food can do for a little girl who’s complaining that her legs don’t work and the hill’s too steep and “I can’t walk anymore Daddy!”

It was enough to get us to the top of the hill where we discovered that we were actually just on a maintenance path for the golf course. So we walked back down to the car, got in and went off somewhere else.



Somewhere else turned out to be McDonald Island which sits between the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers There’s massive redevelopment going on there and so there wasn’t much for us to do, but we did get out of the car and go for a bit of a walk. We enjoyed the wildlife that we did see, even if it was just a bumble bee, a couple of butterflies and a small bird.




They were probably common to the area, but of course, we’re not and so it was nice for us. The highlight though had to be when Thomas shouted excitedly for us all to look up. We saw our first little squirrel running through the trees. Extremely cute, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to capture it for you.



It was a great couple of hours that we spent out and I can see that we’ll look forward to seeing more of the local wildlife as we enjoy our time up here.

The Wonderful World of Disney

We left Australia with no real intent of going to Disneyland. We thought that with it being the start of the American school holidays and with the 4th of July falling in the week that we would be there, the whole place would simply be a mad house and something to avoid, an impression backed up by the fact that when I was looking for accommodation, there didn’t appear to be any room for us in any of the Disney resort hotels.

Better to just relax around the hotel pool and get some down time, though we stayed in the Anaheim area so that if we changed our minds it wouldn’t be too much of an issue. We were only a couple of blocks away and could see elements of the park from certain windows of our hotel and as it turned out, could see the nightly fireworks from our hotel window.

Of course, being so close, the lure was too much and we decided to give the whole thing a go and see just how busy it was, after all, we could always fly down and try it some other time, right?

And of course, we were then sucked in by the discounting and decided that if it was really really really busy, we wouldn’t get to see everything and so bought a three day pass.



Day one was probably the worst day. Tired kids, tired us and in some cases, ridiculously long lines that meant at one point we were there for an hour and a half before getting our turn on the finding nemo submarine ride. Thankfully it was worth it, though there were times when standing in line with four kids for insane amounts of time almost brought the patience to cracking point. I lost count of the number of times that we had one or more of them in tears or refusing to move because they’d had enough.

And yes, we did see Mickey Mouse.



Day two saw us explore the adjacent Disney park, California Adventure World, the one that Michael and Sam were particularly keen on because that was where the scary rides were.

There was one ride in particular that they were really keen to go on – The Hollywood Tower of Terror. Now my understanding of this ride was that it was similar to the Giant Drop at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, a ride that I’d been on and that had scared the living crap out of me the first time that I’d done it. Where the similarity ended in my mind was with the fact that the Hollywood Tower of Terror did the same thing (free fall some 120 metres) but that it did it in the dark.



I said no. Man, was Michael pissed. I offered that if they were prepared to go on the ride without me, they could. Sam said no, Michael said yes. In the end we didn’t go on it. We did go on the Malibooma Zoomer (or some such) which you sit in before getting launched some 100m into the air before falling back down again. I loved that one. I have no trouble with going up and even the coming down doesn’t worry me when you can feel the deceleration before you fall. What I hate is the unknown time before a drop like that created on the Gold Coast.



One of the highlights of Day 2 were the 4th of July fireworks that were put on. They had the usual nightly run and then extended them even further. I have truly never seen more fireworks lighting up the sky in my life. The following day the sky was murky and overcast as it apparently is every 5th of July from all the fireworks that are let off on the 4th.



Day three was split between the two parks and was absolutely the best day that we had. We had a good understanding of what we wanted to do, a better understanding of the fast pass system that would get you near the front of a line quickly and managed to cover a number of things that we hadn’t seen on the two previous days.


We even managed to get Emily in to have her photo with three princesses and attend the ‘royal court’.

One of the highlights would have been the hour long live stage presentation of Aladdin. It was truly spectacular.






And on day 3, I even conceded and took Michael and Sam on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. I survived and it wasn’t what I expected. I won’t tell you exactly what happens because you might find yourself there one day and I’d hate to deprive you of the almost pant-wetting terror that I suffered waiting for the line.

I had built it up so much in my mind that by the time that I reached the gate, I was almost ready to walk out. There was an American girl in the line that had been on it numerous times before and she didn’t help things when she said that although she enjoyed it, she was never quite ready for it and was petrified every time that she walked in. She didn’t tell me how the ride worked, so I had to live with my fear as we went in.

But I did survive. And of course Michael and Sam wanted to go straight back on the end of the line … but time pressed us too much and we weren’t able to do that.

First Impressions

Pedestrian Traffic:

One of the things that I really struggled with in Disneyland was walking in the crowds. I just didn’t seem to be able to make much headway. It seemed that no matter where I went I just couldn’t walk at a speed that I wanted to.

Then I had that electric moment when I realized what was wrong. Everytime I walked towards someone, I stepped left to go past them. Once I had made the mental shift and started stepping to the RIGHT hand side of a path significant progress was made!

Simple, yet important.


Healthful:

Apparently, America doesn’t have healthy food. In fact some of the things that we saw were terrible. We had dinner one night at an all you can eat buffet. It sounded good from the outside, but when you got to the inside, there really wasn’t all that much that you would be prepared to eat ‘all you can eat’ of.

But even when they do have healthy food, it isn’t healthy. Its Healtful. I know that they don’t like to follow the English version of English, but what kind of a bastard word is healthful? It peeved me every time that I saw it!

Pedestrians:

The number of large people that we saw in America was frightening. There were plenty of people that were gorgeous as well, but certainly walking around Disneyland there were more than there should be. That’s probably scariest because Australia seems to be headed in the same direction.

The fact that they served up donuts with breakfast could have been just a tiny little clue as to how it might happen.

Toilets:

American Toilets suck! They have large wide bowls that are relatively shallow but are also well filled with water such that when you do decide to take a seat, the water level isn’t really that far from your butt. This in itself isn’t a great trauma, but you wouldn’t want to be the sort of person that dips deep before wiping ... I’ll leave the mental image to form in your own mind, I’m sure you don’t need too much help.

It sure doesn’t help the removal of the fluffy floaters either when almost the entire bowl has to empty before the contents can swirl away. Its all just wrong I tell you!

Coming to America

Well it seems like I’ve never quite had so much to write about in such a short space of time and finally I have half a chance to sit down and write as today we went out and bought ourselves a shiny new laptop to play with. Of course, going as far as actually getting an internet connection still seems to be another step away (Though having read this, we actually have a cabled net connection in the house! It just isn’t working properly and we have to wait until the 17th to have someone come and look at it). So this will be posted at some time in the near future.

We flew out of Adelaide and really didn’t have any problems in Sydney, managing to squeeze the purchase of some duty free grog into the time that it took us to walk from the bus that moved us between terminals to the gate of our departure. Fortunately the departing plane was running a little late because there were some nervous moments as we sat waiting for our bus between terminals and the time of departure ticked ominously closer.

Finally we were underway. It wasn’t long after this that I discovered that whilst seat-back entertainment for kids might be a grand idea, the execution tends to fall a little short of one’s expectations. Ease of use doesn’t quite apply to 4 and 6 year olds and so I spent a significant amount of time getting both Thomas and Emily set up with what they wanted to watch. Which was great apart from the fact that a) Emily couldn’t leave the buttons alone and so kept upsetting herself and b) her attention span was so poor that not even the much loved and highly anticipated (for the 37th time) Happy Feet could keep her engaged for very long. Then there were the toilet trips and the food and another dozen interruptions and I managed to reach the end of the first movie that I wanted to watch at about the 4 hour mark of the journey. And yes, the film length was actually supposed to be in the order of 2 and a bit hours.

But ultimately, we arrived in LA. Neither Caroline nor I managed any actual sleep on the plane but we did at least survive.

Our first pleasant experience in America was when we were standing in the line to be admitted to the country. Because of my desire to ensure that we’d left nothing on the plane and had all of our belongings, we’d managed to be the last ones off of the 747 that had carried us that far. Add that to the flight that arrived 5 minutes before us and I managed to get about 1000 people into the queue ahead of us (clever eh?) Of course, this was only discovered at that point in time when we saw the enormous line and then had to navigate our way to the end of it. One person stood behind us. You reckon I felt sorry for her?



We managed to stand in line for about 20 minutes with various levels of threats being aimed at the bored, over-tired smalls that were accompanying us when an official of the US immigration section came out and said, “anyone in the line with small children, please come to the front,” and as simply as that, we were processed! Who would have thought it? What a great start to our stay.

We were then assisted in getting in touch with the car hire company and managed to get picked up in what can only be described as a novelty oversized van (pictures attached). This was the beast that I had hired to ensure that I was able to transport the 6 of us and the tiny little bit of luggage that we’d brought along with us from the airport to the hotel where we’d be spending our 5 days.



Finally it was time to go and at that point, as I walked around to the wrong side of the vehicle to drive, my heart started palpitating as I considered the next hour that I was about to endure driving our beast on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the vehicle.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve driven through Europe on some busy roads on the right hand side of the road. But never have I driven anything so truly and insanely large that was still considered a vehicle that my license class would allow me to drive. I mean to put this in perspective; this thing was bigger than the first hummer that we saw! I could not believe the number of SUV’s that were on the road ... and the fact that what I was driving was bigger.

Thankfully I hired a GPS unit whilst I was there as well because it eliminated the need to focus on directions from the passenger seat which may well have been correct, but which would have also been introducing a point of stress that wasn’t really required. As it was I still managed to get off of the highway at the wrong point once and the GPS was a godsend for getting us going back in the right direction.

We survived the drive and so did our luggage, though I think that Caroline may have felt a little intimidated at times as I struggled with my efforts at driving close to THAT line on the road, not the other side, which meant that occasionally she may have drifted just a little closer to the safety wall/vehicle next to her than was either comfortable and also strictly necessary.

But we got there. And the car company probably hates me because the only US money that I had was a 50 and so I didn’t tip the hulking dude who assisted in loading our tiny amount of luggage.

We did reach our hotel in Anaheim, within viewing distance of Disneyland and wondered what the hell we were going to do next. Caroline was already complaining of culture shock from being surrounded by American accents in the airport and I was just whacked from having concentrated on the drive. The kids had a swim and then there was some down time in the hotel.

I need to break this post up so that it doesn’t go on forever, so you’ll have to wait a bit for me to thump out some more!