Un'furn'ished Business

Sorry for the cheesy title! I was feeling a little creative!

Ok, so here is my weekly update while Bill is in class! I have noticed a pattern of updating every Tuesday while Bill is gone. We will try to post some between the Tuesdays, so keep checking in on us!

Here is a picture of our beautiful new apartment! It is so clean...ready for us to move in! We are slowly moving out of Phil and Glenis' house, but it is taking us longer than we expected! We just don't want to leave this lovely couple!

As you might have noticed, there is an empty spot where the refrigerator belongs. That hole has yet to be filled - just one of the reasons we aren't officially "moved in!" We are doing some shopping - trying to figure out how we are going to find the items we need (bed, fridge, washing machine, etc.) without spending a fortune!! We will keep you updated on our progress in this area!

This picture below is of Bill, Richard Mason (Caringbah Rotary President), and Phil (our host). Looks like they are working hard, huh!! Actually, this was taken on a very hot Sunday afternoon after they had brought a kitchen-full worth of goods up to our 3rd floor apartment! Good work, Guys!!

Here in this picture are the goods! Below is Cathy Mason (Richard's wife, the First Lady of Caringbah Rotary), and Glenis. Cathy was closing an office for which she had purchased practically an entire kitchen's worth of stuff! Can you believe she is letting us borrow all this for a year! This is yet another example of how great these Australians are! We are so blessed to have met such great people! Thank you, Richard and Cathy!
We will post more pictures as we slowly start to fill our apartment. For now.. it is a work-in-progress!

Bill has had some interesting experiences so far in class, but you will have to wait for him to tell you! He has been working very hard on his classes - fortunately he is taking a Marketing and an Entrepreneurship class to break up all the accounting!

Another blessing that we have to report... I officially have my Australian Work Visa! It came so quickly! I would tell people that I expected it to take about a week to come through and they would just laugh at me! Well.... you'd think I had a friend pulling some strings for me.. it only took a week and a half! I wasn't too far off! Now I am waiting to confirm a new job with another Rotarian who has an IT business. I will give more details when I can confirm that I will be working there! But, I am pretty excited about the opportunity and feel it will be a great learning experience!

Okay.. my last story! Last night we went to our 4th Rotary meeting for the Caringbah club. We really do enjoy this group of people! They have such a great time together! Well, the sergeant for this club is very "cheeky" - he likes to fine people for the funniest things! So, he was fining people for their attire or for their behavior over the weekend or whatever, and he called Bill's name! We both looked at each other - half laughing, half scared! He first complimented us on our ability to almost completely recite the Australian Anthem, and then challenged him to recite our own Anthem! Well... Bill struggled for a second (he was trying to say the words instead of singing them.. they just don't come out as naturally that way!), so they told me to stand up and help him! So, Bill and I stood there, with about 50 Australians watching us closely, and sang the anthem for them! hahaha.. it was very funny! A lot of the crowd seemed to know parts of it as well, so they helped us out, but we must have impressed them - they applauded for our singing! :) There was no time for stage fright!

Thanks for reading! Please send us any questions you might have! Cheers!