I have not written for some time now and thought I had better make my apologies.
The great news is that we finally sold our house in Palmy - 6 years after we left for Auckland, sure we lost $25k but at least now we can buy where we live! As a celebration for our patience we finally went on our first holiday in over 5 years to the Gold Coast, Australia. All four of us were very excited - like kids at Christmas! It was wonderful to get away from reality and just laze around a pool and be real tourists. We went to 3 of the theme parks and the Currumbin Animal Sanctuary - which was a stand out favorite for all of us.
As it turns out I am allergic to the place and it made both Haydn and Jenna sick! Yes, this is a bit of hyperbole, but I did break out in hives from about day 3 and they only subsided after we were back home.
Jenna was pulled out of the customs queue as we arrived in Australia because she was battling nausea and looked a bit green. The next day she started with a bit of a cold but was a real soldier and missed nothing! Haydn went done with the cold 4 days later and this turned into a violent bout of man flu and he is still coughing. Meg's greatest complaint was sunburn, but that is what happens when you only tan with baby oil so the lesson was learned.
Since returning to the real world things have become a bit more stressful... We were told we had to be out of our rental by the end of the month (this gave us just over 2 weeks to find a new home). We approached the bank that had given us pre-approval to purchase and discovered that since the new reserve bank rule has been enforced they have withdrawn all pre-appovals. This is just fan-freaking-tasic because now instead of finally being able to buy, we have to rent again!
Sadly this has all sorts of hassles as we have a toy poodle cross shih tsu dog and landlords here appear to think dogs are as bad as smokers. In fact, this is 1 category in rental ads, "no dogs or smokers", what is next, "no children"? Anyway, after 3 weeks of searching as looking at homes that I wouldn't even let my dog live in, we have finally found a place. This is a credit to my perseverance and tenacity as this property was advertised in the "no dogs or smokers" category and I emailed them each week to kindly ask if they would change their minds. Each week I received a "sorry the owner will not accept a dog" reply and each week I thanked them and said, as the house is empty and costing them money, perhaps they would reconsider? Finally I have worked them over and we signed our tenancy agreement yesterday. Now the packing starts and the big move is next Friday.
