It's been a busy few days.  We got into our house on Friday afternoon  - since then we have spent lots of money on new furniture, spent more than a day looking for cars (or even one car), seen lots more snow....

I went to our new Church on Sunday and really enjoyed it - the people there were all very friendly, there are lots of families and quite a few different activities going on e.g. bible study groups, so I am sure we will all be happy there.

It is very beautiful here - snow, but blue skies and sunshine, and the roads are kept really well gritted.  It is cold but it is a very dry cold - quite biting but doesn't leave me chilled to the bones the way the damper Scottish cold does.

Bought the children snow trousers today - Caraid is not impressed.  Nor is she impressed with the choice of winter footwear available!!  Yesterday some children were out on the far side of the lake playing ice hockey so Caraid and Brendan are now keen to get skates too.  Apparently Brendan knows how to skate already because he has watched it on TV...we'll see....

Groceries are really expensive here but to a certain extent we will have to try out new foods that are cheaper here, rather than buy just what we are accustomed to.  Also we are saving a fortune on fuel, so it probably balances out. 

We managed to sort out all our banking but the problem is that as an immigrant you have no credit history so cannot get finance for anything - hence trying to find cheap cars that we can buy for cash and perhaps upgrade in a year or so.

I went to customs today because the container is now sitting on the docks - they stamped the piece of paper and I took it to the removers, so our furniture should arrive Thursday.  That's sooner than we thought (although they offered us Wednesday but need to go and sort out school uniforms that day) but in some ways I'm in no hurry - all these boxes will just mess up the new house!  Still, it will be nice to see all our belongings again.