CPK the American Version of GPK?
Last night we continued our seemingly weekly tradition of eating from a local food chain.
Our first choice the new Buffalo Wild Wings place on Route 22, is so new it hasn’t opened yet.
Our second stop was at the Cheesecake Factory. However it had a one hour wait for a table…
So we went for a walk and found the The California Pizza Kitchen. Which reminded us of GPK from Chatswood back home.
In the end it was a good choice. We were starving, and the sevice was friendly and the pizzas were yummy.
One the way back to the car we had to walk past the Cheesecake Factory only to see it surrounded by police and firemen. So a one hour wait would have turned into…?
It must be our day for seeing Firetrucks?
Turtle Back Zoo
Today we went to see our new house. Peter and John have been doing an excellent job painting it for us. Eli’s room is now pink and Lachie’s room is now blue 🙂
Then as it was a relatively nice day, we went to the Turtle Back Zoo which is only ten minutes from our new home. We joined up for a year as it was more economical – and we want to go lots of times!
To start off our visit we went on a train ride:
Some of the animals we saw at the zoo are pictured below:
In order: Bison, American Alligator, Llama, Muntjac, Penguins and Wolf.
On the way there we saw Safari Mini Golf. When Uncle Jus comes over we’ll have to tell him to pack his safari suit and clubs 🙂
A surprise knock early this morning…
This morning, there was a knock on the door. Dad was in the shower, mum was in her PJs, so we took control of the situation. We openned the door to find John and Bob:
They told us smoke had been reported in the area and they were just checking things out. Here they are on our balcony:
Lachie put his fireman’s cap on and we headed down to help out:
Luckily it was a false alarm 🙂
Elimena @ 3.11y
Inquisitive and kind-hearted – are the first two things that come to mind.
She is a fantastic negotiator…I wonder if she will be working for the police force or as a con man later in life <grin>. Hold onto your dollars if she is in financial services! She loves to shop and so there is another area where you sure need to hold on to your $$$s 🙂
Elimena is still about all things pink, frilly and princess-y. She loves her fairies and barbie dolls.
Eli had a one-off zumba class at daycare on Friday – which she came home raving about! She also had some very cute moves to show us.
Elimena has been doing an excellent job of not biting her nails…as tempting as that is? Each week if she hasn’t bitten her nails we go to the drugstore and buy a new nail polish (as the rest of hers are currently on the boat). So far Eli has a sparkly blue one and a yellow one to match her yellow head-band.
Eli is doing a great job of dressing herself at the moment. She is particularly into layers. A typical outfit would start with a singlet, long sleeved-shirt, then a t-shirt, a dress, woolen tights or pants, topped off with a jumper. Plus if Ihead out side a wind-cheater, gloves & beanie is added. Friends, the key is layering! That way you can wear everything you want to 🙂
Only one month until her birthday. She’s crossing off the days on her calendar 🙂
On the road again…
One thing you do alot of in New Jersey is drive. You drive to the shops. You drive 100m from shop to shop. You drive everywhere.
It is not unusual to go for a quick ten minute drive somwhere via a five lane highway (or at least three lane!). The roads are massive and the highways plentiful. It really gives you the feel that you are in a high population density area.
The really unique feature is that you often can’t turn left at traffic lights (remember that you are driving on the right side of the road here). They have these funky jughandles. Below is a picture from Google Maps of a jughandle that we get to go round and round daily 🙂
Other people have commented online that NJ is one big right turn. Apparently the theory is that it saves you money on gas? See here for the NYTimes article on how UPS eliminates left hand turns too.
One thing I do love about driving on NJ roads – is that everytime I’ve seen a broken down car, it has been accompanied by a police car. The police are on the scene to help out and guide traffic in a pronto. I find this comforting when driving in a unknown area. It gives me confidence to adventure on with gusto 🙂
This post was proudly brought to you by our new New Jersey Drivers License – WHOOOOO HOOOOOOO!
(Yes it was difficult doing the online multiple choice test o criteria in feet, miles and BAC levels in ounces)
Actually the one thing that really struck me when reading the NJ automobile hand book while preparing the for license test, was the attitude to driving in NJ. In NJ it is a privilege not a right to have a drivers license. Your NJ license is linked to all sorts of things like insurance, moving violations, parking violations, drug charges, child support payments etc. Thus you must be a good citizen to hold a license. Considering you have to drive everywhere it is quite an incentive!
A quiet, chilly day in NJ…
It has been a busy weekend and so we thought we’d take some time out from experiencing all that is “American” and go to the movies. We went and saw Gnomeo and Juliet. We were very sad to discover that cousin Juliette wouldn’t be there as we thought the name implied this?
In the evening it was time to try another icon – we went to IHop. Mum even let us have pancakes for dinner! Unfortunately it wasn’t the best experience but maybe we ordered wrong? Although for a place that advertises the best coffee in the area mum was quite disappointed 😦
Tricky Tray
It was time for a girls night out and I was lucky enough to be invited out to a “Tricky Tray” evening on Saturday night. It was a fundraising night for a local school.
For those who don’t know what a Tricky Tray is, I’ll attempt to describe the intracate process…
Prior to the evening, the school raises a number a prizes which they wrap up in baskets or lots. The baskets are put on display with a box for participants to put tickets in (if they so desire).
On the night of the big event, the participants pay an entrance fee which gives them in this case 15 tickets. They can attempt to win baskets but placing these tickets in the ticket boxes attached to the prizes. The participants can also buy extra tickets to increase their chances of winning. The upon reaching a cut-off time, the organising team work their way through each prize and pull a winning ticket out of the ticket box. Yes, I did say it was an intracate process – needing a well organised army to run it!
Here are some piccies from the evening: our table, one side of the hall and some of our winnings.
The stats: The school in this case raised an impressive 330 prize baskets. There were about 430 participants. I had 33 tickets. So my chances of winning were?
Well I guess you would have to know how many tickets the other participants bought <grin>.
OK, so I didn’t win anything (but three of the girls on my table of eight did) and I had lots of fun trying! Plus it was for a good cause – Van Derveer School Somerville, NJ.
Closed!
After much last minute excitement (including unexpected removal of underground oil tanks, sidewalk damage, last minute social security card arrival and late mortgage paperwork) we’ve closed (for the Australians reading: settled) on our new house! So today, we packed some stuff in our wheelie bags and headed out to check it out:
We were so excited while we were there that we forgot to take very many piccies, but here are the ones we did take:
We loved it! We can’t wait to have our own rooms again.
Afterwards we went out for a celebratory lunch at Alfonso’s on our way home.
The pizza there was fantastic and the staff were really friendly. We can’t wait to go there again 🙂
Lachlan @ 2.1y
It has been a busy month integrating into a US lifestyle and Lachlan has taken to it like a dream.
He particularly loves one of his new daycare teachers “Miss Carly”. His last words at night can occasionally be heard as “good night Miss Carly”. Miss Carly has Miles a newborn baby. Initially Lachie was a little jealous of Miles, but he has since moved past this and includes Miles (although I’m sure Miles is too young to know it) in his list of friends. He often calls one of his trains or Eli’s dolls Miles during pretend plays.
Lachie’s two best friends are Riley and Eric from daycare, who he often likes to talk about. I think they spend alot of time racing around on bikes together 🙂
Lachie is enjoying his new environment and trying new things 🙂
He is also loving planes, trains, cars, ambulances, firetrucks and all things that move!
His rapid speech development in terms of complexity and vocabulary never stops astounding his mum & dad. Do you think we have a writer or a lawyer in the making?
A new habit Lachie has formed this month is to point at the camera and do big cheesy grins. We’re not sure where this has come from but it is making for some cure photos 🙂
One Flat White Please
A not so well hidden secret is how much I like my coffee. It is not unusual for me to have 10+ a day and still sleep like a baby at night 🙂
One of the things I’ve really been missing is a cup of standard Australian coffee. Particularly since my Robert Tims coffee bags have run out (what a tragic day that was!).
I’ve been finding the coffees here – huge but very weak.
With a touch of imagination I have come up with an “order” that results in a passable coffee. For a flat white you ask for: a regular coffee with a shot of espresso and an inch of low fat milk. Yes – I like my coffee milkier than most 🙂
If anyone has any advice on improving this order I’d love to hear it!
Bianca xx
Wallamble 
