Early this year when we were packing for our move to our current place I was browsing online for places that sold moving boxes. I initially contemplated on getting custom cardboard boxes (for clothes, cds and other stuff) but then when I saw the costs involved I just hied off to the nearest supermarket and asked for boxes. They normally re-stock shelves at night so you can just basically grab the boxes from the trolleys. One bad thing though was that there were limited supply for big boxes, I don’t know why but most of the boxes that the items came in where small in size. We did put them all the boxes I was able to get to good use. It helped a lot with the daily runs that we did in moving our stuff.

I’m now almost to my 40th week and we’re still waiting for siobe’s arrival. We were hoping before that I’ll have given birth by the last week of October but I guess siobe has her own schedule. Right now I feel tired most of the time and really find doing most of my normal routine a chore. Thank God for my mum who’s taken over the cooking. Right now dreaming of orlando vacations or maybe even someplace nearby helps ease the waiting. Can’t wait to see you baby girl!

What is happening ?

Last Wednesday in Sydney,  this was what greeted us in the morning ..

Dust storm at 6am

and at 9am

And then just this Saturday in Manila ..

this was the view from our relatives house in Quezon City, this photo was taken from the second floor balcony .. thank God everyone was ok.

from facebook:

from facebook (by miggy unabia, Sept 27, 2009, 7am) .. this is very near my mom’s place

from facebook: at my former university

We’re just glad that all our families back home are safe, though there may be material losses but still they are all safe. I wish and pray that all those who are still stranded are rescued and there are campaigns for donations and relief goods that have been setup. You can check out Bianca Gonzales’ blog for a list.

Last Wednesday, we were finally able to tour the maternity wing at the hospital we’re booked in for my delivery. They showed us the rooms, delivery suite and nurseries. As well as discuss some of the policies they have in place like the visiting hours, visitors (they recently restricted the visitors to family only because of the flu season, swine flu etc), times the front doors of the hospital close (you have to pass through the A&E after 9pm) and other stuff. Their tub in the delivery suite has a spa so we can use that while in labor, the spa filters are changed regularly so we can rest assured that it is maintained properly. A few more weeks to go and we’ll finally be able to meet our baby girl. I’m just hoping for a safe and easy delivery, hopefully a quick labor too!

Two weeks ago we were informed by the agent that our landlord is selling the townhouse that we are renting. Last weekend they had their first viewing of the house, during that 30 minute viewing there were about 20 families who came. It seems that the first home owners bonus scheme is doing its work and getting more and more people to take the plunge when otherwise they would not buy. Anyways, the agent called up Ichi the other day saying that the owner has expressed an interest in breaking the lease (as all of the potential buyers that liked the unit didn’t want to buy a tenanted unit) and was asking if we were inclined to do so. So now we’re thinking about what a fair compensation would be for us to take him up on it cause our lease won’t be up until early February. If he agrees to what we asked then we would be moving asap. It’s a good and bad thing/timing for us, on the one hand I think its better to move now before bub#2 comes but on the other hand we just settled and then have to move again. I guess anyone in my position would not need diet pill that works with the packing and unpacking being done in just under a year. Oh well, hopefully it all works out.

Will be off for a while as we move to the new place. I thought we’d have the phone and the connection up and running by next week but as it turns out our current broadband provider put in a wrong address on the new application (we decided to bundle our phone with our current adsl provider) for the phone installation so instead of this saturday the installation would be next week. So that would also mean a delay in our application for the broadband to be relocated. Anyways hope we’ll be back online by the end of next week. Happy valentine’s everyone!

Despite being tired from doing house inspections in hot weather, we decided to push through with plans to go to Canberra. After multiple stopovers  (including one at the weereewaa lookout) to rest we finally made it to the Bauis’ home, good thing they were kind enough to put us up for the weekend so we didn’t have to look for extended stay hotels.

The following day we visited the Parliament House some of the areas outside were blocked off to prepare for the following days Australia day celebrations. Dinner was at the Molinas who treated us with a delicious steak dinner and wonderful conversation.

Australia day was spent checking out Cockington Green before driving back to Sydney.

So we were able to find a house, yippee!! Since I don’t really want to spend another weekend doing inspections. We’re signing the lease this saturday and starting moving small items. Have lots of stuff to take care of in line with the move. On the list is looking for a new preschool/daycare for E since we will be moving to a new suburb that is a bit far from where we are now. I did find a couple schools near the new place I just hope that they still have vacancies. E will miss his current school though, when I tell him that we need to find him a new school, he always answers me “but I will be a little sad”! hay, that’s something that comes with not having a permanent place. I am just comforted that so far he has easily adjusted to all of our moves.

Ok time to bring out the luggages to start to pack our clothes. Oh, I just read on Ton’s blog that he got a great deal on a delsey luggage, he got it at 80% off, pabili hahaha!

Last Tuesday as we were headed out to pick up my SIL at the airport, I got our mail from the letterbox and what do I find? A letter from the real estate company informing us that our unit has been sold and the we need to be out in a month’s time. Waaahh!! Super short notice. Had we known this would happen the first month of 2009 then I think we would have looked for a new place before our lease was up last year.  Anyways, we are off to inspections tomorrow and hopefully finish early to still push through with taking SIL to Canberra. Oh and to add more, we were late in picking SIL up as the M5 was closed for roadworks and the stupid GPS kept rerouting us back to M5. After two tries I had to get the map and figure out how to get to the airport, where SIL was already contemplating on taking a cab to our place, hehe. Wish us luck with the house hunting.

Tagged by Roselle. Thanks Roselle, much appreciated!!

A True Friend

Passing this along to Mel, Anton, Tin and Tina. Thank you for your friendships!