Mall cruisin'

Lucy and I went to the mall today. There is only one mall in Wilmington and it is a Westfields! All on the one level it is very good for prams as there are no escalators to manoeuver but makes for a lot of walking. The shops are mainly clothing and jewelry shops. There are 4 big department stores. We went into JC Penney and got some great half priced clothes for Lucy for daycare. It is somewhere good to go for clothes shopping. Katrina would go crazy here! (Yes there is American Eagle, GAP, Abercrombie and Fitch, Loft etc) There is a Lindt shop but alas not a cafe! The Crabtree and Evelyn shop is sadly closing down. The food court options are extremely poor and there is no supermarket. However it's nice to be able to wander around undercover without having to drive between stores.

Southern mansion

We bought a house today! Not quite a mansion but it is a good size for us and has an amazingly large backyard (0.5 acre block). We even have a FROG (finished room over garage) for guests. On the northern side of town, it's in a sub division called Middle Point that does not allow clothes lines, boat parking, or poultry. Garden statues, mass plantings and tree houses must gain permission. We thought we had escaped the evils of pine trees but alas there are heaps of them in the backyard! It will probably be a month or so before we can move in but in the meantime we have a lot of furniture to buy.

this and that

Living over here has given us the chance to observe some differences between Australia and America. Here is a summary to date:

Cool stuff:

• Sprinklers are allowed! So are slip 'n slides! Lucy is going to have a great summer
• You can post your letters directly from your house by putting them in your mailbox and putting up the little red flag for the mailman to collect
• U-turns at traffic lights are legal and acceptable and encouraged
• Right turn on red
• Free shipping from most companies

Brickbats:

• Tipping. At the Westin in LA the following tipping scheme was enforced for room service: 15% tip + 8.25% tax + $4 delivery. It makes it very difficult to calculate how much things cost
• Adding tax to the 'final' price
• Minimal recycling. Plastic bags are the norm at supermarkets and often there is only one or two items per bag! This makes for a lot of bags. Paper is an option, however the packing girl advised us to use plastic as paper cuts down trees!!! Also outside of the defined city limits (central Wilmington) there is no pick up of recycling - you have to drop it off.

Observations:

• Our kitchen has no vegetable peeler but it does have a pizza cutter and an electric can opener
• Kettles are not popular but coffee machines are
• Cribs come with bumpers
• Diapers are not boy/girl differentiated
• Lots of cars don't have separate indicator lights - the brake light flashes instead

Lucy's birthday party

Lucy's party was great fun and we had a lovely afternoon tea at Airlie Gardens. Although we had to move the picnic part way through from the Spring Garden to another garden, we had a great time and even had a view of the intracoastal waterway. I cooked up a storm of magnolia chocolate cupcakes (awesome with american butter and valrhona cocoa - the icing was perfect!), hundreds of scones, and icecream sandwiches (kept cold by dry ice bought from the supermarket at 11pm!) Plenty of strawberries (North Carolina is famous for them and there are heaps of farms that allow you to pick your own) and whipped cream as well as sandwiches, cheeses and dips. Lucy had a very pretty dress on (from her Aunties Julie and Lynda) and sat in the centre of the picnic playing with her toys. It was sad not to have all our family around but it was very good to have our new extended Silex/GE family to help us celebrate. The birthday cake as seen above was a ladybird!

The most amazing part of the day was that it rained from around 11am until 2:20pm and looked extremely bleak with black skies. We were worried about what to do if it kept raining as there is no shelter in the gardens. At 2:20pm the rain stopped, the sun came out and it was very warm and humid. The weather stayed perfect until around 6:30pm when it started pouring with rain again. So Lucy's party from 3-5pm was in perfect conditions!

On a side note we did encounter an annoying little problem at the Gardens. Nosee'ems. That's right - tiny tiny biting bugs/gnats/sandflies that appear in the summertime. Called no-see-ems because you can't see them. Well you can see them but they are very small and you only notice them when they bite. Now we know why everyone has screened porches around here.

By 5:30pm Lucy was exhausted and just wanted to cuddle up and go to sleep. She had such a big day of playing and smiling that she was worn out and wouldn't smile for any more photos. She got lots of beautiful presents from everyone and went to bed a very happy girl.

Happy 1st Birthday Lucinda!

Royalty (sort of)

Those of you who followed my previous blog will remember the many instances where I was 'discovered' to look like Princess Mary of Denmark. It's been relatively quiet on that front lately but I did have the following conversation with the lady sitting next to me on the plane over to LA.

lady: has anybody told you that you look like...
f: yes they have
lady: you look just like her, especially when you were looking down ...blah blah blah

Given American ignorance of all things outside of the US there should be no more look-alike sightings. But I am encountering lots of problems with the name Fiona. I spelled it out over the phone to someone the other day and they came up with Siona. Must be the accent!

I have resorted to another princess in trying to describe my name. Conversations go like this.
American: Hi my name is (Hank)
f: Hi I'm Fiona
A: Ona? (or variations Iona? Siona? etc)
f: Have you seen the movie Shrek?
A: yes
f: Do you remember the princess Fiona
A: Aaaaahhhh! Fiona!

Fiona is pretty average compared to some of the names over here. My real estate agent asked her doctor if any of the babies he had delivered lately had been given strange names. He said that it was funny that she had asked as he had delivered a baby girl that morning and she had a very strange name. The mother, after giving birth looked around the room and saw a box of Kleenex (pronouned klen-ex). She then proceeded to dub her child Kleenexia. And they think Fiona is weird!

Product of the Week - Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme

This is the start of a series of posts on strange products we discover over here in the US. We'll start with the weird stuff first.

This week we're previewing Jet Puffed Marshmallow Creme. According to the official taster it is "not bad" and then he proceeded to demolish the first jar. Another jar was purchased and eaten within 2 days. The third jar (upgraded to the 13oz size) is being finished as this is being typed. Like the majority of items over here, corn syrup is the main ingredient followed by sugar, water, egg whites, and artificial flavours and colours. The label also states that this product contains no calories from fat.. The benefit however is far outweighed by the calories gained from the sugars...

When mixed with pistacios and cranberries it is somewhat reminiscent of nougat.

So although this item was purchased in jest to begin with it has now become a staple grocery item. Gross!