It's now been just over a month since we moved into our new house, so yes, since the last post things did work out ok in the end. We managed to get the house in Alexandra Hills that we liked. Apparently there were 6 other applicants so we did quite well to get it. The effort we made to put in the best application possible definitely paid off.

After we moved in, we then had a battle to get our out of pocket expenses back from the estate agents who had messed us about with the Manly house. At first they only wanted to cover half of the expenses but we stuck to our guns and they eventually came good.

Anyway that all seems like ancient history now. Better to look forwards than backwards.

We're loving the house. For the first time we're living in a rental where we can actually make changes, decorate and hang our pictures. You wouldn't believe what difference it makes. We (or should I say Rach) has already decorated Lauren's room, with Lauren choosing the colours and design. Needless to say it's predominantly pink!

The house is roughly 20 years old so there's a few issues here and there but the estate agent and owners are working through them for us.

A brand new challenge for us is pool maintenance. We ignored it for the first couple of weeks, by which time the pool had turned completely green due to algae. So we got the owner round to show us what to do. After he showed us what's required I thought sod that. Now knowing the time and effort required I quickly decided we'd 'get a man in'. Unfortunately for Rach the pool boy who turned up wasn't quite what she had in mind. It's going to cost $80 a month to have the pool maintained but time is money and all that. Same goes for the garden. If it was just mowing a lawn then I'd happily do that myself but our new house has got quite a bit of landscaping, and seeing as though most of the time I can't tell the difference between a weed and a plant I've decided to outsource that as well. Yes, I really am a lazy arse.

So this house is costing us a bit more than originally planned. Plus, it's further away from work. It's about 1 hours and 20 minutes door to door. It's all worth it though.

Lauren is loving her new school so that's a big relief. We hated having to move her again but she never really settled at her last school and she's already got a better set of friends than she had before, so she's quite happy.

I think we're going to enjoy it here. Then again I said that this time last year when we moved to Wakerley.