Monday--shopping and gym training

I know this is just yesterday I'm writing about but it's hard to remember what we did all day and where the time went.

The kids, Dad and I went out shopping again--this time for incidentals. We picked up a few more items for Christmas dinner and decided to do a ham rather than a turkey. I think there are more leftover possibilities with ham for Dad as opposed to turkey so he was happier with this choice. We went to Staples as I wanted to get the 3 pack of Windows 7 which is about $100 cheaper here than it is in Australia. Unfortunately, Microsoft have stopped selling these as they've realised they can sell three individual licenses of Windows 7 for $119 rather than the 3 pack for $149. The main reason I wanted Windows was for its video editing which is supposed to be good. So now I have to decide on another software to edit our videos from China. I'm almost ashamed to say it's been a year and I still haven't gotten around to doing anything with those videos. If anyone has any video editing software recommendations I'd be glad to hear them. I did manage to pick up a memory card reader though as mine seems to have a problem.




We then went back home for a quick lunch then Paul and I took Jade to a gym I'd found on the internet for a training session. The gym is CATS gymnastics (www.catsgymnastics.net) The CATS stands for Cheshire Acrobatic Training School and it's located in Cheshire, CT-the next town north of Hamden where we are staying. Jade is going there to train with a US level 7 group. This is supposed to be the level closest to the one she trains at in Australia (IDP 5). The staff at the gym were very welcoming and Jade was made to feel right at home. She made friends with four or so of the girls in her group. The girls were quite fascinated with Jade's Aussie accent and were asking her to say certain words again and again. For her part Jade loved listening to their American accents. Jade trained for 3.5 hours from 3:30 to 7pm and Paul and I stayed the whole time in case she wanted to leave early or wasn't happy with something. Jade actually loved it and wants to go back so we'll be taking her back on Saturday morning for another session. Just out of interest I took a photo of the competition schedule for this gym. They do a bit of travelling to compete!



After we returned home to a lovely dinner of spaghetti and meatballs which Jarrah and Dad has whipped up. Yum!