5 down - 1 to go

1 - Green Card - got it!
2 - Social Security Card - got it!
3 - Bank accounts and credit card - got it!
4 - Job - got it!
5 - US Driver's license - got it!!!!!

All that is left for my to-do list is US Citizenship which is at least 4.5 years away!

I left home this morning at 7:15 to get to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles at 8am. There were very few people there and I could get started almost immediately. I passed their vision test and they told me to sit down in front of one of the computers to do the written test. I got the first 30 questions correct so that gave me a score of 100% :-D I was then asked to schedule my driving portion of the test, and I asked if I could of it today and they said I could be on "standby" - if anyone doesn't show up for their test, then I would go in their place. It only took about 10 mins before I was told to go outside for the test. The first part of the test, you have to drive through some cones, and then reverse back through the cones - similar to alley docking. As I drove through the cones, I realized how big my car was! It was as if my car was the hand and the cones were the glove. There was very little free space for error. In fact, when I was reversing back through the cones, my side mirror missed one of the poles sticking out of the cones by a few millimeters!! But the examiner didn't seem to pay any attention to that... phew! Next she took me on a short tour of the neighborhood. It was very relaxed and we were chatting most of the way. When I got back to the bureau, she told me to take a form to the licensing department and they will give me my license! WOOHOOOOOOOO!

After returning home and sharing the news with Liesel, we went to the Westlake public library. The libraries here are soooo much different from South Africa's. They allow you to take out 49 different items consisting of books, magazines, DVD's or videos. In the kiddies sections they have different books for different age groups. For Nathan there were two bookshelves filled with books with cardboard pages! We didn't even see this kind of variety in Exclusive Books in SA. Then there were tables with wooden puzzles, another table with a wooden train set all laid out, a section for kids to play dress-up and another one to do puppet shows. There were computers loaded with kiddies software. Simply another world. They also organize programs for different age groups and they have a play group for Nathan's age, that Liesel said she wouldn't mind coming to when I am at work. See the link in the right hand column -->

So all in all - a productive day for us!