Our home for the next 5 months!

We found an apartment! I can't beleive the range of emotions we've gone through today.
We had crummy luck yesterday with just tons of dead ends and an "inspection" of a crappy apartment the size of the breakroom @ my work. The next door down had a swaztica sp? on it...

Today we were determined to make things work. No one was answering any of our email enquires so we hoofed it to three different realtor offices to try our hand that way. We were pretty much told:
No applications could be turned in unless is was for a specific property that had been inspected. (only 5 places had inspections even set 2 for tomorrow and three for Sat)
It would take approximately 3-5 days to process any applications, Most of the leases were for 12 months w/ no flexability and
NO we couldn't really ask questions until the acutal inspection (meaning they wouldn't tell us if the properties would be available for 6 month leases.
Lastly they said they would not even consider our application without a contact number. An email is not sufficient even though we promised to check it faithfully. We did manage to wiggle an application out of one girl, even though she made sure we knew we could not hand it in until the actual inspection date.

Frustrating morning! We did end up getting a local prepaid phone so that would allow us to be "contacted". Which made us annoyed because we hadn't planned on getting a phone. Then went to the hotel to fill out paperwork and rest. While we were reading the application we discovered that rent & bond (deposit) would only be accepted in the form of an Australian bank. MORE FRUSTRATION.

There's pretty much a bank on every corner but we chose the one closest to our hotel. NAB (National Australia Bank) also looked the most fun. They were amazingly nice & helpful. HAPPY again! opening an account was a breeze and did not cost a penny.
* Which by the way they do not have here. yeah. no such thing as pennies. they looked at me funny when I said it doesn't cost a penny. umm yeah duh cause a penny doesn't exsist here
The nice lady @ the cell phone store reccomended trying a place called UniLodge for housing. They're mostly downtown and are student accomadations and she knew someone with kids staying there so we went to check it out. Only she didn't know where it was so we would have to search. Now small amounts of hope.
Found the UniLodge, It's a completly affordable hotel for students. They have one delux studio available and took us up to see it. EXTREME EXCITEMENT WE HAVE FOUND A HOME!!!
Came back down to the front desk to get the paperwork. Only while we were up there the other desk worker gave it to someone else. sad sad sad. We were seriously crushed. I almost started crying. they took our number in case anything opened up but It didn't look like it would. They wished us luck.
Across the street was the City Information Center so we thought we'd go get distracted and get soem info about the city. I happend to ask the desk if there was anything else like the UniLodge and one thought that there were actually several locations. And she knew where one was located! We felt really rushed at that time. Like we had to sprint to the next location before someone else took our spot. It was only 5 blocks away and by some sheer perfection we met Karrie, the manager of UniLodge Swanston. She is an angel and has given us a place to live.
We're in a one bedroom w/ study fully furnished apartment, in a full security building. A 24 desk to help with anything we could possibly need, a rec room, Trips all over Victoria that are included in rent, there are several other children so Karrie says she will organize a trip to the zoo for everyone. She also says she will move two twin beds into the "study for the boys and our room is supposed to only have one twin so we'll get a double..heaven