Time to get this blog up and running again, I think. You can check it as often as your time allows. I might write every day - or not - but, I will write when I have something to share with you. In this blog, I will title each area which I will talk about, so you can come back if the entry is too long and you need to remember where you are.
School
I am two fifths through my five week teaching contract in grade 2 at Kawungan State School and it's been a bit of a challenge. I have loved being back planning and preparing to teach - I have really missed having 'my own class' and all that entails. I am finding it very different from teaching at R. J. Lee as far as the students go. At R.J., the children (in general) were very respectful - there was no need to yell (not my style, anyway) and I still haven't resorted to that (although plenty of teachers here have). But, I sure have felt like it. Bronwyn, the teacher of this grade two class, is very relaxed in her teaching style. I, on the other hand, have big issues with the students talking when I am talking or when their peers are talking during discussions. So, the students are learning to be quiet and to listen. It did get better over the two weeks I was teaching them (before the holidays we are now in) and I hope that they don't forget everything during their two weeks off. The teachers at the school are great and the grade two team especially have been very welcoming to me and make me feel like part of the group. Once I have finished teaching the next three week block for Bronwyn, I will hopefully either get another contract job or get some supply teaching days.
Dad
Dad is starting to look for a casual job. He definitely does not want to work full-time as he wants to be able to come back to Canada for visits. He went out to the airport to talk with a man out there who does the maintenance for any small airplanes which use the Hervey Bay airport. They had an hour and a half chat and the man told Dad that he would call him if he had any extra work which required extra hands. Dad is also keeping a close eye on job opportunities listed online here. He continues to go into the Family History Centre at church on Mondays and Fridays - there is a lot of work to be done to 'tidy up' the centre as far as paperwork goes. It's pretty quiet most days, so it also gives Dad the opportunity to work on his own family history. He is currently trying to find out information about the Noble side - Grandma Gall did a lot of work on her and grandpa's side of the family and work has been done on the Martin side. Dad is finally able to do some volunteer work with the SES. Last weekend, he went to do parking control for a charity fundraising event. Today, he will be helping out with a sausage sizzle (selling sausages in slices of bread along with pop) for the local council.
My Family History
It has been exciting to have the time to work so much on my own family history - it takes ages to get information sometimes, which is why I haven't had much time before this to get very far on finding my ancestors - but, I like putting the time in and have found some more links to those who came before me. I did find out that my great great grandmother (on Poppy's side) had a child out of wedlock - that was really interesting, almost a scandal, I thought - however, a woman at the genealogy library here in town said that happened more than people think back in those days. When I told Auntie Norma about it, she told me that Great Great Grandma was disowned by her family when she got pregnant out of wedlock. I also found out that when someone died, at least here in Australia, that sometimes the people giving information when a person died was not accurate. For instance, on my great grandmother's death certificate, it lists her parents' names incorrectly. I worked with the people at the genealogy library to make sure that the death certificate I had found was actually the death certificate of my great grandmother and we found out that it was. It took ages to verify the information, but it was exciting to finally find out more about a member of my family. I have recently found out information about Nana's family: we thought her grandfather was named Richard and I found out that his name was actually Henry Richard Frederick, but he went by the name of Richard as his father's name was Henry.
The house
We were very excited to finally find a dining room suite that we love. It's made from New Zealand pine and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's sort of a light cherrywood colour and the natural wood has knots in it and makes it look quite unique. There are six chairs in the suite - the chairs have a brown cushion. I don't like the brown colour (I would rather have had beige cushions), but the set only came with the chocolate colour. We both loved the suite, so I decided not to worry about the cushion colour - most of the time the chairs are tucked in under the table anyway and you don't see the colour of the cushions. We also bought a stainless steel fridge with the freezer in the bottom - we absolutely love it. It's great not having to bend over to get something out of the bottom of the fridge all the time. (doesn't take much to make me happy, eh? :-)
We are still looking at other furniture for the rest of the house: a bedroom suite for the master bedroom, a living room suite and furniture for the family room. We were out just yesterday looking at living room suites and found a few possibilities. It's a bit difficult when the living room has this medium grey carpet on the floor - less colours to go with that. We also checked out lazy-boy chairs which we want for the family room. Dad finally bought a lawnmower - we had checked out a variety of places (garage sales, personal sales, newspaper ads) and couldn't find one at a price we thought was good. So, Dad went over to Bunnings (like Home Depot) and ended up buying a rechargeable electric one which means that it has a battery and electric motor - the battery gets recharged after every use. Dad figured out the cost of maintenance on a regular mower would be the same as purchasing a new battery (after five years). So, with no maintenance having to be done, less noise and ease of use of the electric one, Dad thought it was the one to buy. We have also purchased a washing machine and Dad has installed the dryer above it in the laundry room. We still rarely use the dryer, but it's nice having it there just in case it's one of those rare rainy days. Dad was thrilled to be able to also purchase a barbecue - he has been wanting to get one for a while and we finally found a great deal on one. He has used it a few times and is slowly getting used to how to cook on it - it's different, it seems, than the one which we had in Canada.
Church
Things are going well with my new calling of Primary first counsellor. I have been in charge of doing the Sharing Time for this month. I am in charge of giving a short lesson/activity based on the theme for the year which is "I Know My Saviour Lives". This year, we (the Primary presidency) have the opportunity to help the children feel and understand the great love that Jesus has for them. I have given two lessons so far - based on the ten commandments and the gospel standards. I feel very blessed to have been given the talent for teaching and also to be receiving revelation about how to best present the information to the children. They seem to have enjoyed the two presentations I have given to them - one teacher even told me how happy she was that I had included the little children as I taught - she told me that often the lessons focus on the older children. Dad and I have a meeting every Sunday at 8:15am as part of our callings as Branch missionaries. As this group is newly called, we are currently coming up with ideas on how to spread the gospel in Hervey Bay and how to raise the profile of the church in the area. We are going to be having a fireside in October about the Restoration of the church and hope to have non-members attend.
Our holidays (my spring break)
It's been lovely being on school holidays this week. We have had something to do each day so far and so we are taking today off. On Monday, Dad and I both went into the Family History Centre. While Dad worked on FHC stuff, I organized my school stuff - when I left school on Friday, I just threw all my papers into my bag and so I needed to go through all that and file it in the appropriate folders. I also was able to spend some time working on my family history and also on my Sharing Time lesson for this Sunday. After our time at the FHC, we did our weekly grocery shop. On Tuesday morning, we spent some time at the library - I spent time in the genealogy room there: they have access to an internet site called ancestry.com and I wanted to see if I could find out any information about my family history on that site which is not available at the FHC (there is a fee to use that site) and Dad spent the time reading some newspapers, looking at computer books and checked out aviation news magazines. We had the missionaries to dinner that night (along with Ashley, a young man in our branch who is a year away from serving his mission and who spends a lot of time with the missionaries each week). Yesterday, we did our usual 'Meals on Wheels' run - it was nice to do it again for me as I have not been able to do it for the past two weeks due to working. There were a couple of new people on the route - one lady even gave me some towels and homemade knitted washcloths. I wasn't sure if we were able to accept gifts, so when we got back to the MOW building, I spoke with Avis, the woman in charge, about it. She said that others have received this gift and she has just used the towels in the kitchen - I thought that was a good idea. I suggested that she put the washcloths in the garage sale which MOW are having next month. We rented 7 movies last Friday from Blockbuster's (7 for $9.95 for the week is such a good deal) and we have slowly been watching them this week. So far, we have watched five and only two of them have made it to the 7/10 score: "28 Days" starring Sandra Bullock and "Hitch" starring Will Smith. It's so hard to find good movies these days: I have made a list of movies from the past 10 years which received good reviews on rottentomatoes.com - I am going to take that list to the video store when we take these ones back tomorrow - hopefully, we will have better luck with those movies. We are planning on take a two day trip next week - a friend recommended we take a drive to the mountains so we are looking into that. The weather has been dismal this week (not good for those who came up here on holidays this week) and so we haven't been able to get down to the beach, even for a walk. Hopefully, things will clear up next week.
Well, that's about it for the moment. Keep tuned in for further developments. :-)
