Our day started off really early yesterday - we woke up at 7am as Dad had to be at the SES building at 7:45am. Yesterday was ANZAC Day - here's a little about it:
What is ANZAC Day? ANZAC Day – 25 April – is probably Australia's most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War.
What does ANZAC stand for? ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they took in that name endures to this day.
When Dad got to the SES building, each SES member was assigned a location which they were to go to so that they could each block off the parade route. Dad was stationed across the road from the woman who was selected to be saluted to by the veterans passing by - she was a flight squadron commander in the Australian Air Force. After the veterans passed by, Dad and the other SES members had to remain at their posts until the veterans returned back that way after the ceremony. Dad felt it was quite an honour to be able to help out in this way and Dad says that some people even said thank you to the SES members as they passed them by.
At 4pm, our friends, Robyn and Geoff came by. We had asked them to come to dinner and Geoff offered to come over early so that he could give us some more practice time on the scooter. He has been so good at offering his time to do that and we really appreciate him for that. Dad looked great on the scooter and very confident - he drove downtown so that he could get some practice riding in a busy part of town. John, our instructor, had told us that he would expect us to ride in little traffic, some traffic and a lot of traffic. Dad said that he was very comfortable riding in the busy part of town and I think that he is ready to take the final test of riding the scooter. I, on the other hand, am not quite there - but, I was better riding yesterday. I felt much more comfortable and even made a right hand turn (which is like making a left hand turn over there in Canada). I was a bit nervous doing it since I had to make sure to keep checking traffic both ways, but I managed to do it. It was a bit hard riding westward as the sun was going down that way and it was hard to see well. Geoff says he will come again on Thursday around noon so that I can practice driving in other parts of town without having to worry about the sun shining in my eyes.
It was lovely having Robyn and Geoff for dinner. They are about ten years older than us and are retired. Geoff was a police officer in Queensland and then taught police officers at a university in New South Wales. They are very easy to talk with and so the conversation flowed really easily. Next time they come over, we are going to teach them how to play cribbage and/or euchre. I think that Geoff knows how to play the games, but Robyn isn't much into card games, she said.
Today (Tuesday) was relaxing in the morning, but then things got busy. First was grocery shopping, clothes shopping (I bought two more blouses and a sweater), errands, then to Rob and Rosalea's for lunch. Rosalea wanted us to show her how to use the church's family history program. Her sister in Perth (western Australia) has done a lot of it and Rosalea wants to help out. We taught both her and Rob how to navigate around the website and they are both eager to get their family information entered into the program. Rosalea said that she might come on Wednesday nights once Dad starts opening up the Family History Centre on Wednesdays (first day: next week: May 4th).
The missionaries came over for dinner tonight - I made chicken parmesan as it is Elder Richardson's favourite and he had asked me to make it. I found an easy recipe and it was made even easier to make when I found that our local grocery store (Coles) make something called 'chicken schnitzel' which is basically a chicken breast pounded down and then soaked in an egg and milk mix and then covered in bread crumbs. We taught the missionaries how to play cribbage tonight- actually, it was just a refresher for Elder Richardson and Elder Paki caught on pretty quickly. We only had time to play one game before we had to make dinner, but we will play more games with them when they come over for dinner in the future. :-)
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