Friday was 'Show Day' here in Hervey Bay and it was a holiday. I can't believe that everyone gets a day off to go to 'the Show'. 'The Show' was held in Maryborough which is about a half hour from here and sounds like it was a combination of a very small CNE plus the Royal Winter Fair. Dad and I were thinking of going, but the price of $20. per person to look at rides, games, crafts and animals just didn't seem worth it. Instead, we decided to spend the day outside. First, we went to the beach and took a walk along the water's edge - it was such a perfect day to do it - blue sky, shining sun, lovely breeze (what's new in HB, eh? :-) The water was lovely, but we weren't dressed for a swim so we just enjoyed walking in it. Then, we came home and had lunch outside on our patio, read books on our chaise loungers and had a lovely nap in the warm sun. Can life get much better than that? :-)
Saturday was cloudy and the perfect day to be so - we spent most of our time in the car yesterday. We picked up our friends, Denise and Sue (from church) and Dad drove us to a place called Kawana Waters for a Stake Relief Society activity. Kawana Waters is about 2 1/2 hours from HB - I wasn't game to drive there myself as I had no clue where I was going. I asked Dad if he would drive and he said 'sure'. We got there with about an hour to spare and so we drove down to the beach to eat our lunch. It was in a city called Maroochydore - they had a great park by the beach and I said to Dad that I thought that the boys would love playing there - especially on the climbing ropes apparatus. I wish that I had taken a camera with me to take a pic of it - next time we go there, I will make sure to do that.
The Relief Society activity was really well organized. It started off with a really nice powerpoint presentation of pictures and songs. There were a couple of those kinds of presentations over the three hours and whoever did them was really technologically savvy. After the introduction, we were divided into three groups and we rotated through three workshops: 'By the Sweat of my Brow' was about getting back to nature to make meals - I didn't try any of the ideas because they either sounded icky or they smelled icky. :-) I know, I am very fussy! :-); 'Life's Like That' was about creating balance in your life - we spent some time honing our socialing skills by meeting new sisters in our Stake - we had 30 seconds to speak with a sister and share something about each other with each other before moving on to someone else; and the last workshop was called 'Soul Savers' which focused on making sure that we feed ourselves spiritually every day. After that, we all got together for a presentation about Visiting Teaching. The sister who gave it was trying to get us pumped up and excited about doing our visiting teaching each month. She had a very busy display with all sorts of poems and lists about visiting teaching. Our closing exercises included a wonderful song sung by a young woman with a beautiful voice after which we had a light snack (sandwiches, crackers, bars, etc.) which was a lovely way to end the day. After Dad dropped us off, he drove over to the beach and spent about 45 minutes there watching the freighters and people who were walking their dogs on the beach. He then drove to a nearby mall and checked out a store called JB Hi-Fi - an electronics store. He then spent about 1 1/2 hours doing some indexing of shipping records for Family History (passenger lists of ships bound for Canada).
We got to Skype with Terri-Ann and the boys this morning, although not for long. Our internet was acting up and so our connection wasn't that good. We also had to get to church early so we didn't have much time to talk. We did find out that Colin and Caleb starting t-ball this past Tuesday and they really like it. Caleb even told me that he hit two home runs. Colin seemed disappointed that he didn't hit any home runs, but I told him that what counted was that he had fun and he said that he did have fun. Their coach is a friend of theirs (Adam) and James is the assistant coach - I am sure that with those two coaches, the boys are going to have a great experience playing t-ball this summer.
Sacrament today was really good - the theme was about 'forgiveness' - our three speakers were Jordan (a 15 year old young man), Sandy and Lyn (two older women) and they all did a really good job. Something really touched me today when Lyn was talking. Sometimes, we hear things many times at church, but then sometimes it just hits us differently. Today Lyn mentioned a scripture and it really made me think - it was from Matthew 6:15 -- But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. I told Lyn how that really made me think about how seriously Heavenly Father takes forgiveness. If we aren't forgiving to others, then Heavenly Father isn't going to forgive us. That's pretty serious stuff to me. I told Lyn that I wasn't at a place at this moment in my life where I was having difficulty forgiving someone, but who knows what the future holds.
My first counsellor was back today and I was really happy to have her back with us - we have missed her. I didn't work much on Primary this week and it really showed today. I had everything organized, but I just felt like I was running from here to there and back again. I managed to get everything done that I needed to get done, but I realized at the end of the day, I need to work on Primary a little every day so that I am able to feel less stressed on Sundays. It will help having my counsellor back now - I will meet with her this week to go over what we have been doing since she's been gone (six weeks). I will start doing more delegating as well - I won't be able to keep running things the way I have been once I start working full-time. Things are really starting to come together, though - I am pleased about that. :-)
After church, we got to Skype with Grandma and Grandpa Martin. They told us all about their trip to Alberta with Uncle Bob to see Kathleen, Rob, Dominik, Isabella, Jackie and Curtis. Everyone out there is doing well and looking forward to coming out to Grandma and Grandpa's in July for Trish's wedding and Isabella's baptism. Grandpa did not look well - he is losing weight and his skin has gone red from the chemo. The doctors are still conferring about what to do re: the chemo and the blood clotting side effect. It was good to talk with them/see them - we are going to do it again next week. Grandpa likes to plan times to Skype - he does that with Uncle Bob as well. When we were at their place earlier this year, he and Uncle Bob were Skyping every Wednesday or Thursday. It's great to have this kind of technology - it's almost like we are there in the room with them.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
It's been a busy and tiring two days for me working for Rachael Stewart's grade one class at Kawungan. Rachael had asked for me on Monday, but I was already booked up at Pialba. The supply teacher who was there for Monday and Tuesday was apparently not someone they wanted in there. It felt good to know that they really wanted me in there. The teachers are in a really stressed mode right now as they are trying to get tests done in time to assess for report cards which are due in a couple of weeks. Can you imagine doing so much paper testing in grade one? It's driving all the teachers crazy when they know that good teaching is using hands-on manipulatives to teach different concepts. The 'powers-that-be' want more paper testing done so that teachers can 'prove' the marks they give the kids. It's so frustrating that those who are NOT in the classroom get to dictate how teachers teach in the classroom, especially since those 'higher ups' are so clueless about what teaching in the classroom is like today. They are trying to push the curriculum down so that what was taught in grade two last year is now being taught in grade one. The top children are doing well, but more and more students are being left behind. The kids are also not enjoying school like they used to. Grrrr. The kids in Rachel's class were a little bit frustrating as they are not very good at listening (in general) or follow instructions. I did the best I could and I told Luise to tell Rachael that if I wasn't called in to supply teach on Tuesday, that I would come in and help her out by going over some of the tests with the kids one-on-one. I used to do that for Bronwyn and it was really helpful. I felt that I was saying the same kids' names over and over again yesterday and today to get them to listen, focus and follow instructions. I'm not sure if they are different when Rachael is teaching them or maybe she is just more patient than I am - it will be interesting when I see her on Tuesday (if I get to go there and volunteer) to hear her take on her class.
Dad has spent the past two days working on interviewing more people who want to work as census collectors. He had quite a few people from his area apply to be collectors and so he is having even more interviews next week. He is finding a number of people who will be very acceptable in the position, so it might be hard for him to choose who he will recommend to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). He also spent some time collating all the information he has received in the past two days - all of his notes have to be inputted into the ABS system, so he is finding it best to get them in as soon as possible after the interviews. He has his final interviews next Monday and has to then get his recommendations in as soon as possible after that. The next step in his job is to get training on how to train his collectors and that will take place some time in June.
Dad has spent the past two days working on interviewing more people who want to work as census collectors. He had quite a few people from his area apply to be collectors and so he is having even more interviews next week. He is finding a number of people who will be very acceptable in the position, so it might be hard for him to choose who he will recommend to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). He also spent some time collating all the information he has received in the past two days - all of his notes have to be inputted into the ABS system, so he is finding it best to get them in as soon as possible after the interviews. He has his final interviews next Monday and has to then get his recommendations in as soon as possible after that. The next step in his job is to get training on how to train his collectors and that will take place some time in June.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Oh, I have the most amazing news! I got a job - full-time - well, for the rest of the school year, anyway. J I am so excited! I got a call yesterday from Torquay State School - it was one of their administrative assistants, Kim - asking me to call her about a contract position at Torquay. I was thrilled when I heard the phone message. I asked Dad to drive me over to Torquay so that I could speak with Kim in person. We had to wait for her to get out of a meeting - when I did get in to talk with her she said that they are in need of someone to take on a contract from June 14th until the end of the school year (December 9th) in a Prep class. The biggest smile came over my face as I said 'YES!' :-) And there is an even better part of this deal - Chantelle, the prac student who was with me in Bronwyn's class last year, will be my team partner! Could it get better than this! I am over the moon about this and can't wait to start. Chantelle and I get along so well - and there is a teacher's aide, Samantha (Sam) who will be working in the class and she is fabulous, and I have taught Yvonne's class before and they are lovely! It's the most amazing thing. I was just lamenting a couple of weeks ago about how I wasn't getting as much work as I wanted. I was praying about it and one thought that came to my mind was 'after all you can do' - it reminded me that I need to work hard for something I want and then the blessings will come. That's when I decided to apply to the Catholic school board and the private school to supply teach. I also spoke with a friend who works at another school about her introducing me to the Deputy Principal at her school. Even though I didn't get a job at any of those places, I feel so blessed to have been offered more work at different schools and also to be offered this contract position. I am so grateful!
I worked at Pialba State School yesterday - I did 1 1/2 hours in each of three grades: Prep, grade two, and grade five. The Prep class went fine as did the grade two class (I had supply taught for this class before and they are pretty good) and then had a disastrous time in grade five (which is why I don't like teaching above year three). The teacher told me that I had to sit on them and that they were a tough group (which another supply teacher confirmed later when I talked with her about this class). Anyway, there are a number of rude boys in there and sure enough, as soon as their teacher left the room, they started acting up. Now, I don't care if they don't want to do the work, but they better be quiet cuz I don't handle rudeness or ignorance well at all. Anyway, two of these boys decided to to act up royally and be ignorant, disrespectful and rude. After giving them a number of chances to smarten up, I got the Deputy Principal to take them out of the class. It still wasn't great, but I was able to get through the rest of the time okay. As soon as I got to the car after school, I told Dad I needed chocolate. :-) I got a call from Karen from Kawungan and she asked me to teach on Wednesday and Thursday this week - I was so happy to get a call from her - teaching at Kawungan is so much better. :-)
Dad had his first interview of the people wishing to work as census collectors yesterday. Dad spent about 25 minutes talking with the person and then took five minutes to write up some notes about the interview. He was a little nervous about how the interview was going to go, but he thought it went very well once it was over. Dad spent the rest of the day trying to figure out which private health care company we were going to go with. It works a little differently over here in Australia compared to what it is like in Canada. Let me start out by staying Canadians are very blessed for the health care system there. We received our Medicare card last year about this time and didn't realize at the time that we only had a year to decide on whether we wanted to get extra health coverage. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we got a letter telling us that we had until Tuesday (today) to make our decision. If we didn't make a choice by today and we decide we want it later, it will cost us a lot more (2% per year over age 30). We had talked with some friends about what to do and they all basically said to get it for now and then decide later on if we want to keep it or not. Basically, in Australia, Medicare covers basic emergency and general medical needs in the public medical system. You have to pay to see the doctor (about $65 per visit, of which Medicare reimburses you about $40.). You can get extra coverage which covers dental, optical, chiropractic, massage therapy and physiotherapy up to a certain amount per year. It also covers semi private rooms when you go into a hospital (after you pay the first $250. of the bill). It also allows you to get on a private coverage list if you need an operation which means you don't have to wait for ages (if you are only on Medicare, you go on a different waiting list which takes a lot longer to get treatment - unless it's a medical emergency when everyone is at the same level). I don't like the fact that it's a two-tier system over here, but I am grateful that we can afford to get it. We don't need it now, but who knows what the future will bring.
Today I was at Pialba teaching the same kindergarten class as yesterday, but for the whole morning and the same grade two class as yesterday, but for the whole afternoon. The kindergarten class was great first thing in the morning as they had computer lab and all kids love going on the computers. I had one issue with a little boy who punched a little girl in the stomach because she wouldn't hold his hand to walk to the lab. He had already kicked a young boy in the cheek (which left a red mark) in the morning, so I asked the teacher's aide to take him to the office as I felt it was important for them to be aware of what was happening. Mark Brose, who is the Deputy Principal, takes this kind of physical abuse very seriously and took care of the situation - I really appreciate admin who back you up. The children in the grade two class are quite nice and I do like going into their class. One girl caused an issue by wrecking another student's work. I asked her to sit out and told her we would talk about it later. When I told the teacher about the incident, she said that this girl and her mother (and maybe siblings) had moved in with the grandmother until the mother could find a caravan to rent. I really feel for the things so many of these kids have to go through at such a young age. There are many children in Hervey Bay (at least at the schools I have supply taught at) who are living with one parent or with stepparents and they have issues with the other non-custodial parent. The children should not have to deal with these things - no wonder they struggle with school and that there are so many behaviour issues in HB. The deputy principal also asked me today if I would like to come in and teach the grade two class I had today in October when the teacher goes on leave for a short time. I would have enjoyed doing that, except that now I have been offered that wonderful job at Torquay, so I had to tell Mark, (the DP), that I couldn't do it. I did thank him for asking me, though.
Dad spent most of today doing more interviews with hopeful census collectors. He needs to get seven collectors and one reserve collector and he is very confident after doing the interviews today that he will have no difficulty getting his people. He still has six more people to interview tomorrow and he also just got a new batch of resumes today so he will have to go through them and interview some of those people as well. Dad said he felt much more comfortable doing the interviews today.
I worked at Pialba State School yesterday - I did 1 1/2 hours in each of three grades: Prep, grade two, and grade five. The Prep class went fine as did the grade two class (I had supply taught for this class before and they are pretty good) and then had a disastrous time in grade five (which is why I don't like teaching above year three). The teacher told me that I had to sit on them and that they were a tough group (which another supply teacher confirmed later when I talked with her about this class). Anyway, there are a number of rude boys in there and sure enough, as soon as their teacher left the room, they started acting up. Now, I don't care if they don't want to do the work, but they better be quiet cuz I don't handle rudeness or ignorance well at all. Anyway, two of these boys decided to to act up royally and be ignorant, disrespectful and rude. After giving them a number of chances to smarten up, I got the Deputy Principal to take them out of the class. It still wasn't great, but I was able to get through the rest of the time okay. As soon as I got to the car after school, I told Dad I needed chocolate. :-) I got a call from Karen from Kawungan and she asked me to teach on Wednesday and Thursday this week - I was so happy to get a call from her - teaching at Kawungan is so much better. :-)
Dad had his first interview of the people wishing to work as census collectors yesterday. Dad spent about 25 minutes talking with the person and then took five minutes to write up some notes about the interview. He was a little nervous about how the interview was going to go, but he thought it went very well once it was over. Dad spent the rest of the day trying to figure out which private health care company we were going to go with. It works a little differently over here in Australia compared to what it is like in Canada. Let me start out by staying Canadians are very blessed for the health care system there. We received our Medicare card last year about this time and didn't realize at the time that we only had a year to decide on whether we wanted to get extra health coverage. Well, a couple of weeks ago, we got a letter telling us that we had until Tuesday (today) to make our decision. If we didn't make a choice by today and we decide we want it later, it will cost us a lot more (2% per year over age 30). We had talked with some friends about what to do and they all basically said to get it for now and then decide later on if we want to keep it or not. Basically, in Australia, Medicare covers basic emergency and general medical needs in the public medical system. You have to pay to see the doctor (about $65 per visit, of which Medicare reimburses you about $40.). You can get extra coverage which covers dental, optical, chiropractic, massage therapy and physiotherapy up to a certain amount per year. It also covers semi private rooms when you go into a hospital (after you pay the first $250. of the bill). It also allows you to get on a private coverage list if you need an operation which means you don't have to wait for ages (if you are only on Medicare, you go on a different waiting list which takes a lot longer to get treatment - unless it's a medical emergency when everyone is at the same level). I don't like the fact that it's a two-tier system over here, but I am grateful that we can afford to get it. We don't need it now, but who knows what the future will bring.
Today I was at Pialba teaching the same kindergarten class as yesterday, but for the whole morning and the same grade two class as yesterday, but for the whole afternoon. The kindergarten class was great first thing in the morning as they had computer lab and all kids love going on the computers. I had one issue with a little boy who punched a little girl in the stomach because she wouldn't hold his hand to walk to the lab. He had already kicked a young boy in the cheek (which left a red mark) in the morning, so I asked the teacher's aide to take him to the office as I felt it was important for them to be aware of what was happening. Mark Brose, who is the Deputy Principal, takes this kind of physical abuse very seriously and took care of the situation - I really appreciate admin who back you up. The children in the grade two class are quite nice and I do like going into their class. One girl caused an issue by wrecking another student's work. I asked her to sit out and told her we would talk about it later. When I told the teacher about the incident, she said that this girl and her mother (and maybe siblings) had moved in with the grandmother until the mother could find a caravan to rent. I really feel for the things so many of these kids have to go through at such a young age. There are many children in Hervey Bay (at least at the schools I have supply taught at) who are living with one parent or with stepparents and they have issues with the other non-custodial parent. The children should not have to deal with these things - no wonder they struggle with school and that there are so many behaviour issues in HB. The deputy principal also asked me today if I would like to come in and teach the grade two class I had today in October when the teacher goes on leave for a short time. I would have enjoyed doing that, except that now I have been offered that wonderful job at Torquay, so I had to tell Mark, (the DP), that I couldn't do it. I did thank him for asking me, though.
Dad spent most of today doing more interviews with hopeful census collectors. He needs to get seven collectors and one reserve collector and he is very confident after doing the interviews today that he will have no difficulty getting his people. He still has six more people to interview tomorrow and he also just got a new batch of resumes today so he will have to go through them and interview some of those people as well. Dad said he felt much more comfortable doing the interviews today.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
I had another good day supply teaching Friday. I was at Torquay for just two hours (well, I got paid for two hours) and I was so happy when I found out I was with Chantelle's class as I had planned on staying all day with her class. Chantelle had 'warned' me about a young boy named Brayden and I was wondering how he would be for me since he didn't know me. Fortunately for me, he didn't show up. Those who were there were easy to teach (although there was one boy who could get annoying if I had to have him full-time) and we had a good two hours together. I stayed on with Chantelle to help her out, but it turned out that there wasn't much to help her with. I think that all teachers are feeling a bit overwhelmed at this time due to report cards coming up and having to have all sorts of assessment done at this point. Chantelle said that next time I came in, she would definitely have things for me to do.
Dad met up with John today (motorcycle teacher) to take his test - and he passed! YAY!!!!! John only had to ride with Dad for 90 minutes to know that Dad was ready to get his license. John met Dad at our house and watched him ride around some quieter areas of HB. He gave Dad some pointers (eg: not to take the corners so wide) and watched Dad ride some more. He then asked Dad to drive down into the middle of the town so that he could watch Dad maneuver through busier traffic. After that, it was out onto the highway to see how Dad handled the scooter going at 100km/h. After that, John followed Dad home (John drove his motorcycle over from Maryborough) where he filled out the paperwork to say that Dad had completed the assessment successfully and then Dad took that paperwork over to the DMV to have the scooter endorsement added to his driver's license. I am still not comfortable with knowing the streets of HB to take the test, but John told Dad that if that is the only issue, he could come out and take a longer time to assess me. I could also wait for Robyn and Geoff to get back and do some more practicing. I'm not sure what I will do, but I told Dad that he is not allowed to ride 'my' scooter until I get my license and I can go out and ride on my own. :-)
Dad picked me up from school and we drove to the Family History Centre as he had to close it up. I nipped onto the computers, put in my info about Richard Terry (great grandfather) to see if I could find the family tree and it popped up right away. I couldn't believe it! I checked out the info and I was able to pick up something that might help in my search, but most of it was stuff I already had. The person who put it on the site was listed as Nikki, but I couldn't find out who she was or how to contact her.
When we got home, I got a phone call from Mark Brose who is the Deputy Principal at Pialba and he asked me if I was available to teach next Monday and Tuesday. I had to check my calendar as I am getting a few days booked up now. I was available for both days and so he has booked me in to teach three different classes for the first day (Prep, grade 2 and grade 5 for an hour each - he told me that he knew that grade five was out of my comfort zone, but could I do it for just one hour and I said 'yes'). On Tuesday, it will be half a day with a Prep class and half a day with a grade two class (I am going to ask Mark if it's possible to do Mrs. Dean's class who I had last week if he doesn't have anyone particularly assigned to her class). I am excited to be getting some jobs at other schools and now I have two days booked next week (and we don't go on Friday next week as it's 'Show Day' - the kids get the day off school to go to the Maryborough Show - like the CNE). I also have three days prebooked for the next week at Kawungan in the grade two classes (each teacher gets half a day's coverage). Things are starting to look up! :-)
We got to Skype with Terri-Ann and the boys yesterday morning - I love that! :-) They had just arrived back from the ice-cream store and so the boy were covered with ice-cream - they looked so cute. Colin was singing a song I had learned at camp back when I was about 13 - I couldn't believe it when I heard him singing those words - who would have believed that someone would have taught him that silly song that I had learned all those years ago. It's called 'Vista' and I do it with the kids I teach as it's fun and silly and they love yelling 'VISTA' at the end. I told Colin that when I do it with my class, I have them hit their knees and then clap their hands. I meant that we hit our knees with our hands, but he thought I meant that we hit our knees together so that's what he was doing. :-) What a cutie! Colin reminds me a lot of Terri-Ann when she was a little girl in that he likes the limelight. :-) Caleb was trying to sing us a song he learned at 'Teddy Bear school' and Colin was trying to sing over him. :-) Benjamin was babbling, but when I told him to say 'Ma', he did! What a clever boy! :-)
I drove by myself for the first time yesterday - YAY me! :-) My friend, Denise, was going to visit our friend, Judy, in the Maryborough hospital and I wanted to go with her. I was not comfortable, however, driving all the way to Maryborough and around Maryborough, so I told Denise that I would drive to her place if she would drive the rest of the way (which she readily agreed to). Dad said he would drive me to Denise's, but that would have meant a 15 minute drive there and back for him and then again when he came to pick me up. I told him that I would try driving it on my own as long as he put the directions in our GPS (I love our GPS :-) I was a little bit nervous about driving on my own, so I said a quick prayer and then I was okay. On the way back from Denise's, I missed a turn, but it wasn't my fault as the GPS told me to turn after the actual turn (it thinks this street goes all the way through for some reason even though it doesn't), so I did have to do a U-turn, but I made it home safely and I was pleased about doing it on my own (well, sort of since my GPS friend was with me - I wonder if I should name the GPS like some of my other friends have done. :-)
I really enjoyed the talks given in Sacrament meeting today - the theme was about The Word of Wisdom. It's interesting to see some people's take on things. I have thought of The Word of Wisdom more as a list of DON'Ts rather than a list of DOs, but today I began to think of it in a different way. It's interesting how you can know something and hear something for years and then somehow come to look at it differently depending on the people talking about it or the place you are in at the time. Anyway, today as the speakers were talking (and I was listening :-) something came to my mind about how since The Word of Wisdom is a commandment, I should be following it more diligently. It's easy to follow the DON'Ts (like no alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, drugs), but I was thinking today about how it's not so easy to follow the DOs (like eating meat sparingly, early to bed and early to rise). I also think that there are some things which are not talked about, but which we can take from what is being said in this scripture should rarely be taken (eg: junk food) since the whole idea of this section is to take things into your body which are healthy and leave out of your body things which are not. Even though I have read the promises to us if we follow the things spoken of in the Word Of Wisdom, they really touched my heart today: shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. It's interesting how sometimes, you have someone speak at church and you really find it speaking to you - that's how I felt today. I want to do some more reading and pondering about this and I will write more about it later after I have done this.
Dad had my phone in his pocket at church today and it started ringing during Sacrament meeting - oops. :-) Dad said he always turns both phones off, but he forgot for some reason today. After Sacrament meeting, he checked the message and it was from my teacher friend, Bronwyn. I called her back and she said that she wanted to know if I was working tomorrow and Tuesday. I told her that I had already been asked by Pialba to teach on Monday and Tuesday. It turns out that she was calling for Kelli (a new grade two teacher at Kawungan) who's mother-in-law had been flown to Brisbane by helicopter for a medical emergency and so Kelli needed someone to cover for her. Bronwyn told her she would take care of it. I was disappointed that I couldn't do it - it would have been great teaching grade two and doing it beside Bronwyn. Bronwyn said that if Kelli needed someone for Wednesday and Thursday, would I be available and I said 'yes', so we'll see what happens. It doesn't rain, but it pours (with supply teaching jobs), eh? :-)
Dad and I are both sitting outside on our patio furniture while I am writing this. The weather is gorgeous: blue sky with a few clouds, warm (about 26C) and so peaceful out here. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is playing on the CD player - such sweet and soothing music. Life is good - nay, life is GREAT! :-)
Dad met up with John today (motorcycle teacher) to take his test - and he passed! YAY!!!!! John only had to ride with Dad for 90 minutes to know that Dad was ready to get his license. John met Dad at our house and watched him ride around some quieter areas of HB. He gave Dad some pointers (eg: not to take the corners so wide) and watched Dad ride some more. He then asked Dad to drive down into the middle of the town so that he could watch Dad maneuver through busier traffic. After that, it was out onto the highway to see how Dad handled the scooter going at 100km/h. After that, John followed Dad home (John drove his motorcycle over from Maryborough) where he filled out the paperwork to say that Dad had completed the assessment successfully and then Dad took that paperwork over to the DMV to have the scooter endorsement added to his driver's license. I am still not comfortable with knowing the streets of HB to take the test, but John told Dad that if that is the only issue, he could come out and take a longer time to assess me. I could also wait for Robyn and Geoff to get back and do some more practicing. I'm not sure what I will do, but I told Dad that he is not allowed to ride 'my' scooter until I get my license and I can go out and ride on my own. :-)
Dad picked me up from school and we drove to the Family History Centre as he had to close it up. I nipped onto the computers, put in my info about Richard Terry (great grandfather) to see if I could find the family tree and it popped up right away. I couldn't believe it! I checked out the info and I was able to pick up something that might help in my search, but most of it was stuff I already had. The person who put it on the site was listed as Nikki, but I couldn't find out who she was or how to contact her.
When we got home, I got a phone call from Mark Brose who is the Deputy Principal at Pialba and he asked me if I was available to teach next Monday and Tuesday. I had to check my calendar as I am getting a few days booked up now. I was available for both days and so he has booked me in to teach three different classes for the first day (Prep, grade 2 and grade 5 for an hour each - he told me that he knew that grade five was out of my comfort zone, but could I do it for just one hour and I said 'yes'). On Tuesday, it will be half a day with a Prep class and half a day with a grade two class (I am going to ask Mark if it's possible to do Mrs. Dean's class who I had last week if he doesn't have anyone particularly assigned to her class). I am excited to be getting some jobs at other schools and now I have two days booked next week (and we don't go on Friday next week as it's 'Show Day' - the kids get the day off school to go to the Maryborough Show - like the CNE). I also have three days prebooked for the next week at Kawungan in the grade two classes (each teacher gets half a day's coverage). Things are starting to look up! :-)
We got to Skype with Terri-Ann and the boys yesterday morning - I love that! :-) They had just arrived back from the ice-cream store and so the boy were covered with ice-cream - they looked so cute. Colin was singing a song I had learned at camp back when I was about 13 - I couldn't believe it when I heard him singing those words - who would have believed that someone would have taught him that silly song that I had learned all those years ago. It's called 'Vista' and I do it with the kids I teach as it's fun and silly and they love yelling 'VISTA' at the end. I told Colin that when I do it with my class, I have them hit their knees and then clap their hands. I meant that we hit our knees with our hands, but he thought I meant that we hit our knees together so that's what he was doing. :-) What a cutie! Colin reminds me a lot of Terri-Ann when she was a little girl in that he likes the limelight. :-) Caleb was trying to sing us a song he learned at 'Teddy Bear school' and Colin was trying to sing over him. :-) Benjamin was babbling, but when I told him to say 'Ma', he did! What a clever boy! :-)
I drove by myself for the first time yesterday - YAY me! :-) My friend, Denise, was going to visit our friend, Judy, in the Maryborough hospital and I wanted to go with her. I was not comfortable, however, driving all the way to Maryborough and around Maryborough, so I told Denise that I would drive to her place if she would drive the rest of the way (which she readily agreed to). Dad said he would drive me to Denise's, but that would have meant a 15 minute drive there and back for him and then again when he came to pick me up. I told him that I would try driving it on my own as long as he put the directions in our GPS (I love our GPS :-) I was a little bit nervous about driving on my own, so I said a quick prayer and then I was okay. On the way back from Denise's, I missed a turn, but it wasn't my fault as the GPS told me to turn after the actual turn (it thinks this street goes all the way through for some reason even though it doesn't), so I did have to do a U-turn, but I made it home safely and I was pleased about doing it on my own (well, sort of since my GPS friend was with me - I wonder if I should name the GPS like some of my other friends have done. :-)
I really enjoyed the talks given in Sacrament meeting today - the theme was about The Word of Wisdom. It's interesting to see some people's take on things. I have thought of The Word of Wisdom more as a list of DON'Ts rather than a list of DOs, but today I began to think of it in a different way. It's interesting how you can know something and hear something for years and then somehow come to look at it differently depending on the people talking about it or the place you are in at the time. Anyway, today as the speakers were talking (and I was listening :-) something came to my mind about how since The Word of Wisdom is a commandment, I should be following it more diligently. It's easy to follow the DON'Ts (like no alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, drugs), but I was thinking today about how it's not so easy to follow the DOs (like eating meat sparingly, early to bed and early to rise). I also think that there are some things which are not talked about, but which we can take from what is being said in this scripture should rarely be taken (eg: junk food) since the whole idea of this section is to take things into your body which are healthy and leave out of your body things which are not. Even though I have read the promises to us if we follow the things spoken of in the Word Of Wisdom, they really touched my heart today: shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. It's interesting how sometimes, you have someone speak at church and you really find it speaking to you - that's how I felt today. I want to do some more reading and pondering about this and I will write more about it later after I have done this.
Dad had my phone in his pocket at church today and it started ringing during Sacrament meeting - oops. :-) Dad said he always turns both phones off, but he forgot for some reason today. After Sacrament meeting, he checked the message and it was from my teacher friend, Bronwyn. I called her back and she said that she wanted to know if I was working tomorrow and Tuesday. I told her that I had already been asked by Pialba to teach on Monday and Tuesday. It turns out that she was calling for Kelli (a new grade two teacher at Kawungan) who's mother-in-law had been flown to Brisbane by helicopter for a medical emergency and so Kelli needed someone to cover for her. Bronwyn told her she would take care of it. I was disappointed that I couldn't do it - it would have been great teaching grade two and doing it beside Bronwyn. Bronwyn said that if Kelli needed someone for Wednesday and Thursday, would I be available and I said 'yes', so we'll see what happens. It doesn't rain, but it pours (with supply teaching jobs), eh? :-)
Dad and I are both sitting outside on our patio furniture while I am writing this. The weather is gorgeous: blue sky with a few clouds, warm (about 26C) and so peaceful out here. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is playing on the CD player - such sweet and soothing music. Life is good - nay, life is GREAT! :-)
Thursday, May 19, 2011
I got a call yesterday to go in for Fiona again - what a nice way to wake up - getting to teach a lovely class and not feeling like I'm really earning my money! :-) I had a really nice time in Fiona's class - she had sorted another lovely day for me as well. I told the kids that if they worked hard, I would take them out for some ball games. They were really excited and worked really well - and we did go out for the ball games. Little did they know that Fiona had put it on the day plan - they just thought I was being nice. :-) At the end of the day, I was thinking how much I would love to be the teacher of that class on a full-time basis. There was a prac student (student teacher) with us yesterday (she's with Luise for 3 weeks) and we were talking. I was telling her how difficult it is to get a job in Hervey Bay - I didn't think it was going to be this difficult to get work - but, at least I am getting some days.
Dad spent yesterday doing census stuff again. He finished checking out his seventh and final area of his census district. It took him all afternoon to input the info into the computer. Then, he had to organize all the info he received about the people applying to be census collectors and put that onto a sheet so that he could set up his interviews.
We spent the evening at the Family History Centre last night. I decided to continue working on my Grandpa Terry's line - and somehow I found my way into a Terry family tree. It had my great grandfather and great grandmother on it although it had a different date of birth for my great grandmother. I was so excited to find the info - but, I forgot to write down the way I got to it - so today, when I went into library genealogy centre, I tried to find the family tree again and couldn't find it. I was so frustrated - I figured out how I found the way to do it, but not the route to get to the way I did it. That makes no sense at all, I know, but it's hard to explain. Anyway, I am going to try and find it again next time I get to work on it. I did find out info about my great grandfather's trip to Canada from England. I found out where he was living when he left England in 1928 and also where he was going to once he landed in Quebec. It's neat finding out information about my ancestors! :-)
I was very pleased NOT to get a call to supply teach today. I like not working on Thursday as I like to do 'Meals on Wheels'. Fortunately, we also didn't get a call from Avis to say she didn't need us. So, off we went at 10am to drive to the MOW building. We got route 4 today which I was happy about as our Bishop and his wife, Diana, live on this route. Diana really hurt her leg and shoulder last week, so bad that she wasn't even able to come to church last week. Half way through the route, we stopped at their house and had a short chat with her - I just wanted to see how she was doing. Dad and I get along with the Bishop and Diana really well - we want to invite them over to dinner really soon. At one of our stops near the end of our route, one of our clients had some cute kittens running around his place. There was a ginger one who was soooo adorable. The man could see that I was so taken with this little kitten - he asked me if I would like to take the kitten home - I would have loved to, but of course, Dad said 'no'! :-( I know that it makes sense since, when we come back to Canada, we come for so long and it would be hard to find someone to come over and feed a pet for us for such a long time, but the kitten was so cute, it was hard to leave it behind. :-(
I did a load of laundry when we got home from MOW and put it out on the line. I checked it when we got back from the library and I told Dad it needed another hour or so. About half an hour later, the 'air conditioning' turned on. :-) What I mean by that, is that it started to pour rain - on our tin roof, it sounds just like air conditioning. I ran to the back door to see if I could save the laundry, but it was too late. So, now, it's staying out overnight and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, it will be dry. It's so strange here with regards to rain - it had been raining overnight and that's why I didn't do the laundry before we left for MOW. While we were out on the route, the skies cleared up and the sun came out and it was lovely. In the middle of our route, we had a very short, very light shower of rain. Near the end of our route, there was another shower. Then, by the time we got home, it was beautiful out again. So, out went the laundry, and then, just as if on cue, down pours the rain again (this time it was truly raining in strength, but not in length). It's what happens when it rains in HB - it rarely rains for any length of time - just many short showers. At least it was 24C today. :-)
Tonight at SES, they did a maps, compass and GPS navigation exercise. They were divided up into teams of three and given a map with a starting reference (they had to figure out from the reference where the starting point was). From there, they were given several bearings and distances to follow and had to write down what they found at each of the endpoints. When they got back, the instructor cross-checked each group's findings with his. The pacer in Dad's group underestimated his paces, so the distances were too long. Dad's group missed their marks, but because it was a circuit (they went in a circle), they ended up in the right place in the end. Dad's group decided that they need to double check their paces when they are going to do an exercise like this.
Dad spent yesterday doing census stuff again. He finished checking out his seventh and final area of his census district. It took him all afternoon to input the info into the computer. Then, he had to organize all the info he received about the people applying to be census collectors and put that onto a sheet so that he could set up his interviews.
We spent the evening at the Family History Centre last night. I decided to continue working on my Grandpa Terry's line - and somehow I found my way into a Terry family tree. It had my great grandfather and great grandmother on it although it had a different date of birth for my great grandmother. I was so excited to find the info - but, I forgot to write down the way I got to it - so today, when I went into library genealogy centre, I tried to find the family tree again and couldn't find it. I was so frustrated - I figured out how I found the way to do it, but not the route to get to the way I did it. That makes no sense at all, I know, but it's hard to explain. Anyway, I am going to try and find it again next time I get to work on it. I did find out info about my great grandfather's trip to Canada from England. I found out where he was living when he left England in 1928 and also where he was going to once he landed in Quebec. It's neat finding out information about my ancestors! :-)
I was very pleased NOT to get a call to supply teach today. I like not working on Thursday as I like to do 'Meals on Wheels'. Fortunately, we also didn't get a call from Avis to say she didn't need us. So, off we went at 10am to drive to the MOW building. We got route 4 today which I was happy about as our Bishop and his wife, Diana, live on this route. Diana really hurt her leg and shoulder last week, so bad that she wasn't even able to come to church last week. Half way through the route, we stopped at their house and had a short chat with her - I just wanted to see how she was doing. Dad and I get along with the Bishop and Diana really well - we want to invite them over to dinner really soon. At one of our stops near the end of our route, one of our clients had some cute kittens running around his place. There was a ginger one who was soooo adorable. The man could see that I was so taken with this little kitten - he asked me if I would like to take the kitten home - I would have loved to, but of course, Dad said 'no'! :-( I know that it makes sense since, when we come back to Canada, we come for so long and it would be hard to find someone to come over and feed a pet for us for such a long time, but the kitten was so cute, it was hard to leave it behind. :-(
I did a load of laundry when we got home from MOW and put it out on the line. I checked it when we got back from the library and I told Dad it needed another hour or so. About half an hour later, the 'air conditioning' turned on. :-) What I mean by that, is that it started to pour rain - on our tin roof, it sounds just like air conditioning. I ran to the back door to see if I could save the laundry, but it was too late. So, now, it's staying out overnight and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon, it will be dry. It's so strange here with regards to rain - it had been raining overnight and that's why I didn't do the laundry before we left for MOW. While we were out on the route, the skies cleared up and the sun came out and it was lovely. In the middle of our route, we had a very short, very light shower of rain. Near the end of our route, there was another shower. Then, by the time we got home, it was beautiful out again. So, out went the laundry, and then, just as if on cue, down pours the rain again (this time it was truly raining in strength, but not in length). It's what happens when it rains in HB - it rarely rains for any length of time - just many short showers. At least it was 24C today. :-)
Tonight at SES, they did a maps, compass and GPS navigation exercise. They were divided up into teams of three and given a map with a starting reference (they had to figure out from the reference where the starting point was). From there, they were given several bearings and distances to follow and had to write down what they found at each of the endpoints. When they got back, the instructor cross-checked each group's findings with his. The pacer in Dad's group underestimated his paces, so the distances were too long. Dad's group missed their marks, but because it was a circuit (they went in a circle), they ended up in the right place in the end. Dad's group decided that they need to double check their paces when they are going to do an exercise like this.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
I knew that I was going to be teaching today as I was asked to do this day (Monday) at Pialba State School and that it was grade two. It turns out that the teacher was going to be in the school all day doing some assessment with the children. It turned out to be a lovely class - two boys who were challenging, but overall I had a really good day. As the teacher was there before school, she was able to review with me what I needed to do that day and I also was able to ask questions to clarify things. So, my day went really smoothly. I told the teacher at the end of the day, when I gave her my card, that I would like to supply for her again if she needed someone.
Dad worked on area number six of his census district - this was the area in which we were going to have a house built before we bought this one. There has been so much building going on that there are way too many dwellings for one area so they are going to have to make it into two separate areas or put another person on for that area. Dad says there are sixteen houses in the street that we were going to buy on - in some areas of Hervey Bay they are just going crazy with building.
Guess what? I got another call to teach today - I was so happy! This time it was for a grade one class at Kawungan - Fiona, the teacher, is really nice and has been great to me - when I got to school, she was there - her daughter wasn't feeling well and so Fiona came in to write up a day plan for me. She left me a lovely easy day - she basically said I could do as much or as little as I wanted to (except for reading rotations because it involved two other teachers). She warned me about one little boy who was a handful. The class was amazing and I had a terrific day! Even the little boy who is a handful was pretty good today. Mind you, I made him my 'carpet example' - I kept mentioning that everyone should be doing what Logan was doing: sitting like Logan was, watching me like Logan was, being quiet like Logan, etc. It really worked well and so my day went smoothly. I really enjoyed being in a grade one class again and it made me look forward to taking over Luise's class in October. I also got a call from Tracer asking me to supply teach for two hours at Torquay State School on Friday - this works out great as then I can stay there and volunteer in Chantelle's class and then talk with her about ideas for her class - she wants help with her literacy centres - it's great to be wanted. :-)
Dad spent the day doing a lot of different stuff: he spent the morning inputting info re: the census areas he has been canvassing into his computer program; then he came home and mowed the lawn; and then spent some time this afternoon working on his seventh and final area - he was able to get almost all of it done, so he should be able to finish everything up this week. He also received some more applications for census collectors which he will have to go through and will likely start interviewing people next week.
We had the missionaries for supper tonight and I made my delicious penne pasta with bacon - oh, I love this dish - it is so yummy! :-) Elder Richardson asked Dad and me to write in his book - he is asking people he is close to if they will write something so that he can remember them when he gets back off his mission - he's only been out six months so far, so he has a ways to go. He feels an affinity to Dad and me for some reason - he says we 'get him'. :-) He even called me 'mommy' tonight. :-) We asked them to come earlier next week as we don't have much time with them if they don't come 'til 5pm and they have to leave at 6pm for their meeting with the Bishop.
Dad had his PEC meeting tonight with the Bishopric and Chris, the Elder's Quorum president. As the Bishop wasn't at the meeting last week (he was ill), he wanted to review the people on the ward list. They are trying to find out whether less active members are still in the area and they also want to decide who will be their home teachers - whether it will be Dad's group or Chris' group. It's a long process to go through, but it will be really good in the end when everyone will be assigned to the members in the ward and more people can receive monthly visits.
Dad worked on area number six of his census district - this was the area in which we were going to have a house built before we bought this one. There has been so much building going on that there are way too many dwellings for one area so they are going to have to make it into two separate areas or put another person on for that area. Dad says there are sixteen houses in the street that we were going to buy on - in some areas of Hervey Bay they are just going crazy with building.
Guess what? I got another call to teach today - I was so happy! This time it was for a grade one class at Kawungan - Fiona, the teacher, is really nice and has been great to me - when I got to school, she was there - her daughter wasn't feeling well and so Fiona came in to write up a day plan for me. She left me a lovely easy day - she basically said I could do as much or as little as I wanted to (except for reading rotations because it involved two other teachers). She warned me about one little boy who was a handful. The class was amazing and I had a terrific day! Even the little boy who is a handful was pretty good today. Mind you, I made him my 'carpet example' - I kept mentioning that everyone should be doing what Logan was doing: sitting like Logan was, watching me like Logan was, being quiet like Logan, etc. It really worked well and so my day went smoothly. I really enjoyed being in a grade one class again and it made me look forward to taking over Luise's class in October. I also got a call from Tracer asking me to supply teach for two hours at Torquay State School on Friday - this works out great as then I can stay there and volunteer in Chantelle's class and then talk with her about ideas for her class - she wants help with her literacy centres - it's great to be wanted. :-)
Dad spent the day doing a lot of different stuff: he spent the morning inputting info re: the census areas he has been canvassing into his computer program; then he came home and mowed the lawn; and then spent some time this afternoon working on his seventh and final area - he was able to get almost all of it done, so he should be able to finish everything up this week. He also received some more applications for census collectors which he will have to go through and will likely start interviewing people next week.
We had the missionaries for supper tonight and I made my delicious penne pasta with bacon - oh, I love this dish - it is so yummy! :-) Elder Richardson asked Dad and me to write in his book - he is asking people he is close to if they will write something so that he can remember them when he gets back off his mission - he's only been out six months so far, so he has a ways to go. He feels an affinity to Dad and me for some reason - he says we 'get him'. :-) He even called me 'mommy' tonight. :-) We asked them to come earlier next week as we don't have much time with them if they don't come 'til 5pm and they have to leave at 6pm for their meeting with the Bishop.
Dad had his PEC meeting tonight with the Bishopric and Chris, the Elder's Quorum president. As the Bishop wasn't at the meeting last week (he was ill), he wanted to review the people on the ward list. They are trying to find out whether less active members are still in the area and they also want to decide who will be their home teachers - whether it will be Dad's group or Chris' group. It's a long process to go through, but it will be really good in the end when everyone will be assigned to the members in the ward and more people can receive monthly visits.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
I got called in to school on Friday to a class I had been in before and I was really excited as they had been a dream class last time I was in (except for one boy). I was in for a bit of a surprise, as it turned out. It was a grade three class at Kawungan - there are a lot of girls from Bronwyn's class last year and there was just one boy who was annoying. Since then, another boy has moved into the class and he was annoying as well. One boy wasn't hard to handle last time as the other children were really well behaved and respectful. 'Naughty' boys tend to find each other and set each other off and isn't that what happened on Friday. I was so frustrated at the end of the day that I walked out with the first boy and spoke to his mom after school. She told me he had been 'naughty' at home and had received consequences and she was going to give him more consequences as a result of this behaviour. I don't know her so I don't know if she follows through - I sure hope she does - I know that if I go into this class again, I will not be as patient as I was this time - I will just send the troublemakers off to the office. I really get steamed when one or two children spoil the day for the rest of the class!
Dad spent his day doing a variety of things - sort of a finish up/catch up day for him. He started off his day at the Family History Centre checking some films in and being on the phone with the film distribution centre in Salt Lake City - there had been a major error in shipping and Dad needed to work it out. After that, he finished up working on two of his areas from his census district. After school, having to deal with that class for the day, all I wanted to do was come home and do nothing for the evening - which is just what we did - we even were lazy for dinner and had a frozen McCain pizza. :-)
Saturday was a lovely day and so we spent most of the day outside - well, I did. :-) I wanted to spend some time working out some ideas for a day plan in case I got called into a classroom and there wasn't a day plan. Terri, a grade two teacher from Kawungan, loaned me a book which had tons of ideas and I spent a while going through it and choosing things which would take little supplies or supplies which would be available in any classroom. I plan on typing them out and then keeping the list in my bag which I take my stuff in to school every day - it will be good to have these ideas as twice now I have shown up to supply and a day plan has not been available. If we had not left a day plan at R.J. Lee, we would have been in big trouble. After I finished writing down my ideas, I decided to lay out on my chaise lounge and have a nap outside. The sun was warm and it was just lovely to relax outside on such a beautiful day. :-)
Saturday night we were invited to a 30th birthday for our friend, Tammy, from church - she is the young woman who is the same age as Terri-Ann, has red hair and who also has three boys about the same ages as Colin, Caleb and Benjamin. We were supposed to dress up in 80s outfits or come dressed as a tv/movie character/singer from the 80s. I just came dressed as myself as did Dad. :-) But some people were able to come up with an outfit. Our friend, Leanne, got into her 20 year old son's old dance costume and wore one of those; Tammy came dressed as Strawberry Shortcake and her husband, Zander, came dressed at Beetlejuice. They all looked great! They had 80s music playing (did any good music come out of the 80s? :-) and they had food and goodies to eat. We mostly just sat around talking with our friends from church. After a couple of hours, I could tell that Dad was ready to go and so we said our goodbyes and came home.
Today, at church, the sacrament meeting theme was about prayer - one of my favourite subjects. :-) I really enjoyed the final speaker, Steve, who gave a great talk - he had made notes, but rarely referred to them so kept eye contact for most of his talk - I really like that as it is so much easier to keep focussed when someone does that. He talked about how important it was to say our prayers - to talk with Heavenly Father - to let Him know how grateful we are for our blessings and to ask Him for what we feel we need. He talked about prayer like it was a regular conversation between two people and I love to think of prayer like that. When I pray, I often try to think of Heavenly Father in my mind so that it feels more personal to me.
The missionaries came over for lunch today. They are feeling a bit taken aback as they had their car 'taken away' from them. There are more missionaries in this mission now and so they are sharing some of the cars around - our missionaries have had a car now for 3 months, so it's another set's turn. The mission only has so many cars right now, although now that there are more missionaires in the mission, the mission president is going to ask for more cars. We enjoyed our time with the missionaries as we always do - we had pizza for lunch and spent some time chatting with them. We spent this evening just relaxing - it was a nice way to end our weekend.
Dad spent his day doing a variety of things - sort of a finish up/catch up day for him. He started off his day at the Family History Centre checking some films in and being on the phone with the film distribution centre in Salt Lake City - there had been a major error in shipping and Dad needed to work it out. After that, he finished up working on two of his areas from his census district. After school, having to deal with that class for the day, all I wanted to do was come home and do nothing for the evening - which is just what we did - we even were lazy for dinner and had a frozen McCain pizza. :-)
Saturday was a lovely day and so we spent most of the day outside - well, I did. :-) I wanted to spend some time working out some ideas for a day plan in case I got called into a classroom and there wasn't a day plan. Terri, a grade two teacher from Kawungan, loaned me a book which had tons of ideas and I spent a while going through it and choosing things which would take little supplies or supplies which would be available in any classroom. I plan on typing them out and then keeping the list in my bag which I take my stuff in to school every day - it will be good to have these ideas as twice now I have shown up to supply and a day plan has not been available. If we had not left a day plan at R.J. Lee, we would have been in big trouble. After I finished writing down my ideas, I decided to lay out on my chaise lounge and have a nap outside. The sun was warm and it was just lovely to relax outside on such a beautiful day. :-)
Saturday night we were invited to a 30th birthday for our friend, Tammy, from church - she is the young woman who is the same age as Terri-Ann, has red hair and who also has three boys about the same ages as Colin, Caleb and Benjamin. We were supposed to dress up in 80s outfits or come dressed as a tv/movie character/singer from the 80s. I just came dressed as myself as did Dad. :-) But some people were able to come up with an outfit. Our friend, Leanne, got into her 20 year old son's old dance costume and wore one of those; Tammy came dressed as Strawberry Shortcake and her husband, Zander, came dressed at Beetlejuice. They all looked great! They had 80s music playing (did any good music come out of the 80s? :-) and they had food and goodies to eat. We mostly just sat around talking with our friends from church. After a couple of hours, I could tell that Dad was ready to go and so we said our goodbyes and came home.
Today, at church, the sacrament meeting theme was about prayer - one of my favourite subjects. :-) I really enjoyed the final speaker, Steve, who gave a great talk - he had made notes, but rarely referred to them so kept eye contact for most of his talk - I really like that as it is so much easier to keep focussed when someone does that. He talked about how important it was to say our prayers - to talk with Heavenly Father - to let Him know how grateful we are for our blessings and to ask Him for what we feel we need. He talked about prayer like it was a regular conversation between two people and I love to think of prayer like that. When I pray, I often try to think of Heavenly Father in my mind so that it feels more personal to me.
The missionaries came over for lunch today. They are feeling a bit taken aback as they had their car 'taken away' from them. There are more missionaries in this mission now and so they are sharing some of the cars around - our missionaries have had a car now for 3 months, so it's another set's turn. The mission only has so many cars right now, although now that there are more missionaires in the mission, the mission president is going to ask for more cars. We enjoyed our time with the missionaries as we always do - we had pizza for lunch and spent some time chatting with them. We spent this evening just relaxing - it was a nice way to end our weekend.
Thursday, May 12, 2010
I didn't get a call to supply teach again yesterday morning and I was very disappointed! I am beginning to get discouraged about this teaching situation. When we were looking into moving to Hervey Bay, I emailed a teacher here and she told me that there were tons of supply teaching opportunities - that was about four years ago and things sure have changed over the years. As I was saying a prayer this morning, I told Heavenly Father that I knew we were supposed to be in Hervey Bay, but that I really wanted to be teaching more and asked why this was all happening. I didn't get an answer, but I felt better just praying about it. :-) As I went through my day, I started feeling a bit more positive than I was in the morning. I had a good time being in Luise's class again today - I even got to take over for one lesson while Luise did some more reading running records - it felt good to be up in front of the class and then having the kids come to me when they were done. This is what it will be like in October - December when I take over Luise's class. She told me yesterday that she will be gone for eight weeks, so that's one more week than I was expecting, so I am very happy about that. I also handed out my card to all the grade one teachers in that block and I also went to the Prep (Kindergarten) classes and told them that I would love to supply teach for them. They were all pleased to know that and one even said that I might get more work than I wanted (I wish! :-)
Dad spent the day doing more Census work - he was able to finish up the fourth and fifth areas and now has to do a lot of inputting on the computer. It's taking up a lot of his time right now and he will be busy for at least the next two weeks between checking out the areas of his district and interviewing potential census collectors which he will start to do next week. I think he will be glad for a little bit less hectic times which will come in a bit. After the interviews, he has to do some more training on how to train the collectors and then has to do the actual training of them. Once that's done, he should have a bit of a rest until it's time to hand out the census forms.
Dad and I spent yesterday evening at the Family History Centre. Dad and another member, Alistair Gilbert, were the ones on call for Wednesday night. I worked on my Grandpa Terry's line again. I was trying to find out where my great great Grandma Evans (Mary Ann) and her two daughters, Mary Ann and Isabella (my great grandma) were living, but I couldn't find them in the 1901 census, so I don't know where they were at that time. Mary Ann (the mother) was a widow at this time, so she might have remarried, but I can't find Isabella either and she was not married as of yet. I think that I have found Isabella's birth record, but it doesn't tell me anything about her parents unless I order her birth certificate, so I think I will talk with the lady at the HB library genealogy centre about that on Saturday morning because apparently she can get these certificates for only $15. where they are usually almost twice that.
Today was an incredibly beautiful day and I was okay about not getting a call to supply teach today. I really like having Thursdays off because I like doing Meals on Wheels. However, we got a call this morning to say that we weren't needed for Meals on Wheels today - they have a couple who do it once a month and today was their day, so Avis called to say that we could have the day off, since Dad did a double run last week. It was a little bit disappointing because I really do like doing this service, but it was such a beautiful day that we didn't have trouble filling in our time. We started off our morning doing some errands - the usual running around (and I bought two more skirts that Miller's had on sale - Dad reminded me that I had said that I had enough new clothes, so I bought the skirts in one size smaller than I am at the moment - I know that I will be able to get into that size by the summer and the price was too good to pass up). :-) Then, we found a phone booth and called Nana - I haven't talked with Nana in a while and hadn't heard from her in a while, so I wanted to check in and see how she and Warren were doing. Would you believe that we talked for 1 1/2 hours (okay, you smarty pants girls - I can hear you saying that that would be NO problem for Nana and me :-) It was great to talk with Nana and get caught up on how they are doing (both doing pretty well) and to also get caught up on what Uncle Ken, Uncle Baden, Michael and Jamie are doing. Michael is now getting married in August, but it will be a small wedding with just very close family (eg: Uncle Baden, Nana and Warren and of course, Uncle Kenny, from our family).
After lunch, Dad and I went for a walk along the beach - it was one of those 'typical' Hervey Bay days - blue cloudless sky, warm temperature and nice breeze. We decided to walk along a different part of the beach (the western part) and Dad really liked it. The beach consisted of sand and rocks - we checked out the rock pools (the water was just starting to come in to high tide time), but we couldn't see any creatures which might have been left behind. After going along the beach for a while, we walked back to the car and drove down a bit to a different part of the beach. I asked Dad if we could first walk along the street to have a sticky beak in a few stores. We came across a souvenir store and I saw some t-shirts (kids, of course :-) and I saw one that was PERFECT for Benjamin so I just HAD to buy it. Of course, that also meant that I had to find one for each of the other boys. :-) I will give them to the boys for their birthdays when we get back to Canada. We had another short walk along the beach to get back to the car and then spent some time laying on our chaise loungers in the backyard when we got home from the beach. What a lovely way to spend the day!
At SES tonight, the group learned how to winch (pull) a four wheel drive out of a bog or from being stuck in the sand. They learned several different techniques and approaches which can be used to get a vehicle unstuck. After learning these techniques, the group did a hands-on exercise where they actually winched their SES jeep across the SES parking lot with the wheels of the jeep not turning. Dad thought it was a very practical exercise to do as there are lots of four wheel drive vehicles in HB and lots of places where people can get themselves stuck.
Dad spent the day doing more Census work - he was able to finish up the fourth and fifth areas and now has to do a lot of inputting on the computer. It's taking up a lot of his time right now and he will be busy for at least the next two weeks between checking out the areas of his district and interviewing potential census collectors which he will start to do next week. I think he will be glad for a little bit less hectic times which will come in a bit. After the interviews, he has to do some more training on how to train the collectors and then has to do the actual training of them. Once that's done, he should have a bit of a rest until it's time to hand out the census forms.
Dad and I spent yesterday evening at the Family History Centre. Dad and another member, Alistair Gilbert, were the ones on call for Wednesday night. I worked on my Grandpa Terry's line again. I was trying to find out where my great great Grandma Evans (Mary Ann) and her two daughters, Mary Ann and Isabella (my great grandma) were living, but I couldn't find them in the 1901 census, so I don't know where they were at that time. Mary Ann (the mother) was a widow at this time, so she might have remarried, but I can't find Isabella either and she was not married as of yet. I think that I have found Isabella's birth record, but it doesn't tell me anything about her parents unless I order her birth certificate, so I think I will talk with the lady at the HB library genealogy centre about that on Saturday morning because apparently she can get these certificates for only $15. where they are usually almost twice that.
Today was an incredibly beautiful day and I was okay about not getting a call to supply teach today. I really like having Thursdays off because I like doing Meals on Wheels. However, we got a call this morning to say that we weren't needed for Meals on Wheels today - they have a couple who do it once a month and today was their day, so Avis called to say that we could have the day off, since Dad did a double run last week. It was a little bit disappointing because I really do like doing this service, but it was such a beautiful day that we didn't have trouble filling in our time. We started off our morning doing some errands - the usual running around (and I bought two more skirts that Miller's had on sale - Dad reminded me that I had said that I had enough new clothes, so I bought the skirts in one size smaller than I am at the moment - I know that I will be able to get into that size by the summer and the price was too good to pass up). :-) Then, we found a phone booth and called Nana - I haven't talked with Nana in a while and hadn't heard from her in a while, so I wanted to check in and see how she and Warren were doing. Would you believe that we talked for 1 1/2 hours (okay, you smarty pants girls - I can hear you saying that that would be NO problem for Nana and me :-) It was great to talk with Nana and get caught up on how they are doing (both doing pretty well) and to also get caught up on what Uncle Ken, Uncle Baden, Michael and Jamie are doing. Michael is now getting married in August, but it will be a small wedding with just very close family (eg: Uncle Baden, Nana and Warren and of course, Uncle Kenny, from our family).
After lunch, Dad and I went for a walk along the beach - it was one of those 'typical' Hervey Bay days - blue cloudless sky, warm temperature and nice breeze. We decided to walk along a different part of the beach (the western part) and Dad really liked it. The beach consisted of sand and rocks - we checked out the rock pools (the water was just starting to come in to high tide time), but we couldn't see any creatures which might have been left behind. After going along the beach for a while, we walked back to the car and drove down a bit to a different part of the beach. I asked Dad if we could first walk along the street to have a sticky beak in a few stores. We came across a souvenir store and I saw some t-shirts (kids, of course :-) and I saw one that was PERFECT for Benjamin so I just HAD to buy it. Of course, that also meant that I had to find one for each of the other boys. :-) I will give them to the boys for their birthdays when we get back to Canada. We had another short walk along the beach to get back to the car and then spent some time laying on our chaise loungers in the backyard when we got home from the beach. What a lovely way to spend the day!
At SES tonight, the group learned how to winch (pull) a four wheel drive out of a bog or from being stuck in the sand. They learned several different techniques and approaches which can be used to get a vehicle unstuck. After learning these techniques, the group did a hands-on exercise where they actually winched their SES jeep across the SES parking lot with the wheels of the jeep not turning. Dad thought it was a very practical exercise to do as there are lots of four wheel drive vehicles in HB and lots of places where people can get themselves stuck.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Yesterday, I decided to take the day off school so that I could go to some other schools I have not been to as yet to inquire about supply teaching. The first school I went to was the Anglican College (private school). There, they told me that they needed a resume and a copy of my Queensland Teacher Registration Certificate. The second school I went to was a Catholic School. There they told me that I needed to apply with the catholic board and then come back with my passport (to prove that I am an Australian citizen) and a copy of my registration certificate. The third school I went to was the one I taught at last Thursday and Friday. I wanted to introduce myself to the deputy principal at Pialba so that he could put a face to the voice he spoke with on the phone when he called to ask me to supply teach. Last night, he called me to ask me if I could supply teach next Monday, so I am glad that I went in yesterday morning. I forgot to mention that on Sunday, I spoke with Leanne who is the Primary Music Leader and who also teaches at a local primary school. I asked her if she could introduce me to one of the Deputy Principals at her school (Bronwyn had suggested to do this as she had spoken to that D.P.). Leanne said that she would speak with Ann (the D.P.) this week and so hopefully next week, I will be able to go in and meet with Ann and also speak with someone at another Catholic school near Leanne’s school at the same time. Once I have done that, I will have contacted all but one primary school in Hervey Bay (the one I haven’t is not one I want to supply teach at - I have been told that there are a lot of behaviour issues at that school).
After we finished up at the schools, Dad dropped me off at the local library so that I could do some genealogy - there were a number of people at the church FHC and so I didn’t want to take up one of the computers there. When I was at the library, I was able to talk with a woman there who was able to help me find some info about my Grandpa Terry’s mom - Isabella Evans. I still have some checking to do, but I think that I have found her name, year of birth, mom and dad’s name and sister’s name. It was so exciting to find out this information - all I had before that was her name and possible year of birth and their marriage date (Isabella and my great Grandpa Richard Terry). I am looking forward to finding out some more information about Isabella on Wednesday night.
Dad spent the afternoon finishing up his work on the third area of his census district. He had to visit a couple of retirement villages to confirm the number of people living there. He also had to go to a couple of smaller businesses to make sure that nobody lived on the premises. When he got home, he spent an hour or so co-ordinating the information he had gained.
I went in to school today to volunteer (didn't get a call to supply :-( , but I did have a good day anyway. Luise told me that some of the other teachers were going to try and 'take me', but she was going to use me first. I ended up doing a lot of assessment in math this time - listening to the students tell me what the numbers and number words and ordinal numbers were which were on a sheet - I was able to listen to all the kids except one boy who is SEU (special ed) and so was out of the classroom most of the day. Luise mentioned that she was having difficulty listening to the kids read to her and answer comprehension questions because she was always so busy during the day, so I suggested she give the kids an activity to do and I could supervise while she read with a student. She said that she didn't think that was right since I wasn't being paid - I told her that I was happy to do it - she kept on resisting, but finally she asked me if I would do it after 'big lunch' to which I readily agreed. She thanked me a number of times during the day and even told me that she had to take a day off in June and two days off in August and had asked the office to get me to cover for her. I was very pleased about that.
Dad spent the day working on two more of his areas for his census district - he was able to get 95% of one area done and 75% of another area done. He has to go back tomorrow to speak to some people who weren't there today, but it was a good day since it's taken him a day to do each previous area and he was able to do so much more today. He will finish up both these routes tomorrow and then will just have two more routes to complete. He then will have to interview all those who have applied to be census collectors.
Tonight, while Dad was at his weekly PEC meeting, I went visiting teaching with Rosalea - we went to visit Sue (Terri-Ann, her last name is Coates - isn't that funny? :-) For everyone else, Sue Coates is the name of a sister in the Orangeville ward). Anyway, it was really nice to sit and chat with Sue and Rosalea - I really enjoy talking with my friends from church - we talked about so many different things that each of us has experienced - it's good when you can talk with people who believe the same as you do.
After we finished up at the schools, Dad dropped me off at the local library so that I could do some genealogy - there were a number of people at the church FHC and so I didn’t want to take up one of the computers there. When I was at the library, I was able to talk with a woman there who was able to help me find some info about my Grandpa Terry’s mom - Isabella Evans. I still have some checking to do, but I think that I have found her name, year of birth, mom and dad’s name and sister’s name. It was so exciting to find out this information - all I had before that was her name and possible year of birth and their marriage date (Isabella and my great Grandpa Richard Terry). I am looking forward to finding out some more information about Isabella on Wednesday night.
Dad spent the afternoon finishing up his work on the third area of his census district. He had to visit a couple of retirement villages to confirm the number of people living there. He also had to go to a couple of smaller businesses to make sure that nobody lived on the premises. When he got home, he spent an hour or so co-ordinating the information he had gained.
I went in to school today to volunteer (didn't get a call to supply :-( , but I did have a good day anyway. Luise told me that some of the other teachers were going to try and 'take me', but she was going to use me first. I ended up doing a lot of assessment in math this time - listening to the students tell me what the numbers and number words and ordinal numbers were which were on a sheet - I was able to listen to all the kids except one boy who is SEU (special ed) and so was out of the classroom most of the day. Luise mentioned that she was having difficulty listening to the kids read to her and answer comprehension questions because she was always so busy during the day, so I suggested she give the kids an activity to do and I could supervise while she read with a student. She said that she didn't think that was right since I wasn't being paid - I told her that I was happy to do it - she kept on resisting, but finally she asked me if I would do it after 'big lunch' to which I readily agreed. She thanked me a number of times during the day and even told me that she had to take a day off in June and two days off in August and had asked the office to get me to cover for her. I was very pleased about that.
Dad spent the day working on two more of his areas for his census district - he was able to get 95% of one area done and 75% of another area done. He has to go back tomorrow to speak to some people who weren't there today, but it was a good day since it's taken him a day to do each previous area and he was able to do so much more today. He will finish up both these routes tomorrow and then will just have two more routes to complete. He then will have to interview all those who have applied to be census collectors.
Tonight, while Dad was at his weekly PEC meeting, I went visiting teaching with Rosalea - we went to visit Sue (Terri-Ann, her last name is Coates - isn't that funny? :-) For everyone else, Sue Coates is the name of a sister in the Orangeville ward). Anyway, it was really nice to sit and chat with Sue and Rosalea - I really enjoy talking with my friends from church - we talked about so many different things that each of us has experienced - it's good when you can talk with people who believe the same as you do.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Friday was a very busy day and an exhausting one - I was wiped by the time I got home from school. I had a good time in the grade four class teaching a second day with Maree. Since Mother's Day was today, most of Friday was spent working on a Mother's Day gift. The students created a paper pillow with love hearts inside it with qualities written on the hearts which the students felt their mother had. They also made a paper scroll which had a wordsearch on it based on the answers to questions the students answered about their mothers. I also showed the kids my Canadian coins and told them about each coin - it held their attention for quite a while which was good.
Dad had a really good day at the Family History Centre Friday - he had six non-member visitors - all of them came as a result of the article that was in the newspaper - two of the six were returning patrons and four of them were new. It's really exciting that so many new people are coming in to use the FHC. Dad was flat out helping all the new people, but it's good being flat out for that reason. :-)
Robyn and Geoff picked me up after school and brought me home so that they could follow me riding the scooter around - another practice session. Dad feels comfortable enough to go for his final riding test now, so he decided not to go for a ride that day. I feel really comfortable riding on the bike, but not about going around town as I still don't know it well enough. So, Dad and I had mapped out a route for me to go. I started out and did really well getting to the first road north and then the next road east and then north again and then west, but then when it came time to go south, I missed the turn-off - I didn't know the landmarks of the cross streets. As I was going over the road, I realized that I had missed it and so turned left at the next street and stopped up a bit. Dad hopped out of the car and got me back on track and I managed to get all the way home without any more problems. I totally felt good on the scooter, but I really do need more experience driving/riding on the streets of Hervey Bay. I think that Dad is going to go for his motorcycle license in the next couple of weeks, but I'm not sure if I am ready to get mine since I don't know the area well enough. I don't know if that matters or not so I will have a chat with John when he comes to test Dad and see what he says.
Robyn and Geoff stayed for dinner. We were going to have a barbecue, but Dad and I were both full-on and we just didn't have time to get things organized for a bbq. So, we had tacos and they turned out delicious - mince (that's hamburger for you non-Aussies), kidney beans and crushed tomatoes for the base. I wish that we had our new living room furniture already - we had to sit the whole night at our dining room table - which is fine as far as comfort goes as our chair cushions are really comfortable - but, it would be nice to get up from the table and sit on a couch or chair. We had a lovely evening chatting with Robyn and Geoff - we get along with them so well - they left yesterday for six weeks to take care of their daughter who lives down south and is having an operation. We are going to miss them while they are gone. I told them after dinner that when they get back I would like to have people over from church for dinner and that I thought it would be good to have them and one other couple and they thought that was a great idea.
Saturday was an incredibly beautiful day - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the temperature was lovely and warm! I went to Homemaking in the morning and drove there all by myself! :-) The homemaking meeting was about 'living well for less' and although I didn't learn much new (it was mostly about food storage and how to make natural cleaners), it was really nice meeting with the sisters in the ward - we just don't get enough time to talk with each other on a Sunday (especially those of us in Primary) and so I love these opportunities to get together.
When I got home, Dad and I went for a lovely drive - the day was too beautiful to stay inside - or even to stay outside at home. Dad and I both thought about where we wanted to go and decided on a place called 'Rainbow Beach' which is about 1 1/2 hours south of Hervey Bay. We knew that a lot of people stopped there as it is a popular place to catch a barge to get to Fraser Island. When we got there, we found an incredibly beautiful beach with brown sand and going on for ages. We walked the beach for quite a while - it was such a lovely way to spend an afternoon walking along the water's edge. While we were walking along, we came upon a wedding on the beach, a parasailor, a dog swimming in the ocean, several four wheel drive vehicles, and some swimmers and other walkers along the beach. After our walk along the beach, we walked the main street - one side of a very short block :-) and then bought some ice-cream and sat on a bench near the beach to enjoy them. After that, Dad wanted to go up to Inskip Point to see what it was like where the barges crossed to Fraser Island. Once we parked the car, it was just a short walk along the beach until we got to the barge landing point - the barge just beaches itself in the sand while people walk on or people drive on - in four wheel drive vehicles only. By the time we were ready to leave, it was almost dark - it was a bit worrisome driving home as we drove on a road which is not well travelled, but we made it home fine and have wonderful memories of a fabulous day. Here are some pics of our day............
Dad had a really good day at the Family History Centre Friday - he had six non-member visitors - all of them came as a result of the article that was in the newspaper - two of the six were returning patrons and four of them were new. It's really exciting that so many new people are coming in to use the FHC. Dad was flat out helping all the new people, but it's good being flat out for that reason. :-)
Robyn and Geoff picked me up after school and brought me home so that they could follow me riding the scooter around - another practice session. Dad feels comfortable enough to go for his final riding test now, so he decided not to go for a ride that day. I feel really comfortable riding on the bike, but not about going around town as I still don't know it well enough. So, Dad and I had mapped out a route for me to go. I started out and did really well getting to the first road north and then the next road east and then north again and then west, but then when it came time to go south, I missed the turn-off - I didn't know the landmarks of the cross streets. As I was going over the road, I realized that I had missed it and so turned left at the next street and stopped up a bit. Dad hopped out of the car and got me back on track and I managed to get all the way home without any more problems. I totally felt good on the scooter, but I really do need more experience driving/riding on the streets of Hervey Bay. I think that Dad is going to go for his motorcycle license in the next couple of weeks, but I'm not sure if I am ready to get mine since I don't know the area well enough. I don't know if that matters or not so I will have a chat with John when he comes to test Dad and see what he says.
Robyn and Geoff stayed for dinner. We were going to have a barbecue, but Dad and I were both full-on and we just didn't have time to get things organized for a bbq. So, we had tacos and they turned out delicious - mince (that's hamburger for you non-Aussies
Saturday was an incredibly beautiful day - the sky was blue, the sun was shining and the temperature was lovely and warm! I went to Homemaking in the morning and drove there all by myself! :-) The homemaking meeting was about 'living well for less' and although I didn't learn much new (it was mostly about food storage and how to make natural cleaners), it was really nice meeting with the sisters in the ward - we just don't get enough time to talk with each other on a Sunday (especially those of us in Primary) and so I love these opportunities to get together.
When I got home, Dad and I went for a lovely drive - the day was too beautiful to stay inside - or even to stay outside at home. Dad and I both thought about where we wanted to go and decided on a place called 'Rainbow Beach' which is about 1 1/2 hours south of Hervey Bay. We knew that a lot of people stopped there as it is a popular place to catch a barge to get to Fraser Island. When we got there, we found an incredibly beautiful beach with brown sand and going on for ages. We walked the beach for quite a while - it was such a lovely way to spend an afternoon walking along the water's edge. While we were walking along, we came upon a wedding on the beach, a parasailor, a dog swimming in the ocean, several four wheel drive vehicles, and some swimmers and other walkers along the beach. After our walk along the beach, we walked the main street - one side of a very short block :-) and then bought some ice-cream and sat on a bench near the beach to enjoy them. After that, Dad wanted to go up to Inskip Point to see what it was like where the barges crossed to Fraser Island. Once we parked the car, it was just a short walk along the beach until we got to the barge landing point - the barge just beaches itself in the sand while people walk on or people drive on - in four wheel drive vehicles only. By the time we were ready to leave, it was almost dark - it was a bit worrisome driving home as we drove on a road which is not well travelled, but we made it home fine and have wonderful memories of a fabulous day. Here are some pics of our day............
Driving on the road to Rainbow Beach
Rainbow Beach
Four wheel drive vehicles on Rainbow Beach
Rainbow Beach
Parasailor on Rainbow Beach
Rainbow Beach
Sue sitting on a buoy on Rainbow Beach
Mike in the surf on Rainbow Beach
One of the barges taking a vehicle from Inskip Point to Fraser Island
Sun setting on Inskip Point
Another barge at Inskip Point
View across the water at Inskip Point
Crab balls of sand and holes - the crabs dig a hole and then push the sand out and it forms into balls on top of the sand - they were all over the beach
Sun setting at Inskip Point - a wonderful ending to a wonderful day out
We finished off this wonderful day Skyping with Terri-Ann and the boys. It was great being able to talk with the three boys - well to talk with Colin and Caleb and to hear Benjamin talk to us - he sure isn't a shy boy. :-) It's so funny when all three boys are trying to talk with us at once. It was so cute when Colin gave us hugs and kisses over the computer - I am looking forward to getting some 'real' ones when we come back in December. :-)
Today was a really nice Sabbath day - not weather-wise as it was grey and cloudy - but a nice day at church and for the rest of the day. Our speakers today were Ethan (a young man) and two women who all spoke on (what else?) mothers. Ethan spoke about how wonderful his mom is and Amanda and Trudy spoke about their mothers as well. It was a nice way to start the day. Primary went smoothly and the children seemed to enjoy making their Mother's Day Date Night Kit. I found the idea on the net and I really liked it. It meant that I didn't have much to do to prepare the kits and the kids didn't have much to do, either, as we only had 20 minutes for them to do it. I had put 12 M & Ms in a little baggie (2 of each of six colours), a popcorn bag and a piece of paper explaining the task. On the paper, the children had to write about what was so special about their mom. Then, under that was a poem which were the instructions which said that the mother was supposed to pick out an M & M and then answer a question based on the colour chosen. The child would do the same thing. Once they were done answering the question, they could pop the popcorn and play a board game together. The children liked the idea of having a one-on-one date with their mom and I hope the moms and the children have a fun time together.
The missionaries came over for lunch today as they get to call their moms on Mother's Day and they had asked us if they could use our computers to Skype with their moms. They both had a lovely time talking with their families - it was great for their families to be able to see their boys and to talk with them. I love that mothers are thought of as so important as to be able to receive a call from their boys (and sometimes girls) on the moms' special day. :-)
Thursday, May 5, 2011
What a busy day it was yesterday - we just keep going and going! :-) I spent the day at school again volunteering in Louise's class and I did assessment all day again as well and was able to finish everything she wanted me to do except for two children doing one assessment which will take me 5 minutes next time I am in. She was so appreciative again and I am starting to feel like I am being 'accepted' - she is beginning to treat me like a teacher which is great - it's not the same as it was working with Bronwyn, but it's better than it was before, so I am happy about that.
Dad spent another day driving around town to check out another one of his areas for the census. It's taking him about six hours to do this - long hours just driving around and around an area. He says that driving up a side (non-busy) street works okay as he can look at the houses on both sides of the street at the same time. But, on a busy street, he has to go up one side and down the other because there are just too many things to check and no way to stop or pull off while he does that. It's going to be a busy couple of weeks having to check out all these places. The numbers in this area at least were pretty much right on, so there's nothing to worry about there.
As soon as Dad picked me up from school, we headed over to Pialba State School to speak with the couple whose class I supply taught in today. It's a grade four class and a husband and wife team teach in the classroom which is double the regular classroom size - they have desks on either side of the classroom with a carpeted area in the middle where they can give the class instructions and do some teaching to the students. David and Maree (pronounced just like 'Marie') were great and so easy to talk with. David is attending a two days sports tournament and so I am supplying for him. Maree said they were so pleased when they heard that I was coming in to supply as they are doing a unit called "Around the World in 40 Days" and one of the countries they were going to touch on was Canada. Maree asked me if I would be willing to talk to the students about living in Canada and I said that I would be happy to do that.
We had to hurry from there to get home to make our dinner so that we could be ready to go to the Family History Centre. The High Priests are going to be in charge of being at the FHC on Wednesday nights so that any members who want to do their family history and can't come during the days, can come at night. Our friend, Geoff signed up to do it with Dad this week. Robyn came with Geoff and so while Dad showed Geoff how to use the programs available at the FHC, Robyn and I chatted a bit and then she watched me try to find my great great grandmother on my Grandpa Terry's side. I am looking for the name 'Maria Dermott' and I have been told by Uncle Rick that she was born sometime around 1861 + or -. I have found two Maria's so far who fit the bill - one born in 1856 and one born in 1860. I still have some searching to do - then I will have to do some more to find out if I can find info on my great grandparents - it's a bit of a round about way of finding them, but it's the way I seem to have to go right now. It takes ages to find someone, but when I do, I just get so excited about finding out more about my roots. :-)
Today, I went into the grade four class and it turned out to be a really good day. I'm not fussed on teaching any grade above three, but working with Maree made it go really well. We worked mostly out of books today - spelling, math, reading, and also did art and geography. I talked with the kids about Canada for an hour and they were very focussed (except for when we gave them atlases so that I could talk about the provinces and they went 'crazy' looking at the atlases - they really should have had ten minutes to just check them out before I tried to talk with them about Canada). We talked about where it was compared to Australia, how long it takes to fly there, seasons (including the leaves changing colours and falling to make us call our autumn 'fall'), the flag, maple syrup, weather, temperatures, snow, the provinces, geographical make-up, resources, language, and of course hockey (although they call it 'ice hockey' here :-) and the best hockey team in the league: the mighty Toronto Maple Leafs! :-) I couldn't believe how fast the time went - I took some coins in to show them and we will do that tomorrow. I asked Maree if the presentation was okay and she said it was great, so I was very pleased.
Robyn picked me up after school as Pialba State School is right near her house and we were going visiting teaching at 5pm. This worked really well because it meant that Dad didn't have to stop what he was doing to pick me up from school, take me home and then take me to our first visiting teaching stop. It was nice visiting with Robyn and Geoff - it really is good having times like these to get to know our friends even better. Our first visit was to our Relief Society president, Cherylyn, and then we visited with Rosalea. It was another lovely visiting time with friends. Our message this month was taken from one of the talks given at the April General Conference. It was titled "LDS Women are Incredible' and it esteemed the great worth women of the church are. It was a beautiful reminder of all the wonderful things women do and are. Both Cherylyn and Rosalea appreciated the message we gave.
Dad did Meals on Wheels today, but had to do it with a different partner since I wasn't able to go. He worked with Margie today and they had to do two routes - one driver wasn't able to come and I wasn't able to come, so that meant that one route wasn't covered, so Avis (the boss extraordinaire) had to create one route out of two routes. That meant that Dad didn't get out until 11am and didn't finish until 1pm. He spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and then began working on his next area which he will finish up tomorrow. Tonight was SES night and they spent the whole night learning how an emergency operation centre (command centre) works: who the people working in it are and what each person does. The SES members could be asked to do one of those jobs or help a person do one of those jobs during an emergency. An EOC is run like a big company - they have an incident commander at the top who oversees the whole operation and then has an operations officer, a planning officer and a logistics officer who all work under the incident commander. Dad said it was really interesting learning about this.
Dad spent another day driving around town to check out another one of his areas for the census. It's taking him about six hours to do this - long hours just driving around and around an area. He says that driving up a side (non-busy) street works okay as he can look at the houses on both sides of the street at the same time. But, on a busy street, he has to go up one side and down the other because there are just too many things to check and no way to stop or pull off while he does that. It's going to be a busy couple of weeks having to check out all these places. The numbers in this area at least were pretty much right on, so there's nothing to worry about there.
As soon as Dad picked me up from school, we headed over to Pialba State School to speak with the couple whose class I supply taught in today. It's a grade four class and a husband and wife team teach in the classroom which is double the regular classroom size - they have desks on either side of the classroom with a carpeted area in the middle where they can give the class instructions and do some teaching to the students. David and Maree (pronounced just like 'Marie') were great and so easy to talk with. David is attending a two days sports tournament and so I am supplying for him. Maree said they were so pleased when they heard that I was coming in to supply as they are doing a unit called "Around the World in 40 Days" and one of the countries they were going to touch on was Canada. Maree asked me if I would be willing to talk to the students about living in Canada and I said that I would be happy to do that.
We had to hurry from there to get home to make our dinner so that we could be ready to go to the Family History Centre. The High Priests are going to be in charge of being at the FHC on Wednesday nights so that any members who want to do their family history and can't come during the days, can come at night. Our friend, Geoff signed up to do it with Dad this week. Robyn came with Geoff and so while Dad showed Geoff how to use the programs available at the FHC, Robyn and I chatted a bit and then she watched me try to find my great great grandmother on my Grandpa Terry's side. I am looking for the name 'Maria Dermott' and I have been told by Uncle Rick that she was born sometime around 1861 + or -. I have found two Maria's so far who fit the bill - one born in 1856 and one born in 1860. I still have some searching to do - then I will have to do some more to find out if I can find info on my great grandparents - it's a bit of a round about way of finding them, but it's the way I seem to have to go right now. It takes ages to find someone, but when I do, I just get so excited about finding out more about my roots. :-)
Today, I went into the grade four class and it turned out to be a really good day. I'm not fussed on teaching any grade above three, but working with Maree made it go really well. We worked mostly out of books today - spelling, math, reading, and also did art and geography. I talked with the kids about Canada for an hour and they were very focussed (except for when we gave them atlases so that I could talk about the provinces and they went 'crazy' looking at the atlases - they really should have had ten minutes to just check them out before I tried to talk with them about Canada). We talked about where it was compared to Australia, how long it takes to fly there, seasons (including the leaves changing colours and falling to make us call our autumn 'fall'), the flag, maple syrup, weather, temperatures, snow, the provinces, geographical make-up, resources, language, and of course hockey (although they call it 'ice hockey' here :-) and the best hockey team in the league: the mighty Toronto Maple Leafs! :-) I couldn't believe how fast the time went - I took some coins in to show them and we will do that tomorrow. I asked Maree if the presentation was okay and she said it was great, so I was very pleased.
Robyn picked me up after school as Pialba State School is right near her house and we were going visiting teaching at 5pm. This worked really well because it meant that Dad didn't have to stop what he was doing to pick me up from school, take me home and then take me to our first visiting teaching stop. It was nice visiting with Robyn and Geoff - it really is good having times like these to get to know our friends even better. Our first visit was to our Relief Society president, Cherylyn, and then we visited with Rosalea. It was another lovely visiting time with friends. Our message this month was taken from one of the talks given at the April General Conference. It was titled "LDS Women are Incredible' and it esteemed the great worth women of the church are. It was a beautiful reminder of all the wonderful things women do and are. Both Cherylyn and Rosalea appreciated the message we gave.
Dad did Meals on Wheels today, but had to do it with a different partner since I wasn't able to go. He worked with Margie today and they had to do two routes - one driver wasn't able to come and I wasn't able to come, so that meant that one route wasn't covered, so Avis (the boss extraordinaire) had to create one route out of two routes. That meant that Dad didn't get out until 11am and didn't finish until 1pm. He spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and then began working on his next area which he will finish up tomorrow. Tonight was SES night and they spent the whole night learning how an emergency operation centre (command centre) works: who the people working in it are and what each person does. The SES members could be asked to do one of those jobs or help a person do one of those jobs during an emergency. An EOC is run like a big company - they have an incident commander at the top who oversees the whole operation and then has an operations officer, a planning officer and a logistics officer who all work under the incident commander. Dad said it was really interesting learning about this.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Yesterday was a very lovely day and a busy one as well. We spent the day with three church couples - at different times of the day. We started out sleeping in 'til a very respectable 'sleeping in' time - 9:30am! :-) Dad and I rarely are able to sleep in (when we have days we don't have to get up early) and that's annoying! :-) Our first visit was with Chris and Christine - Christine hurt her leg a few weeks ago at church and she is basically homebound - I have been trying to connect with her to come over and visit. On Sunday at church I asked Chris if I could just drop by and he said to just let him know when I would be coming and I said how about Monday at 11am. When we got there, Cherylyn, the Relief Society president was there mopping the kitchen floor. The four of us (Chris, Christine, Dad and I) started chatting and Cherylyn joined us when she was done mopping. It was lovely to just sit and chat with our friends - you just don't get to do that much at church.
We had to leave there at 1pm as Geoff and Robyn were meeting us at our house for 1:30pm for another scooter practice session. Geoff has been so good to us asking us if we want to go for rides and giving up his time to follow us around and giving us hints (well, giving me hints anyway :-) The day was so beautiful yesterday - beautiful blue sky with some light fluffy white clouds and really warm - a perfect day for a ride. Dad feels confident enough and didn't think he needed a practice, but I suggested he take one more ride downtown to get one more turn in heavy traffic, so he went first. I needed to practice right turns and so I rode around a VERY large block a number of times to do that. The key is to make sure I am as close to the middle line when I make the turn (last week, I turned right from the middle of the lane and Geoff said that a cop might call me up on that). We are going to go out again hopefully on Wednesday - because I haven't driven much around HB, I don't know it very well and so, rather than be nervous today about riding because I'm not sure where I'm going, Dad and I are going to map out a route for me to go and Geoff and Robyn and Dad will follow me around on Wednesday if it's a nice day and given me some practice riding in an area which is a bit busier than the streets I have been riding around so far. When we got home from riding, Geoff asked us if we were still planning on taking a walk along the beach. When we said 'yes' (there is no way we weren't going to enjoy this perfect day some more), they said that they would meet us down there and we could walk along together. We thought that was a great idea - we get along really well with Geoff and Robyn and were happy to go along and have some more time to chat while we walked along the beach on this beautiful day!
On our way home from the beach, I asked Dad to stop at the home of the Gilbert family. Their daughter, Bethany, was assigned a talk on Sunday and her mom, Haidi, was home sick and I wasn't sure if her dad, Alistair, would have seen the piece of paper with the assignment on it on Sunday. Now, to preface this, I gave each parent a three month schedule with a piece of magnet on the back to put on their fridge so they all had plenty of notice as to when their child would have an assignment for Sharing Time and what they would be asked to do. Anyway, their son, Kyle, had been assigned to give a talk a couple of weeks ago and hadn't prepared it, so I wanted to make sure that both parents knew about Bethany's assignment and knew what the talk was supposed to be about. Haidi and Alistair invited us in to visit with them and we stayed for almost an hour. They are originally from South Africa and then moved to Great Britain in 1996. They then moved to Australia about a year ago. It was really nice to sit with them and get to know them a little better. We look forward to having them over to dinner and getting to know them even more.
Today, I was back to my volunteering - Louise was very pleased when I showed up. She had a lot of assessment which needed doing and so I spent most of the day working on that with the children in her class. I also spent a bit of time in Rachel's grade one class. She is the teacher whose class I wanted to take over when she goes on long service leave later in the year, but she had someone else in mind and didn't seem too pleased that I was asking about taking the contract (before I knew she had someone else for the job), and she hasn't really been all that friendly towards me. Well, today, she was very appreciative of my help - I find the grade one teachers a little hard to read - well, some of them anyway.
Dad spent the day doing Census stuff. He has seven areas that he is in charge of and today he spent the day going around one of the areas to check that the number of dwellings he had been told were in the area, actually were - he found in this area that there were more dwellings than posted which means there are more houses for the collectors to go to. Dad also had to go into all of the businesses in the area to make sure that no-one lives on the premises.
The missionaries came over for dinner tonight - Tuesday night is our regular night to have them over. It's becoming a shorter time to eat dinner, though, as they now have a meeting with the Bishopric at 6:15pm whereas it used to be about 6:45pm, so we might have to think about a different night to have them. We made a delicious dinner of chicken fajitas and started to play a game of cribbage. Elder Richardson is playing well (he's my partner) and Elder Paki is really catching on quickly (although I had to help both of them with one of their hands as they weren't sure what to throw away). They left in time to get to their meeting and Dad left soon after that to get to his meeting which starts at 6:45pm with the Bishopric, the Ward Mission Leader (our friend, Geoff) and the Elder's Quorum President (our friend, Chris). At the meeting, they discuss the needs of the people in the ward. Generally, the meeting goes for an hour, but they are taking a little longer at the moment as they are trying to seek out those people who are on the ward list who no-one knows, so that they can find out if they are still in the area.
We had to leave there at 1pm as Geoff and Robyn were meeting us at our house for 1:30pm for another scooter practice session. Geoff has been so good to us asking us if we want to go for rides and giving up his time to follow us around and giving us hints (well, giving me hints anyway :-) The day was so beautiful yesterday - beautiful blue sky with some light fluffy white clouds and really warm - a perfect day for a ride. Dad feels confident enough and didn't think he needed a practice, but I suggested he take one more ride downtown to get one more turn in heavy traffic, so he went first. I needed to practice right turns and so I rode around a VERY large block a number of times to do that. The key is to make sure I am as close to the middle line when I make the turn (last week, I turned right from the middle of the lane and Geoff said that a cop might call me up on that). We are going to go out again hopefully on Wednesday - because I haven't driven much around HB, I don't know it very well and so, rather than be nervous today about riding because I'm not sure where I'm going, Dad and I are going to map out a route for me to go and Geoff and Robyn and Dad will follow me around on Wednesday if it's a nice day and given me some practice riding in an area which is a bit busier than the streets I have been riding around so far. When we got home from riding, Geoff asked us if we were still planning on taking a walk along the beach. When we said 'yes' (there is no way we weren't going to enjoy this perfect day some more), they said that they would meet us down there and we could walk along together. We thought that was a great idea - we get along really well with Geoff and Robyn and were happy to go along and have some more time to chat while we walked along the beach on this beautiful day!
On our way home from the beach, I asked Dad to stop at the home of the Gilbert family. Their daughter, Bethany, was assigned a talk on Sunday and her mom, Haidi, was home sick and I wasn't sure if her dad, Alistair, would have seen the piece of paper with the assignment on it on Sunday. Now, to preface this, I gave each parent a three month schedule with a piece of magnet on the back to put on their fridge so they all had plenty of notice as to when their child would have an assignment for Sharing Time and what they would be asked to do. Anyway, their son, Kyle, had been assigned to give a talk a couple of weeks ago and hadn't prepared it, so I wanted to make sure that both parents knew about Bethany's assignment and knew what the talk was supposed to be about. Haidi and Alistair invited us in to visit with them and we stayed for almost an hour. They are originally from South Africa and then moved to Great Britain in 1996. They then moved to Australia about a year ago. It was really nice to sit with them and get to know them a little better. We look forward to having them over to dinner and getting to know them even more.
Today, I was back to my volunteering - Louise was very pleased when I showed up. She had a lot of assessment which needed doing and so I spent most of the day working on that with the children in her class. I also spent a bit of time in Rachel's grade one class. She is the teacher whose class I wanted to take over when she goes on long service leave later in the year, but she had someone else in mind and didn't seem too pleased that I was asking about taking the contract (before I knew she had someone else for the job), and she hasn't really been all that friendly towards me. Well, today, she was very appreciative of my help - I find the grade one teachers a little hard to read - well, some of them anyway.
Dad spent the day doing Census stuff. He has seven areas that he is in charge of and today he spent the day going around one of the areas to check that the number of dwellings he had been told were in the area, actually were - he found in this area that there were more dwellings than posted which means there are more houses for the collectors to go to. Dad also had to go into all of the businesses in the area to make sure that no-one lives on the premises.
The missionaries came over for dinner tonight - Tuesday night is our regular night to have them over. It's becoming a shorter time to eat dinner, though, as they now have a meeting with the Bishopric at 6:15pm whereas it used to be about 6:45pm, so we might have to think about a different night to have them. We made a delicious dinner of chicken fajitas and started to play a game of cribbage. Elder Richardson is playing well (he's my partner) and Elder Paki is really catching on quickly (although I had to help both of them with one of their hands as they weren't sure what to throw away). They left in time to get to their meeting and Dad left soon after that to get to his meeting which starts at 6:45pm with the Bishopric, the Ward Mission Leader (our friend, Geoff) and the Elder's Quorum President (our friend, Chris). At the meeting, they discuss the needs of the people in the ward. Generally, the meeting goes for an hour, but they are taking a little longer at the moment as they are trying to seek out those people who are on the ward list who no-one knows, so that they can find out if they are still in the area.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Friday was a busy day for Dad at the Family History Centre. There have been a number of people come in to the FHC as a result of that article in the paper with Dad's picture. It's great that that one article has done so much good and is helping more people to search for their ancestors. I stayed home Friday to work on my Primary stuff. I am looking for activities to do with the 8 - 11 year olds - we are going to be holding activities twice a month for this group of children in Primary. Anyway, I was looking on the net for an idea which I had seen previously and I wanted to find it again. I searched for ages - somewhere along the line, I had this impression that I should look in the file I already had with info I had printed out. But, silly me, I discounted the impression and kept spending time on the net. After more time internet surfing, I decided to heed the impression and, sure enough, there was the info I needed right where I had the impression it would be. Sometimes, I wonder if Heavenly Father hits his head with his hand when it comes to me not listening. :-)
Dad spent most of Saturday at a meeting for the Census area supervisors. The meeting was held by the District Manager who is in charge of training the area supervisors. The area supervisors were given information about what they are going to be doing in the next few months. Dad now has to check out the buildings/houses in his area to make sure that the information he has been given is correct. He will also have to interview a couple of dozen people who have applied to be census collectors and choose eight of them to work in his area. He will be very busy in the next couple of weeks. I spent Saturday looking for more information to use for the Activity Days in Primary. I was able to get every meeting planned until the end of the year when school holidays start and now I just have to do the nitty gritty of the planning. It feels good to have so much planning done as I still have a month to get the specifics down. I spoke to the Bishop today about someone in the ward to lead Activity Days and he said he would speak with her this week and get back to me next week. It looks like I will also be losing my pianist in Primary. As it turns out, I have four musical people in Primary (one music leader, one pianist and two teachers) and Relief Society has none. I told the Bishop that I could ask one of my teachers to play the organ as well as teach.
Today was a lovely, but very busy day at church. It started off with our Ward Missionary Meeting, then we had a very nice Fast and Testimony meeting (as full on as always - I think that I am going to have to get up fast next month if I want to bear my testimony in this ward :-) Then, Primary went smoothly - well, for the most part - two of our children who were supposed to be part of our meeting (scripture reading and closing prayer) were not here today, but fortunately we were able to find others to do those. After church, we had Ward Council, and as Primary President, I had to attend. Dad, as High Priest group leader, also had to go. Basically, what they do there is have each leader of each auxiliary report what's happening in each auxiliary and plan activities so that no dates overlap. It took about 45 minutes, so that wasn't too bad.
Right after the meeting, Dad and I drove to the HB hospital to see our friend, Judy. We knew that the young men had gone earlier in the day to visit with her and when we got there, our Relief Society and her granddaughter were visiting with Judy. They left right away and after a few minutes visiting with Judy, we could tell that she was too tired to visit with us. We asked her if she wanted to sleep and she said 'yes', so we told her we would come back this week to see her. We spent the rest of the day resting up and tomorrow hope to spend some time walking along the beach since we haven't been there much over the holidays.
Dad spent most of Saturday at a meeting for the Census area supervisors. The meeting was held by the District Manager who is in charge of training the area supervisors. The area supervisors were given information about what they are going to be doing in the next few months. Dad now has to check out the buildings/houses in his area to make sure that the information he has been given is correct. He will also have to interview a couple of dozen people who have applied to be census collectors and choose eight of them to work in his area. He will be very busy in the next couple of weeks. I spent Saturday looking for more information to use for the Activity Days in Primary. I was able to get every meeting planned until the end of the year when school holidays start and now I just have to do the nitty gritty of the planning. It feels good to have so much planning done as I still have a month to get the specifics down. I spoke to the Bishop today about someone in the ward to lead Activity Days and he said he would speak with her this week and get back to me next week. It looks like I will also be losing my pianist in Primary. As it turns out, I have four musical people in Primary (one music leader, one pianist and two teachers) and Relief Society has none. I told the Bishop that I could ask one of my teachers to play the organ as well as teach.
Today was a lovely, but very busy day at church. It started off with our Ward Missionary Meeting, then we had a very nice Fast and Testimony meeting (as full on as always - I think that I am going to have to get up fast next month if I want to bear my testimony in this ward :-) Then, Primary went smoothly - well, for the most part - two of our children who were supposed to be part of our meeting (scripture reading and closing prayer) were not here today, but fortunately we were able to find others to do those. After church, we had Ward Council, and as Primary President, I had to attend. Dad, as High Priest group leader, also had to go. Basically, what they do there is have each leader of each auxiliary report what's happening in each auxiliary and plan activities so that no dates overlap. It took about 45 minutes, so that wasn't too bad.
Right after the meeting, Dad and I drove to the HB hospital to see our friend, Judy. We knew that the young men had gone earlier in the day to visit with her and when we got there, our Relief Society and her granddaughter were visiting with Judy. They left right away and after a few minutes visiting with Judy, we could tell that she was too tired to visit with us. We asked her if she wanted to sleep and she said 'yes', so we told her we would come back this week to see her. We spent the rest of the day resting up and tomorrow hope to spend some time walking along the beach since we haven't been there much over the holidays.
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