Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Yesterday, winter was over - today, it was back! :-)  Yesterday was the Queen's birthday and so we had the day off school.  We started our holiday off by having brunch with our friends Robyn, Geoff, Rob and Rosalea.  We were going to meet at the beach and have brunch there, but decided that since we weren't sure what the weather was going to be like, that we would meet at Robyn and Geoff's.  We all brought something 'to the party' - our brunch was so sumptuous!  We had eggs, bacon, fried mushrooms, tomatoes and onions, and pancakes with frozen berries and ice-cream and freshly squeezed orange juice - YUM, YUM!!! :-)  Most of the food was cooked on the barbecue and one of the things they make here is called 'Toad in the Hole'.  First, you use a glass to 'cut' a hole out of a slice of bread, then you put the leftover part of the slice of bread on the barbecue, then you crack the egg into the hole and put the cut off part of the bread on top.  Once the egg is cooked long enough, you flip the whole thing - they taste really good - take a look at the photo below to see what they look like on the barbecue.



We had a great time eating, talking and laughing together.  Once we were finished eating and washing up, we drove down to the beach and took a walk along it.  It was a beautiful sunny day with a clear blue sky.  The tide was really low - I don't think we've ever seen it so low.  As we walked along, we saw these star shapes in the sand.  Rosalea picked at one and it was a starfish (a small one) under the sand.  When she turned one over, the little legs started to move feverishly.  It looked so cool - we checked out a couple more as we walked along the beach.  Rosalea threw a few back in the water.  One of them that we put back down on the sand started to walk a ways and then just dug into the sand.  I was so enthralled with all of this - I have never seen anything like it.

Today was my first day in the Prep class at Torquay State School.  There are 24 children in the class, although there were about six away today.  There were a few 'challenge' children today - a couple of boys and a girl.  The rest seem fine - a little chatty, but pretty good at listening and  they love listening to me read stories which is always good since I love to read books to them.  I am trying to keep things pretty much the same for the next two weeks - time for them to get used to me and for me to work out how things have been done in the classroom.  Our TA, Sam, is awesome and she helped me to settle in a bit today and I'm suure that things will get easier as the time goes on.  I am very tired, but at least the day went okay.  I spent some time with Chantelle after school and was able to do some more planning. 

Dad had the missionaries in the car when he picked me up from school today.  We had a quick supper and then took them to the chapel, then to the grocery store to pick up stuff for our 'cooking class' tomorrow, and then back to the chapel so Dad could go to his PEC meeting.  While he did that, I went into one of the rooms there and worked on my school stuff.  Dad is back to helping me do school stuff already - stuff on the computer - luckily for me, he loves doing that - it makes such a big difference to me having Dad being so handy. :-)  Also luckily for me, Dad had time to clean the house today - I am one lucky woman. :-)