Adventures in Hervey Bay: Sunday, 15 December, 2013

Life is good in Hervey Bay! :-) The sun is shining, the temperature is warm and there is a gentle breeze blowing - can life get any better than this? :-)

Our plane trip back went well - being able to get up front and sleep during the sector from Vancouver to Sydney is so nice - it's hard to get our internal clocks back to HB time when we first get here, but it sure helps when we can get some sleep along the way. We tried to stay awake as long as we could Thursday night when we got home, but we only made it until 8pm. Of course, that meant that we were awake at 4am Friday morning. We did fall back to sleep at 6:30am and got a few more hours of sleep before getting moving.

Qantas replica of a B-737 over the moving sidewalk in Sydney's airport

We didn't have a lot of energy that first day, but we did need to do some grocery shopping and we also stopped at the library to pick up a couple of books. I am going to try and read 'Cutting for Stone' which is the book Terri-Ann's book club is reading this month - I'm not sure if I will be able to get through it, though - it's definitely a 'Terri-Ann' book - it's over 500 pages long. But, I'll give it a go.

Dad dropped me off at Kawungan School on his way home - it was the last day of the school year and I wanted to go in and see the teachers before they headed off for their summer vacation. I talked with the grade one teachers and asked them how they had managed for this term - they told me they still had 1 hour and 10 minutes to go - you can see how much stress those kids put the teachers through this year. One of the teachers made a cake which said 'we survived grade one 2013' - I thought that was very appropriate. Another teacher wanted to get a t-shirt made with that slogan on it, but one of the other teachers didn't think it would be a good idea to do that. :-)

I went and saw the grade two teachers after that. On the way to their port-a-pac, a bunch of grade two kids who I had taught at the beginning of the year, ran up to me and hugged me - they told me that they had missed me - I was so surprised since I had not taught them for eight months. They continued to hug me as I walked into their classroom to say 'hi' to their teacher and a couple of other grade two teachers. One of the students gave me a balloon and a cupcake. It felt so good to be missed by the kids - they were really a nice bunch of students - I wish that all classes would have students that were that easy to teach. I am going to get together with some of the teachers over the holidays so we can catch up.

Saturday morning, I was awake at 4:30am, but Dad was able to sleep in until 7am. Again, we didn't do a lot - I mowed the back lawn and Dad did the whipper snipper. That evening, Dad and I went to 'Carols by Candlelight' down at the Seafront Oval (a large open-grass field) - it was a fabulous evening. We started off by buying some food to eat - a bunch of different organizations were fundraising and we wanted to support them. They didn't have any healthy food, so it was sausages, steak sandwiches, and french fries for dinner. They had a variety of choirs singing Christmas songs while we were eating. Then, afterwards, they put up the lyrics of different Christmas songs on two big screens and everyone sang along - there were hundreds of people there and a lot of them had battery-run candles which they waved in the air as they sang. After the sing-a-long, there was fireworks - there was a little girl sitting behind us and it was so cute as she said 'ooh' and 'aah' as they went off. :-) I've put some pics below as well as the lyrics to 'Jingle Bells' Aussie style.

It was nice to be back in our ward today - the Bishop even welcomed us back from the pulpit. In Relief Society, the President asked me how long I was back for this time. When I showed her six fingers, she said "six days". When I said "six months", I think everybody just about fell off their chairs. They haven't seen us much in the past 6 months! :-) It was really nice to be welcomed back and it will be nice to be around for a little bit.

Australian Jingle Bells

Dashing through the bush,

in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust,
esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Engine's getting hot;
we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie climbs aboard,
he is welcome too.
All the family's there,
sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way,
by the barbecue.

Come the afternoon,
Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce,
are swimming in their clothes.
The time comes 'round to go,
we take the family snap,
Pack the car and all shoot through,
before the washing up.