Sunday, 18 May, 2014

Dad finished up his first course yesterday and he was really pleased with how the whole course went.  All of the guys passed the exam which is always good. :-)  After each course, Dad gives out an evaluation form about the course and the instructor.  Dad received wonderful comments about his teaching - it always feels good when others appreciate your knowledge.  We had two visitors to our unit this week: Munir (a colleague of Dad's who is actually leaving the company) and Harry (Dad's boss).  Harry actually treated us to take-out last night.  After that, Dad and Harry spent the evening reloading the ipads which the students use for the course.

I have now knitted eight baby beanies and two adult beanies.  I was able to stitch up the adult beanies without assistance and they look okay.  I don't want to try and do it with the baby beanies on my own, though, as I want to make sure that they are done perfectly.  I also started on my online course 'Sharing the Gospel' this week.  After stating the objectives of the course, the main one being that 'the main purpose of missionary work is to bring people to Christ', I learned about the growth of the church in the past 150 years.  It's amazing how fast it has grown, especially since the 1960s.  There are little tests every now and then and, so far, I have passed the ones I have taken.  I had to take a pretest for one of the sections and got 6 / 12 - not too bad, eh? :-)  On Friday, I finally took advantage of the gym here in the building and did a half hour on the treadmill.  I hope to get more use of it in our final week here.

Dad had Tuesday off and so we decided to go to Rottnest Island which is 18 kms off the coast of Western Australia.  We caught a ferry from Perth and it took 1 1/2 hours to get to the island.  Once there, we took three walking tours given by volunteers on the island.  There are not very many permanent residents on the island, but there is a school and a teacher there (something like 5 - 9 kids over grades Kindergarten - 5 -- I'll put up my hand for that job :-)  The three walking tours we took were: 1) Reefs Wrecks and Daring Sailors Discovery Walk - Pilots were stationed on Rottnest Island between 1848 and 1903 to guide ships safely around the Island's dangerous reefs. This free walk from the Visitors Centre to the Bathurst Lighthouse involves enthralling tales of the exploits of the Pilots and crew on Rottnest. The tour incorporates the pilot crew accommodation, the boathouse and replica pilot boat;  2) Quokka Walk - Rottnest Island's famous marsupial, the quokka, is discovered in this informative walking tour. With an educational focus, this walk
leads participants to the quokka's natural habitats and imparts some interesting facts about this iconic animal; and 3) History of the Settlement Walk - A free guided history tour around the settlement. See where gaolers and ship pilots lived and worked. Discover why Rottnest

became an Aboriginal 'open prison' in 1839. The volunteer guides were fabulous - they have such an amazing knowledge of the island and its peoples and animals.  The weather was fabulous - we had a wonderful day out.

the red ferry in front is the one we took to Rottnest Island

a quokka

tree knocked down by strong winds which began growing upwards again

 a building built by aboriginal convicts 

our view from the seats at the back of the ferry on the way back to Perth

"Millionaire's Row" on the way back to Perth

Sunday, 11 May, 1990

Dad's course continues to go well.  Two new students joined the class for four days last week - they just needed to complete one part of the course.  One of Dad's colleagues, John, joined us in the unit on Wednesday for three days.  He was teaching a different course at the airport, but joined us for dinner each night.  We had met him once before in Melbourne, where he and his family live, but it was nice to get to know him better.

I continued on with my knitting this week and have now completed five baby beanies.  I am alternating between the three colours just to give myself some variety.  I also signed up for a free online course from BYU about preparing to serve a mission.  It's actually geared to young people getting ready to go on a mission, but I figure that it should be pretty much the same for older couples who want to go.  Since Dad and I want to serve a mission when we retire, why not start now to prepare.  I have also started reading a new series of books: Rizzoli and Isles - a detective series which has been made into a tv series - I like watching the tv show and the books have turned out to be quite good so far.

Thursday night Dad and I went to the movies.  Dad's boss had remembered that I had talked with him in Brisbane about how expensive movies were here in Australia ($19. per person here in Perth) and he sent us a movie gift card that was lying around the office and expires next month.  There wasn't much showing that we were terribly interested in, but we wanted to use the card since Chris had been kind enough to send it to us.  The best of the lot seemed to be a movie called 'Chef' - it received good  comments on rottentomatoes.com.  It was an 'okay' movie - nothing to write home about - more of a tv movie-of-the-week, I thought.  I was glad that I had not spent my own money to go and see it.  We are hoping that something better will come out in the next two weeks before I head back to Canada.

Dad finished work early yesterday and so we headed down to Kings Park - an incredibly beautiful park in Perth.  They have free guided walks given by volunteers and so we decided to go on one of those.  It was a walking tour through the Botanic Gardens.  The tour guide, Margaret, was so knowledgeable about the plants/shrubs/flowers/trees in the park and so it was interesting to be on her tour.  Dad and I want to go and take another free guided tour in Kings Park tomorrow - this one is called 'Kings Park: Past and Present'.

Saturday night, we went to a see a play with our friend, Rosalea, which was put on by an LDS theatre group in her Stake.  It was called 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.  It's a British comedy play and the actors did quite a good job.  After church today, we went to Rosalea's for dinner with her children.  As it turned out, her youngest son got the time wrong and so didn't show up until after we'd eaten and her middle daughter didn't show up as she wasn't feeling well.  Her oldest daughter came along with her husband and daughter, but wanted to wait until her brother showed up to eat and we had to go early to let another of Dad's colleagues into the unit here.  So, Dad and I ate dinner with Rosalea without any of her kids.  I felt bad for her since it was Mother's Day and it didn't turn out as she had hoped.  It was a delicious meal for us, though.

Sunday, 4 May, 2014

Dad's course is going really well although Dad found the long hours this week to be tiring.  There was a lot of information to cover this week and so they needed to work long hours each day to get through all of the material.  Dad found that he was tired by the end of each day and that during the last hour he was sometimes losing some of the guys.  He said that this coming week they will be doing shorter hours which will work way better.

For this week, while Dad has been teaching, I have been relaxing inside the apartment.  I have been doing more knitting and now have almost completed three baby beanies (white, pink and blue) and they look so adorable.  I haven't sewn up the sides of the beanies yet - I need to go onto the internet and check out more closely how to do this.

On Thursday, Dad and I got back to our healthy eating.  We feel so much better when we are eating healthy and getting out and getting some exercise and fresh air and sunshine each day.  We are keeping track of what we eat and what exercise we do each day.  Our goal is to do some kind of exercise at least four times a week.  Right now, we are walking to get our exercise in.  Whenever we get back to HB, we will also be going for bike rides.  I am also looking forward to getting back to going swimming.  The weather here in Perth has not been good for swimming outside (too cool) and I do miss swimming.  I also plan on doing pilates three times a week while in Australia - there's a pilates show on tv each morning which I can follow.

Yesterday, Dad and I decided to be tourists for the day and so went on a bus tour of the city of Perth.  It was on one of those hop-on / hop-off buses which gives commentary as you drive along.

Perth is a very nice city - lots of nice architecture and some really nice parks.

Dad and I enjoyed the two hour ride and then got off the bus at The Art Gallery of Western Australia and spent the afternoon there.  We went on a guided tour of one of the exhibits of an Australian artist and then just wandered through the gallery at our own pace.  The last exhibit we checked out was one showcasing the artwork of the graduating grade 12 students of schools in Perth.  Their artwork was AMAZING - they are so talented. My favourite was 'Creation Aspiration' by David Lane (the middle picture below) and 'Khmer Grandmother' by Jessie Lee was voted the most popular by the art gallery audiences (picture on the right below).

Here's a link to what was displayed - it doesn't do the work justice, but you can get an idea of  what was shown.

http://www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/documents/130035_Yr12_Perspectives_ONLINE.pdf

I bought a print of one of the paintings in the gallery which I loved when I saw it - very typical Aussie scene.  When I get home to HB, I will find a frame and then a place in our home to hang it.




Today, Dad and I were invited over to Rob and Rosalea's place for lunch, church and dinner.  Rob and Rosalea are good friends of ours who used to live in Hervey Bay.  It was lovely to get together with them again and to spend some time with them.