Sunday, 23 November, 2014

Dad's course has gone really well this week.  He started off the week with two days at the airport with the five guys in the class.  They did practical training on the aircraft - for instance, locating certain items on the plane so that they know where they are and also how to service them, which they will have to do on a regular basis in their jobs as mechanics.  This was followed by three days in the classroom where they learned about the manuals they will use in servicing and repairing the aircraft.  Dad gave them real-life scenarios of faults which occur on this aircraft and they had to use the manuals to determine what they would do to troubleshoot and repair these faults.  Dad prefers to do the aircraft visits after the classroom sessions, but, in this case, the aircraft was only available on Monday and Tuesday.

I spent most of this week exercising in the gym (loving the bike - did 4km, 4km, 5km and 6km this week), reading (finished one book called 'Saving Grace' - I rated it 2.5 out of 5 - and started another one called 'The Fault in our Stars'), watching tv, knitting (working on learning out to knit a child's pair of mittens) and scripture study.  I am working on the Seminary Book of Mormon program and I am really enjoying it so far.  I have only done the first four days, but I feel really good when I am studying.  I especially like how I was asked to liken the scriptures to my own self this week - it really makes it more personal!

On Friday, I took the train to meet my friend, Rosalea - she used to live in HB - and we spent the day together.  She is going through a really tough time in her life right now (issues with her grown-up children and personal physical issues) and she told me that she needed a dose of Sue.  She told me that when she is around me, she finds herself laughing and that she needed some of that in her life right now.  I felt good that I could help her out and I also enjoy being with her.  After she picked me up from the train station, we went to her local pool.  She has to swim lengths and then do exercises in the water (to help heel or knee which had been operated on) and so I went and did my forty lengths at the same time.  I then walked back and forth with her in the pool while she did some of her exercises.  Normally doing these exercises is boring for Rosalea, but since I was with her and we yakked the whole time, the time went so fast. After a shower at home, we went to a local chinese restaurant for lunch where I was able to enjoy a very yummy chicken curry.  We spent ages there just talking some more before heading home to her house where Dad picked me up.

We had decided earlier in the week that we would like to do something on Saturday since Dad had very little planning to do for  this coming week.  When I mentioned this to Rosalea, she said she would love to join us, and so she picked us up yesterday and we drove to Fremantle (known locally as 'Freo').  It's a lovely city with many old architectural style buildings still standing (and you know how much I love those! :-)  We drove around the town a little before parking and going to the first of two markets.  I love stickybeaking in markets, although I rarely buy anything.  In this first market, the only thing I bought was a choo-choo bar (a chewy licorice flavoured confectionery bar) for 80 cents.  I used to buy them every week with my allowance when I was around ten years old - at that time, they cost 3 cents.  Yum! :-)

After lunch at Western Australia's number one fish and chips place (or so the sign says), we went to a second market which was much better than the first.  There were a few things which I would have loved to buy, but I am limited in how much I can bring back home from Perth.  I did add to my giraffe collection, though.  I was checking out a stall of really cute emu paintings and prints, when I noticed a small giraffe made out of metal.  I was telling the lady at the stall how much I love giraffes and she asked me if I had seen the large one, which I hadn't.  When I saw it, I just HAD to have it! :-)  I will have to wait until next week to show you a photo of it as the lady wrapped it in bubble wrap and secured it with packing tape.  I saw two other giraffes there which I would love to add to my collection - maybe next time we are in Perth, we will visit those markets again. :-)  Since I rarely spend money (except on travelling), Dad never complains when I want to spend money on giraffes. :-)

 view from the 'North Mole' (a breakwater wall)

 lighthouse on the North Mole

 fishing in the water at the North Mole

 two boats (one, a ferry) sailing out of the harbour

 lighthouse on the South Mole

 a transformer (Bumblebee) made out of metal in one of the shops in the first market we went to

 an even larger Bumblebee transformer at the  same shop

 where we had lunch (Dad had fish and chips and I had a chiko roll and chips)

 fish tank in the fish and chips restaurant

 sea anemone in the fish tank

 restaurant beside the one we ate at (thought it was interesting that the one we ate at was the number 1 fish and chips place and that this one was the best fish and chips place :-)

 view from our table at the fish and chips restaurant

 Me and Rosalea at lunch (see the chiko roll and bottle of passiona pop I'm holding :-)

 Fremantle Markets building

 this and the following pics are some of the amazing architecture in Fremantle

Today we went back to the same ward as last week and were fortunate enough to listen to another Primary Sacrament Meeting Presentation.  Again, as with the presentation in Brisbane, there were about 30 children and they did a lovely job of speaking and singing.  It's such a treat to be at such a presentation by the children.

During the Relief Society lesson, the teacher happened to mention that she had found out about the church through the Osmonds, as had the Relief Society President.  After  the lesson, they were talking together and I went up to them and told them about finding out about the church through the Osmonds as well.  We then had a lovely long conversation reminiscing about our Osmond teenage years and meeting Donny and the R.S. president actually going to to Las Vegas and seeing Donny and Marie's show there.  We even talked about going to the concerts in our 40s and 50s and feeling like we were back in our teenage years.  It brought smiles to all of our faces.  I also happened to mention how cool it was that the three of us in different countries (one in Australia, one in New Zealand, one in Canada) learned about the church from the same source (The Osmonds) - they really were terrific missionaries!

Sunday, 16 November, 2014

Dad finished up his course on Tuesday and all four guys passed the final test with flying colours.  It was really nice for Dad to have such a small class for a change.  We headed back to HB on Wednesday morning and it was so good to get home.

I had three medical tests and two doctor's visits to get in in three days.  On Wednesday, I had a pelvic ultrasound, a breast ultrasound and a mammogram (the joys of being a female :-)  On Thursday, I had a pap smear and on Friday, I had a breast exam.  Fortunately, I only have to do all these once a year.  My doctor was able to give me the results of the ultrasounds and the mammogram on Friday and everything is A-OK.

On Thursday night, we had Robyn and Geoff over for dinner.  We ended up buying a roast chicken and roasting veggies along with it - such an easy meal.  It was so good to see our friends again and to catch up with them after being away.  They are such good friends and we always enjoy their company.  That night, they invited us over for dinner on Friday night - they made us chicken kebabs with rice - yum.  We are not going to see them for quite a while now since we will arrive back in HB after they have left to go down to Brisbane for Geoff's operation.

We flew out to Perth yesterday - the flight was a little turbulent from Brisbane to Perth - so much so that the flight attendants had to stop the meal service a few times.  Once we got to the condo and dropped off our suitcases, we did some grocery shopping and picked up some take-away for dinner (chiko roll for me - yummy - and fish and chips for Dad).

It was nice flying in on Saturday so that we could have a rest day today before Dad has to start teaching tomorrow.  We went to church today - the closest ward is about ten minutes from the condo.  We've been to this ward a few times - it's so nice that we can go anywhere in the world and it's the same wherever we go. :-)  It was so nice being able to stay for all three meetings, too - last time we were here, Harry was here also, and we only stayed for Sacrament meeting as we didn't think that we should monopolize the car for that long on a weekend.

The Sunday School teacher is a student teacher (high school art) and she gave a great lesson using different strategies to get the members involved in the lesson.  At the beginning of the lesson, she used a 'think/pair/share' strategy (she gave us a question to think about, then asked us to talk about it with another person and then asked us to share our thoughts with the class) - I turned to Dad and said 'you can tell she's a teacher, she's using 'think/pair/share'.  After the class, while we were waiting for Relief Society to start, she was sitting beside me and I mentioned to her about the 'think/pair/share' comment I made to Dad and she laughed and said that she had even written the words 'think/pair/share' in her lesson notes. :-)  We were still talking when one of the sisters came up to find out my name and asked us if we knew each other.  I love that it's so easy to strike up a conversation with any member of the church no matter where we go. :-)

Sunday, 9 November, 2014

A short entry this week as not much has happened.

We are in Brisbane and Dad is teaching a course to four guys.  He's enjoying teaching such a small group.  He has two more days of teaching to do and then an exam to administer on Wednesday.

I have been going for walks and swimming lengths at the local pool.  On  Wednesday, I wasn't motivated to walk to the pool to go swimming, but I made myself go.  Once I got in the water and started to swim, I felt wonderful.  I just love swimming - I feel so at home in the water.  I swam 44 lengths which is 1 kilometre.

On Friday, I met up with my friend, Denise, at the Brisbane Temple.  It was such a beautiful day there - so peaceful in there.  After spending time in the temple, Denise and I went to a local mall and found a cute cafe to have lunch at.  We then went to a material store so that Denise could pick up some material for a quilt she is making.  Denise is such a talented craftsperson - I saw a quilt she made for her granddaughter and it was beautiful.

Today, we went to church and were very happy to be able to stay for all three meetings.  We haven't been able to do that for a while since we have been flying so much on Sundays.  It was the Primary Sacrament Meeting Presentation at this ward and they did a really nice job.  There were about 30 children in the ward and about half of them were older children, so the singing was loud and clear and they knew all the words.

Sunday, 2 November, 2014

Dad finished his second practical training course on Thursday.  Hamood, another instructor, came to Newcastle to do the oral exam for the four guys who Dad had been teaching this week.  All went well - they all passed - and Dad was happy to have a couple of days off before we drove down to Brisbane today.

On Monday, I was able to go out for lunch again with the ladies from the aquafit class.  There were six of us at the sports club, enjoying some more eating and chatting.  One of the ladies, Cheryl, and I stayed on longer than the others and were able to have a nice private chat, getting to know each other better.  I will look forward to coming here again so I can meet up with the gals again.  On Wednesday, a woman in the class asked me  if she was hearing an American accent when I talked.  I told her 'no' and then she said it must be Canadian then.  When I said 'yes', she told me that she should have known that since she has been married to a Canadian for 52 years.  She then said that she was going to have to tell her husband that she had committed the cardinal sin (by asking me if I was American).  We had a bit of a laugh about that. :-)

Since Dad worked evenings this week to do the practical training, we were able to go out in the afternoons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  On Tuesday, we went for a short drive to the Hunter Wetlands National Park.  I had seen online a couple of walks that I thought would be enjoyable to do.  Alas, we couldn't seem to find exactly where this Riverside Park was that was talked about on the Park website.  We drove around for ages trying to find it.  Finally, we stopped at one place and checked out their map and were able to find out exactly where it started.  It was basically a walk along the river, which we took.  Here are` some of the photos of our walk...............

Wednesday afternoon, we went to the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens.  We love walking out in nature and I thought that it would be a lovely place to walk in.  Well.........it was a lovely place to walk in being a very natural place full of lovely plants, trees and flowers.  However...........it was FULL of mosquitoes and they really like our blood, it seems, especially Dad's. :-)  So, although we really enjoyed walking around the gardens, we had to walk fast and consistently swat at the mosquitoes.  We heard rustling in the woods a few times, but never saw what were making these sounds.  We saw a few birds and butterflies and dragonflies.  Here are some photos of what we saw along the way - some of the photos had to be taken really quickly as once we stopped even for a second, a bunch of mosquitoes would land on us.  

A kookaburra in a tree

On Thursday, we went for a walk along 'Bathers Way' which is a path which goes along the edge of the ocean.  We love being outside and walking, and being beside the ocean is an added bonus - water is so relaxing and the waves were amazing that day.  Here are some photos of that day......

We saw all these gulls standing on one leg and couldn't believe that there were so many one-legged seagulls - it turns out that they were just standing that way for some reason - as soon as I started walking towards them, they put their other leg down and walked away

I have no idea what kind of bird this is, but I thought it was an interesting look :-)

 This is the Newcastle Ocean Baths - it it one of Newcastle's outstanding  historic landmarks - construction of the saltwater bathing complex commenced in 1911.  For some reason, the day we were there, there wasn't much water in it at all.  It's often used by those wishing to walk and exercise in the water in a picturesque beach environment, close to the city.  There is a separate area available for lap swimmers.

 Canoe Pool - beside the Newcastle Ocean Baths - a small beach area and very shallow water (from the ocean) where children can paddle safely.

A big coal cargo ship which entered the harbour while we were on our walk

We headed home to Hervey Bay early Friday morning and were very happy to be back home (if only for a day and a half).  Last night, we went over to Robyn and Geoff's for dinner.  Robyn made us a delicious roast lamb dinner (can never get too much lamb :-)  It was great to catch up with our friends - Geoff said that we are away so much we are soon going to need formal introductions to them. :-)

We drove to Brisbane this morning and are staying at The Hub which is where we have stayed twice before.  Even though it's a two bedroom unit, it's quite small overall.  But, there is a nice couch set, a desk for Dad to work at and a nice dining room table to eat at.  I really like the location of The Hub as it's only a fifteen minute walk to the local pool and a ten minute walk to the river and downtown.  Dad is teaching at a nearby hotel which is only about a ten minute drive from here.