Sunday, 13 November, 2016

Dad started his course last Monday and he says it's going great - there are 14 guys on the course.  Dad says they are all sharp and all keen and he really likes teaching these kinds of students.

I have been busy during the days playing piano, studying my scriptures and knitting.  I called the library to find out when the knitting clubs meets (that I was going to last time we were in Melbourne) only to be told that there weren't enough people coming and so they had stopped holding it.  The woman told me about another knitting group which met across the road from the library.  I went there on Friday - there were about half a dozen older women in the group.  They welcomed me right in and I went away with some free wool to make something which they will give to charity.  I decided on some blue and grey wool which I am using to make a baby sweater.

Start of the baby sweater I am knitting

After Dad was finished work that day, we went to find a 'nano' geocache (which means it was really really small).  I don't like those ones as usually they are just too difficult to find and it doesn't make geocaching fun.  As usual, we weren't able to find it even though we spent a lot of time looking for it.

On Saturday, Dad had to spend a lot of time prepping for his course, but we were able to get outside in the afternoon for a bit of a walk and some more geocaching.  We had some travel bugs to put into a cache and so we wanted to get them in asap as we had been holding on to them since we had been in Ontario.  We were able to find both geocaches fairly easily - I prefer to have a bit of a challenge in finding them, but it was still nice to go looking and to get out in the sun and fresh air.

 Dad looking under boardwalk where we found the first geocache

 Views from the first geocache (the city of Melbourne is in the background in the photo above)

We found the second geocache under a slat in this planter bench

After geocaching, Dad and I spent a little more time outside doing some front yard work.  Most of the front yard is covered with gravel so there is no lawn mowing to do - however, there is a strip of grass in front of the house which has to be taken care of.  Dad asked his boss if the company would pay for a whipper snipper so that he could take care of that strip of grass.  I used shears which we had bought last time we were in Melbourne to trim the bushes on the side of the yard while Dad was doing the whipper snipper.  It looks so much better now - Dad and I will need to do some more work on it next weekend, including some weeding (which I hate doing), but it will make the front look so much better.

 The bushes after I had finished trimming them

 The front strip of lawn half way through Dad's whipper snippering

Dad finishing up the front strip of lawn

Sunday, 6 November, 2016

Another busy week at home - always tons to get done in between Dad's work assignments.  This week (for me), it was a massage, a chiro appointment, and a facial.  Also, I met up with my friend, Bronwyn, for morning tea, my friends, Robyn, Jan and Daphnie for lunch and my friend, Maureen for afternoon tea and a movie (we saw 'The Girl on the Train' - I would give it a 5.5/10).  Dad's week was filled with tax stuff, a haircut, and chiro and dental appointments - I think that my week was more fun than Dad's. :-)  We also had Robyn and the missionaries for dinner which was really nice - we always love having them over and it's been ages since we have been able to do that.

We picked up our new car on Thursday - Dad was so excited that he could hardly sleep the night before and he could hardly eat anything for breakfast that morning - it was so cute! :-)  It took us ages to do all the paperwork, but after about an hour or so, Dad and I were able to drive out of the Toyota dealership with it.  We drove over to Robyn's so we could show it off to her - Dad loves the way the car drives!  Now, it will stay in the garage at home for the next seven weeks.

Dad in our new car at the Toyota dealership talking with David, the salesman who sold us the car (David took a photo of Dad and me in front of our car to be put on the Toyota Facebook page, but we haven't seen it up there yet)

Dad beaming from ear to ear in our new car

On Friday, we flew to Melbourne via Brisbane - typical flight, no dramas.  Yesterday, we drove to the Jayco caravan/camper trailer dealer (about an hour's drive away from the unit) to talk with a salesperson about the cost of accessories we might like to add to the camping trailer when we buy one.  There is a camping trailer for sale which I found online - it's only a year old and it has some great extras on it - unfortunately, it is all the way in South Australia which would take us 23 hours to drive to from HB.  Too bad, because it sounds amazing and is such a good price.  However, there is a Jayco dealer in Bundaberg which is only 90 minutes from HB, so we night just end up buying a new camping trailer.  We both love camping so much, so we are looking forward to lots of side trips when Dad is not working.

We went to church today and everyone was so welcoming - since Dad has worked a few times in Melbourne for weeks at a time, many of the members in the ward know us and are always happy to have us return.  I love how we can go anywhere in the world and feel welcome when we walk into a chapel. :-)

small white frog which we found attached to the front of our house

Sunday, 30 October, 2016

We didn't do much in our last week in Perth - the weather was so windy and wet and cold, so most of our time was spent inside.  Dad's last week of training went really well and the guys were quite happy with the instructing Dad gave.  One of the guys even gave Dad and Siri a thank you card along with a $40. gift card to a local restaurant in Perth.  Siri wasn't interested in going to the restaurant and so told Dad to just go ahead and use it.  We decided to go that day for lunch since we were leaving on Saturday and already had plans for the Friday.  It turned out that the restaurant was situated in a strip mall where you had to pay to park - we had to pay $7. for two hours - which we couldn't believe people were actually willing to do.  There weren't any other parking places even close to the restaurant, so we ended up just paying it.  We chose a steak sandwich and wagyu beef burger and had a mud cake for dessert.  The prices were too high for the food we had (although it tasted good), so we were glad that we had the $40 gift card (which we had to add onto to pay for the bill).

 Gift card from one of the guys on Dad's course

 The steak sandwich at the 'Squires Loft' restaurant

Dessert (mudcake) at the 'Squires Loft' restaurant

On Friday, we got together with Rob and Rosalea again - this time, we went out for lunch with them to a Chinese restaurant.  It was so nice to get together with them again and the food was really delicious there - that restaurant is definitely on our 'to visit again' list.  We flew to Brisbane on the Saturday and stayed overnight in a hotel - then, we flew back to Hervey Bay last Sunday night.  It was nice to be home! :-)

A kookaburra Dad saw on our back fence when we got home from Perth

This week has been busy, busy, busy - this always happens when we get back home and aren't going to be back for long (the break this time is twelve days).  The first part of the week was filled with a facial appointment, a tax appointment and a chiropractor's appointment.  On Wednesday, we drove to Brisbane.  Our first stop was to Dad's work so he could drop off the Perth keys and catch up with everyone down there.  Next stop, was to drop our stuff at a hotel before we headed off to the Temple.  We love going to the Temple - it is so peaceful inside.  I wish that we could go more often.

The Brisbane Temple

On Thursday, we went to the Caravan and Camping Show in Brisbane.  Dad is chomping at the bit to buy the camper trailer and so we wanted to look again into buying one.  Jayco had all of their camping trailers on display and so we checked out the 'Swan' again - it's such a great trailer and has almost everything we want in it.  One of its best features is that is has a full couch in it which will be great when we are camping on long trips.

The 'Jayco Swan' camping trailer we were hoping to buy at the Caravan and Camping Show

We began talking with one of their salespeople and told her that we weren't sure if our Toyota Corolla would be strong enough to pull the Swan - one salesperson we had spoken to previously had said it would be okay and another had said it would be too heavy.  When the salesperson asked her boss about it, she came back and told us that they wouldn't sell it to us because it would be just over the limit if it was fully-loaded.  Dad was so disappointed.  We considered buying a lighter trailer which our Toyota Corolla could pull, but after checking out all the options, decided that we really wanted the 'Swan'.  I told Dad that we would just have to go and buy a new car first so that we could pull the trailer without any issues.

When we got home that night, Dad reviewed the specs for the Toyota Aurion which he had determined would be the best car to tow the trailer.  I checked out redbook.com.au which is a website which lists a price range of what a car should be worth and I checked out some private sales to see what we could get if we tried to sell the car privately.  I also checked out the price of what a new one would cost.  So, we had a really good idea of the price we would feel comfortable in paying for a new car.  We also said a prayer that night that if we were meant to buy a new car that we would get a good deal on the trade-in.

So, on Friday, we went down to the Toyota dealer in town to talk with someone about a new car.  We asked for the salesman who had sold us the Corolla, but he had moved on, so we ended up with another sales guy who turned out to be really good.  Dad told him which vehicle we wanted to buy and they 'just happened' to have one as a demo model on the lot which 'just happened' to be the colour Dad wanted.  We had a good look at the car and then talked with our salesman, David, about the features of this particular car.  We then went and spoke with the sales manager about purchasing the car.  He asked a number of questions about price to which I could speak really well to - I think he might have been a bit surprised that a woman knew so much about what the car was worth and the worth of the trade-in we would be making. :-)  The manager asked us what we were willing to pay for it and I laughed at him thinking he was kidding (he wasn't), so I said about $2,500 less than what Dad and I had thought we would be happy in paying.  He thought for a second, but then said that he thought he wouldn't be able to do it, but that he might be able to do $1,500 more IF the used car salesperson agreed at how much our Corolla was worth (based on what I told him we thought it was worth).  He asked us if he could sell it for the price he quoted, would we commit to buying it.  I told him that Dad and I always took overnight to think before we made any big purchases, but we would go outside and talk about it.

Outside we talked about how the reason we took overnight to talk about big purchases was because we wanted to pray about it and also to research about it before we bought.  We had already done this and knew we were getting a good deal on the exact car we wanted, so we agreed that we would commit to buying it that day.  When we went back to tell the manager that we were ready to buy the car, he said he had to go and speak to the used car guy (who had inspected our Corolla in the meantime) to see what he thought they should offer as a trade-in price.  When he came back, he said that he couldn't sell the car to us for the price he quoted, but could for $400. more.  I said that Dad and I would go outside again and talk about the new price.  We decided that the price was still way less than what we had come prepared to pay and the price we got for the trade-in was $600. above what we thought we would get for it, so we decided to go for it.  We went for a test drive while the paperwork was drawn up.  Dad loved driving the car - when we finished the test drive and David asked Dad how he liked driving it, Dad's grin was like that of the Cheshire cat. :-)  He loved it! :-)  We were both so happy and felt so blessed at how wonderful everything turned out.  The next step is to buy a new trailer - we are going to look at the Jayco dealer when we are down in Melbourne (which we fly to on Friday).

Our beautiful new 2016 charcoal coloured Toyota Aurion

Sunday, 16 October, 2016

When we got back from our trip to Canada, we had three whole days at home before flying out here to Perth.  The company has rented another two bedroom unit here which is close to the previous one.  We are here with another instructor, Siri (short for his last name which is Sirianni) and his wife, Joyce.  Siri is actually a student on this course so that he can teach the electronic part of it in the future so that Dad's boss, Harry, no longer has to teach it.

Dad's course has been going really well.  He finished the theory part of the course the week before last on which he had 15 students.  This past week and this coming week is the hands-on part of the course which Dad prefers to the theory.  They have been very fortunate here as they have had easy access to an airplane almost every day.

Our first Sunday here, we met up with our friends, Rosalea and Rob, who used to live in Hervey Bay and moved back to Perth a few years ago.  They invited us for dinner along with another couple from the ward.  The church sure is a small place - turns out that the husband of the couple grew up with a friend of ours from England who spent a few years in Canada back when we were living in Springdale.  We had a lovely dinner and good conversation with everyone.

Amazing trifle Rosalea made for our dinner with them

The following Friday was Dad's birthday.  We celebrated that day with a sushi lunch (for Dad) and a burrito (for me).  After that, we went geocaching near where we are staying.  We looked for two of them, but could only find one.  The first one was supposedly under a gazebo at the water's edge, but as hard as we looked, we could not locate it.  The second one was easy to find - after doing it (geocaching) so much, we are getting quite good at figuring out where things might be hidden (most of the time :-)  We were using our new gps which Dad ordered over the net while we were in Canada.  Dad was having so much trouble loading geocache locations onto our old gps and so he decided that we needed to get a new one.  He really likes this new one - he is still learning all the bells and whistles it has, but it is really easy to download geocaches onto and he is really happy about that.  We bought two slices of cheesecake for dessert after dinner to top off Dad's birthday day.

 Dad eating his sushi

Burrito for my lunch

 Swans we saw on our geocache walk

 Pelican and other birds we saw on our geocache walk

 Where we found our second geocache

 Dad with his birthday dessert cheesecake

On the Saturday, we went out to Hogsbreath (mid-range steak house chain restaurant) with Siri and Joyce.  Dad had a coupon for a free meal there for his birthday.  It's expensive for what you get, but since Dad had the free meal we figured it was a good place to go and celebrate his birthday again. :-)  Dad had prime rib and shrimp and I had prime rib and ribs (I shared my ribs with Dad) and then we shared a yummy chocolate mud cake for dessert.

Dad's second birthday dessert mudcake

The next day, Sunday, Rosalea and Rob picked me up and we went to Rottnest Island which is about a 45 minute boat ride from Perth.  Rob has an underwater metal detector and he wanted to go to Rottnest Island to do some detecting - it's a treasure trove for money and rings (lost by tourists who come to visit).  Rob spends most of the days doing that so Rosalea wanted me to come along for company for her  They rented an old furnished cabin for five nights and brought all the food we would need for the week.  We each brought a bike to get around the island, as well.

Most of the days, while Rob was doing his thing, Rosalea and I sat on the beach or hung out at the cabin.  They had brought a tv and dvd player and dvds from home, so we also watched a couple of movies during the day -'The Book Thief' which I have wanted to see for a while - I would rate it an 8.5) and 'We Bought A Zoo' (a 7 rating from me).  At night, we watched sessions from General Conference which they had downloaded from the net onto a USB stick and also more movies.  It was a very relaxing week for Rosalea and me.

 The ferry to Rottnest Island

 Me and Rosalea on the ferry to Rottnest Island with a pic of a quokka in the background

 Pics of beaches on Rottnest Island

 View from the tent we sat in on the beach

 Quokka outside our cabin - they are about the size of a domestic cat, are herbiverous and mainly nocturnal (so says the description on Wikipedia - but they came out before lunch and stayed out all day on Rottnest) - they are found on some smaller islands off the coast of Western Australia, in particular on Rottnest Island and Bald Island

 The quokkas are quite friendly

 The cabin we stayed in on Rottnest Island (and the bikes we rode to get around the island)

 Seagull

 Peacock

 Quokka eating a banana which Rob gave to it

 Lizard eating a banana piece

My iced chocolate which I bought after getting back to the mainland

Sunday, 3 July, 2016

This week was a busy week for us before we headed off to Brisbane today.

Monday was a lovely relaxing and spoiling day for me.  After tai chi, Dad and I went for lunch at 'Open House' - our new 'go-to' cafe in HB.  I had the nachos and Dad had the lasagna and salad - and, as has been the case each time I have been before, the food was yummy!  Dad agreed with me that this is the best food we have tasted in the Bay and we will definitely return.

 Dad and his chocolate malt from 'Open House'

 Me and 'what else?' - an iced chocolate from 'Open House'

Dad with his lunch - lasagne and salad - at 'Open House'

Me with my lunch - loaded nachos - at 'Open House'

After that, I went for an hour long hot stone massage with aromatherapy with Helen.  It was so delightful and relaxing.  I told my friends, Diana and Robyn about her and both of them went this week for the same - and both of them loved it.  I also had my usual 'standing' facial on Tuesday - again, it was heavenly.  I am going to miss having these for the next while.

On Wednesday, I had morning tea with a couple of teacher friends, Luise and Hazel.  It was nice as always to get together with them and it was nice to have a small group for a change - it is easier to get to know people better that way.  After that, it was off to get my hair cut.  Christa is great at cutting my hair, but likes to put 'gunk' in it before she blow dries it.  I let her cuz I don't want to hurt her feelings - she seems to like using it and it really doesn't make any difference to me.  I always brush it out when I get home. :-)

Dad and I had lunch with Robyn on Friday - we knew it would be ages before we saw each other again, so we thought it would be nice to have a lunch out at 'Open House'.  Dad had the nachos this time and I had the chicken wrap.  Yummy again!  Dad and I also shared an iced chocolate - I am going to miss those while I am in Canada. :-)

Robyn, me and Dad at 'Open House' for lunch

On Friday night, we had our friends, Bill and Faye, over for dinner.  They had just arrived back from Brisbane (Bill was teaching there) and I knew we wouldn't be seeing them for quite a while, so this day was the best time for all of us to get together.  It was nice catching up with them since last we saw them.  We are off to Canada and then Perth and Melbourne and they will be coming back to Brisbane and then heading off to Hawaii.  The next time we will meet up with them will be in December.

Yesterday, Dad and I had an opportunity to vote in our federal election.  This was Dad's second time voting, but the first time he has voted in person - last time, he did a postal vote when he was teaching in Canada.  The government here is pretty much the same as it is in Canada - it's hard to know who to vote for.  And we have had six leaders in the last ten years (one of them got in twice) and three times there has been an overthrow of  the Prime Minister.  It's been quite frustrating for the people of Australia - and it's even more frustrating now as there are so many races which have been too close to call - they are saying right now that it could be up to two weeks before we know who the Prime Minister is.

Today we drove to Brisbane and are now settled into our serviced apartment at the Quest.  The Quest is across the road from the Chermside Mall which is huge.  The one bedroom unit we are staying in is very nice and the bed is super comfortable.  The local swimming pool is a five minute walk from the Quest and I can take aquafit classes there three times a week which I am looking forward to.