Well, after a good night's sleep, I think that my heart has finally stopped beating so fast! Last night, I was putting things away in the kitchen just before heading off to bed, when I saw something out of my peripheral vision. Usually, that means a spider, but as I looked in the direction of the movement, I saw a very small brown gecko. I yelled out to Dad to come quickly as my heart starting beating furiously. They are not scary creatures, but they move very quickly and I didn't want to take my eyes off it. Dad got a yogurt container and piece of cardboard and walked towards the gecko. Of course, it moved as soon as Dad got close to it - then, it jumped right off the kitchen counter onto the floor! Dad just stood there - he couldn't believe it would jump and then that it was still okay. It ran under the futon and by this time we were both laughing trying to figure out how two big adults were going to catch this very tiny gecko. :-) We finally cornered him under the futon with me coming one way and Dad coming the other way. Once Dad had trapped the gecko under the yogurt container and slid the cardboard under the container, we walked outside and let the little guy go. What an experience! The missionaries told us that they have geckos in their apartment all the time and they just let them be - they told us that the geckos eat little bugs. We have a little machine in our house which kills bugs, so we don't need any little geckos in here scurrying around - they can just stay outside, thank you very much. :-)
The rest of the past couple of days have been quite boring compared to last night's exercise. :-) We have just been relaxing and watching movies and spending time doing family history. Dad was at the church FHC (Family History Centre) yesterday and it was busy - Dad still had some time, though, to work on the Noble line in his family history. He found that some information he had, had not been inputted in the church system and so he spent some time doing that along with doing some more research. Dad is planning on going into the FHC in Toronto when we are there to do some more work on that line. I spent the day at the library trying to find some more information on my family history - I had spent some time on Sunday afternoon writing down some missing parts in my history. I wasn't able to find out much more about my family, but I was able to find out where some ancestors were buried - I would like to go and get photos of their headstones. Dad found out yesterday that if you are going to a cemetery to get information off headstones that you should talk with the person who is in charge of the cemetery and see if they will let you look at the purchase order for the gravesite as that may have more information (and perhaps more accurage info) on it than the headstone does. I also wrote down two email addresses I found - one of a woman who has information about headstones in a place called Narrandera where my great great grandfather is buried and I am hoping that his date of birth is on his headstone since I can't seem to find out any info on that. The other email is for a gentleman who is working on one of my lines which goes back to England - the gentleman is actually here in Australia - so I am going to email him and see what information he has. It's still so exciting when I find out anything about my ancestors!
We have watched more movies since I last wrote to you - some good and some not so good or rather, not as good as we were hoping after all the researching I had done. I can't remember which ones I have told you about, so here's a synopsis of what we have watched and the mark out of ten which we have given them. "Akeelah and the Bee" - 8.0, "Finding Neverland" - 6.5 (and only that high cuz Dad gave it a 7.0 while I only gave it a 6.0), "The Invention of Lying" - 6.0, "Notes on a Scandal - 7.0 (but a very odd movie), and "Whale Rider" - 7.0. We rented ten movies yesterday to watch this week (special price on Monday is .99c a movie for weekly rentals) and hope that they will be good ones. We won't be watching movies again after this week as I will be back at school and we don't have time to watch movies when I am working.
September 25, 2010
It's been a lovely two days of more relaxing. Dad spent yesterday at the Family History Centre (a quiet day) and I spent the day at the genealogy room at the library. I was able to get a lot of information about Poppy's side of the family (on both his sides) which was exciting. There were a few older women there who obviously come often to the room to do their genealogy and they were kidding with each other during their time there - it was so funny - I had some good chuckles. :-) I now have to go through all my notes and find out where/what I am missing so that I can take my questions to the woman there on Monday and see if she can help me clear some things up.
Dad and I went to Blockbuster's afterwards - we took back last week's movies and rented 7 more for this week. We took our list with us this time - the one we started based on good reviews. We have watched three of them so far: "Gone Baby Gone" (not worth the watch), "School of Rock" and "Shattered Glass" (each about a 7). We'll see how the rest of them go this week: the others we've rented are "Notes on a Scandal", "Finding Neverland", "Akeelah and the Bee", and "Whale Rider". :-) I spent time on the computer today checking out the list of movies which Blockbuster's Australia has online and wrote down all the ones I thought sounded good. Then Dad and I checked out the reviews and we kept all the ones with a 6.0 or more on the list. The next thing to do is to check what each movie is about to see if we think we would like to watch it.
So, today, we literally relaxed at home all day. The weather was cloudy and rainy and so going out was not on the cards - it looks like it's going to be more of the same next week (sigh). But, spending time reading (I'm on a new book now - "Trust No One" - recommended by Char - and Dad gave up on the book he was reading and is now reading "All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten"), cooking (I made Pasta E Fagioli soup) and watching movies. It was just what we needed - that's what we're trying to do during these two weeks off - relax. Dad checked out the mountains which we were thinking of going to for a couple of days next week - turns out the resort there is expensive over the holidays and it's quite booked up. So we have decided not to go at this time.
So, not really too much to tell for the past two days and hopefully it will be more of the same for the next week as well. :-) I want to be well rested when school starts again. :-)
Dad and I went to Blockbuster's afterwards - we took back last week's movies and rented 7 more for this week. We took our list with us this time - the one we started based on good reviews. We have watched three of them so far: "Gone Baby Gone" (not worth the watch), "School of Rock" and "Shattered Glass" (each about a 7). We'll see how the rest of them go this week: the others we've rented are "Notes on a Scandal", "Finding Neverland", "Akeelah and the Bee", and "Whale Rider". :-) I spent time on the computer today checking out the list of movies which Blockbuster's Australia has online and wrote down all the ones I thought sounded good. Then Dad and I checked out the reviews and we kept all the ones with a 6.0 or more on the list. The next thing to do is to check what each movie is about to see if we think we would like to watch it.
So, today, we literally relaxed at home all day. The weather was cloudy and rainy and so going out was not on the cards - it looks like it's going to be more of the same next week (sigh). But, spending time reading (I'm on a new book now - "Trust No One" - recommended by Char - and Dad gave up on the book he was reading and is now reading "All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten"), cooking (I made Pasta E Fagioli soup) and watching movies. It was just what we needed - that's what we're trying to do during these two weeks off - relax. Dad checked out the mountains which we were thinking of going to for a couple of days next week - turns out the resort there is expensive over the holidays and it's quite booked up. So we have decided not to go at this time.
So, not really too much to tell for the past two days and hopefully it will be more of the same for the next week as well. :-) I want to be well rested when school starts again. :-)
September 23, 2010
Time to get this blog up and running again, I think. You can check it as often as your time allows. I might write every day - or not - but, I will write when I have something to share with you. In this blog, I will title each area which I will talk about, so you can come back if the entry is too long and you need to remember where you are.
School
I am two fifths through my five week teaching contract in grade 2 at Kawungan State School and it's been a bit of a challenge. I have loved being back planning and preparing to teach - I have really missed having 'my own class' and all that entails. I am finding it very different from teaching at R. J. Lee as far as the students go. At R.J., the children (in general) were very respectful - there was no need to yell (not my style, anyway) and I still haven't resorted to that (although plenty of teachers here have). But, I sure have felt like it. Bronwyn, the teacher of this grade two class, is very relaxed in her teaching style. I, on the other hand, have big issues with the students talking when I am talking or when their peers are talking during discussions. So, the students are learning to be quiet and to listen. It did get better over the two weeks I was teaching them (before the holidays we are now in) and I hope that they don't forget everything during their two weeks off. The teachers at the school are great and the grade two team especially have been very welcoming to me and make me feel like part of the group. Once I have finished teaching the next three week block for Bronwyn, I will hopefully either get another contract job or get some supply teaching days.
Dad
Dad is starting to look for a casual job. He definitely does not want to work full-time as he wants to be able to come back to Canada for visits. He went out to the airport to talk with a man out there who does the maintenance for any small airplanes which use the Hervey Bay airport. They had an hour and a half chat and the man told Dad that he would call him if he had any extra work which required extra hands. Dad is also keeping a close eye on job opportunities listed online here. He continues to go into the Family History Centre at church on Mondays and Fridays - there is a lot of work to be done to 'tidy up' the centre as far as paperwork goes. It's pretty quiet most days, so it also gives Dad the opportunity to work on his own family history. He is currently trying to find out information about the Noble side - Grandma Gall did a lot of work on her and grandpa's side of the family and work has been done on the Martin side. Dad is finally able to do some volunteer work with the SES. Last weekend, he went to do parking control for a charity fundraising event. Today, he will be helping out with a sausage sizzle (selling sausages in slices of bread along with pop) for the local council.
My Family History
It has been exciting to have the time to work so much on my own family history - it takes ages to get information sometimes, which is why I haven't had much time before this to get very far on finding my ancestors - but, I like putting the time in and have found some more links to those who came before me. I did find out that my great great grandmother (on Poppy's side) had a child out of wedlock - that was really interesting, almost a scandal, I thought - however, a woman at the genealogy library here in town said that happened more than people think back in those days. When I told Auntie Norma about it, she told me that Great Great Grandma was disowned by her family when she got pregnant out of wedlock. I also found out that when someone died, at least here in Australia, that sometimes the people giving information when a person died was not accurate. For instance, on my great grandmother's death certificate, it lists her parents' names incorrectly. I worked with the people at the genealogy library to make sure that the death certificate I had found was actually the death certificate of my great grandmother and we found out that it was. It took ages to verify the information, but it was exciting to finally find out more about a member of my family. I have recently found out information about Nana's family: we thought her grandfather was named Richard and I found out that his name was actually Henry Richard Frederick, but he went by the name of Richard as his father's name was Henry.
The house
We were very excited to finally find a dining room suite that we love. It's made from New Zealand pine and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's sort of a light cherrywood colour and the natural wood has knots in it and makes it look quite unique. There are six chairs in the suite - the chairs have a brown cushion. I don't like the brown colour (I would rather have had beige cushions), but the set only came with the chocolate colour. We both loved the suite, so I decided not to worry about the cushion colour - most of the time the chairs are tucked in under the table anyway and you don't see the colour of the cushions. We also bought a stainless steel fridge with the freezer in the bottom - we absolutely love it. It's great not having to bend over to get something out of the bottom of the fridge all the time. (doesn't take much to make me happy, eh? :-)
We are still looking at other furniture for the rest of the house: a bedroom suite for the master bedroom, a living room suite and furniture for the family room. We were out just yesterday looking at living room suites and found a few possibilities. It's a bit difficult when the living room has this medium grey carpet on the floor - less colours to go with that. We also checked out lazy-boy chairs which we want for the family room. Dad finally bought a lawnmower - we had checked out a variety of places (garage sales, personal sales, newspaper ads) and couldn't find one at a price we thought was good. So, Dad went over to Bunnings (like Home Depot) and ended up buying a rechargeable electric one which means that it has a battery and electric motor - the battery gets recharged after every use. Dad figured out the cost of maintenance on a regular mower would be the same as purchasing a new battery (after five years). So, with no maintenance having to be done, less noise and ease of use of the electric one, Dad thought it was the one to buy. We have also purchased a washing machine and Dad has installed the dryer above it in the laundry room. We still rarely use the dryer, but it's nice having it there just in case it's one of those rare rainy days. Dad was thrilled to be able to also purchase a barbecue - he has been wanting to get one for a while and we finally found a great deal on one. He has used it a few times and is slowly getting used to how to cook on it - it's different, it seems, than the one which we had in Canada.
Church
Things are going well with my new calling of Primary first counsellor. I have been in charge of doing the Sharing Time for this month. I am in charge of giving a short lesson/activity based on the theme for the year which is "I Know My Saviour Lives". This year, we (the Primary presidency) have the opportunity to help the children feel and understand the great love that Jesus has for them. I have given two lessons so far - based on the ten commandments and the gospel standards. I feel very blessed to have been given the talent for teaching and also to be receiving revelation about how to best present the information to the children. They seem to have enjoyed the two presentations I have given to them - one teacher even told me how happy she was that I had included the little children as I taught - she told me that often the lessons focus on the older children. Dad and I have a meeting every Sunday at 8:15am as part of our callings as Branch missionaries. As this group is newly called, we are currently coming up with ideas on how to spread the gospel in Hervey Bay and how to raise the profile of the church in the area. We are going to be having a fireside in October about the Restoration of the church and hope to have non-members attend.
Our holidays (my spring break)
It's been lovely being on school holidays this week. We have had something to do each day so far and so we are taking today off. On Monday, Dad and I both went into the Family History Centre. While Dad worked on FHC stuff, I organized my school stuff - when I left school on Friday, I just threw all my papers into my bag and so I needed to go through all that and file it in the appropriate folders. I also was able to spend some time working on my family history and also on my Sharing Time lesson for this Sunday. After our time at the FHC, we did our weekly grocery shop. On Tuesday morning, we spent some time at the library - I spent time in the genealogy room there: they have access to an internet site called ancestry.com and I wanted to see if I could find out any information about my family history on that site which is not available at the FHC (there is a fee to use that site) and Dad spent the time reading some newspapers, looking at computer books and checked out aviation news magazines. We had the missionaries to dinner that night (along with Ashley, a young man in our branch who is a year away from serving his mission and who spends a lot of time with the missionaries each week). Yesterday, we did our usual 'Meals on Wheels' run - it was nice to do it again for me as I have not been able to do it for the past two weeks due to working. There were a couple of new people on the route - one lady even gave me some towels and homemade knitted washcloths. I wasn't sure if we were able to accept gifts, so when we got back to the MOW building, I spoke with Avis, the woman in charge, about it. She said that others have received this gift and she has just used the towels in the kitchen - I thought that was a good idea. I suggested that she put the washcloths in the garage sale which MOW are having next month. We rented 7 movies last Friday from Blockbuster's (7 for $9.95 for the week is such a good deal) and we have slowly been watching them this week. So far, we have watched five and only two of them have made it to the 7/10 score: "28 Days" starring Sandra Bullock and "Hitch" starring Will Smith. It's so hard to find good movies these days: I have made a list of movies from the past 10 years which received good reviews on rottentomatoes.com - I am going to take that list to the video store when we take these ones back tomorrow - hopefully, we will have better luck with those movies. We are planning on take a two day trip next week - a friend recommended we take a drive to the mountains so we are looking into that. The weather has been dismal this week (not good for those who came up here on holidays this week) and so we haven't been able to get down to the beach, even for a walk. Hopefully, things will clear up next week.
Well, that's about it for the moment. Keep tuned in for further developments. :-)
School
I am two fifths through my five week teaching contract in grade 2 at Kawungan State School and it's been a bit of a challenge. I have loved being back planning and preparing to teach - I have really missed having 'my own class' and all that entails. I am finding it very different from teaching at R. J. Lee as far as the students go. At R.J., the children (in general) were very respectful - there was no need to yell (not my style, anyway) and I still haven't resorted to that (although plenty of teachers here have). But, I sure have felt like it. Bronwyn, the teacher of this grade two class, is very relaxed in her teaching style. I, on the other hand, have big issues with the students talking when I am talking or when their peers are talking during discussions. So, the students are learning to be quiet and to listen. It did get better over the two weeks I was teaching them (before the holidays we are now in) and I hope that they don't forget everything during their two weeks off. The teachers at the school are great and the grade two team especially have been very welcoming to me and make me feel like part of the group. Once I have finished teaching the next three week block for Bronwyn, I will hopefully either get another contract job or get some supply teaching days.
Dad
Dad is starting to look for a casual job. He definitely does not want to work full-time as he wants to be able to come back to Canada for visits. He went out to the airport to talk with a man out there who does the maintenance for any small airplanes which use the Hervey Bay airport. They had an hour and a half chat and the man told Dad that he would call him if he had any extra work which required extra hands. Dad is also keeping a close eye on job opportunities listed online here. He continues to go into the Family History Centre at church on Mondays and Fridays - there is a lot of work to be done to 'tidy up' the centre as far as paperwork goes. It's pretty quiet most days, so it also gives Dad the opportunity to work on his own family history. He is currently trying to find out information about the Noble side - Grandma Gall did a lot of work on her and grandpa's side of the family and work has been done on the Martin side. Dad is finally able to do some volunteer work with the SES. Last weekend, he went to do parking control for a charity fundraising event. Today, he will be helping out with a sausage sizzle (selling sausages in slices of bread along with pop) for the local council.
My Family History
It has been exciting to have the time to work so much on my own family history - it takes ages to get information sometimes, which is why I haven't had much time before this to get very far on finding my ancestors - but, I like putting the time in and have found some more links to those who came before me. I did find out that my great great grandmother (on Poppy's side) had a child out of wedlock - that was really interesting, almost a scandal, I thought - however, a woman at the genealogy library here in town said that happened more than people think back in those days. When I told Auntie Norma about it, she told me that Great Great Grandma was disowned by her family when she got pregnant out of wedlock. I also found out that when someone died, at least here in Australia, that sometimes the people giving information when a person died was not accurate. For instance, on my great grandmother's death certificate, it lists her parents' names incorrectly. I worked with the people at the genealogy library to make sure that the death certificate I had found was actually the death certificate of my great grandmother and we found out that it was. It took ages to verify the information, but it was exciting to finally find out more about a member of my family. I have recently found out information about Nana's family: we thought her grandfather was named Richard and I found out that his name was actually Henry Richard Frederick, but he went by the name of Richard as his father's name was Henry.
The house
We were very excited to finally find a dining room suite that we love. It's made from New Zealand pine and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's sort of a light cherrywood colour and the natural wood has knots in it and makes it look quite unique. There are six chairs in the suite - the chairs have a brown cushion. I don't like the brown colour (I would rather have had beige cushions), but the set only came with the chocolate colour. We both loved the suite, so I decided not to worry about the cushion colour - most of the time the chairs are tucked in under the table anyway and you don't see the colour of the cushions. We also bought a stainless steel fridge with the freezer in the bottom - we absolutely love it. It's great not having to bend over to get something out of the bottom of the fridge all the time. (doesn't take much to make me happy, eh? :-)
We are still looking at other furniture for the rest of the house: a bedroom suite for the master bedroom, a living room suite and furniture for the family room. We were out just yesterday looking at living room suites and found a few possibilities. It's a bit difficult when the living room has this medium grey carpet on the floor - less colours to go with that. We also checked out lazy-boy chairs which we want for the family room. Dad finally bought a lawnmower - we had checked out a variety of places (garage sales, personal sales, newspaper ads) and couldn't find one at a price we thought was good. So, Dad went over to Bunnings (like Home Depot) and ended up buying a rechargeable electric one which means that it has a battery and electric motor - the battery gets recharged after every use. Dad figured out the cost of maintenance on a regular mower would be the same as purchasing a new battery (after five years). So, with no maintenance having to be done, less noise and ease of use of the electric one, Dad thought it was the one to buy. We have also purchased a washing machine and Dad has installed the dryer above it in the laundry room. We still rarely use the dryer, but it's nice having it there just in case it's one of those rare rainy days. Dad was thrilled to be able to also purchase a barbecue - he has been wanting to get one for a while and we finally found a great deal on one. He has used it a few times and is slowly getting used to how to cook on it - it's different, it seems, than the one which we had in Canada.
Church
Things are going well with my new calling of Primary first counsellor. I have been in charge of doing the Sharing Time for this month. I am in charge of giving a short lesson/activity based on the theme for the year which is "I Know My Saviour Lives". This year, we (the Primary presidency) have the opportunity to help the children feel and understand the great love that Jesus has for them. I have given two lessons so far - based on the ten commandments and the gospel standards. I feel very blessed to have been given the talent for teaching and also to be receiving revelation about how to best present the information to the children. They seem to have enjoyed the two presentations I have given to them - one teacher even told me how happy she was that I had included the little children as I taught - she told me that often the lessons focus on the older children. Dad and I have a meeting every Sunday at 8:15am as part of our callings as Branch missionaries. As this group is newly called, we are currently coming up with ideas on how to spread the gospel in Hervey Bay and how to raise the profile of the church in the area. We are going to be having a fireside in October about the Restoration of the church and hope to have non-members attend.
Our holidays (my spring break)
It's been lovely being on school holidays this week. We have had something to do each day so far and so we are taking today off. On Monday, Dad and I both went into the Family History Centre. While Dad worked on FHC stuff, I organized my school stuff - when I left school on Friday, I just threw all my papers into my bag and so I needed to go through all that and file it in the appropriate folders. I also was able to spend some time working on my family history and also on my Sharing Time lesson for this Sunday. After our time at the FHC, we did our weekly grocery shop. On Tuesday morning, we spent some time at the library - I spent time in the genealogy room there: they have access to an internet site called ancestry.com and I wanted to see if I could find out any information about my family history on that site which is not available at the FHC (there is a fee to use that site) and Dad spent the time reading some newspapers, looking at computer books and checked out aviation news magazines. We had the missionaries to dinner that night (along with Ashley, a young man in our branch who is a year away from serving his mission and who spends a lot of time with the missionaries each week). Yesterday, we did our usual 'Meals on Wheels' run - it was nice to do it again for me as I have not been able to do it for the past two weeks due to working. There were a couple of new people on the route - one lady even gave me some towels and homemade knitted washcloths. I wasn't sure if we were able to accept gifts, so when we got back to the MOW building, I spoke with Avis, the woman in charge, about it. She said that others have received this gift and she has just used the towels in the kitchen - I thought that was a good idea. I suggested that she put the washcloths in the garage sale which MOW are having next month. We rented 7 movies last Friday from Blockbuster's (7 for $9.95 for the week is such a good deal) and we have slowly been watching them this week. So far, we have watched five and only two of them have made it to the 7/10 score: "28 Days" starring Sandra Bullock and "Hitch" starring Will Smith. It's so hard to find good movies these days: I have made a list of movies from the past 10 years which received good reviews on rottentomatoes.com - I am going to take that list to the video store when we take these ones back tomorrow - hopefully, we will have better luck with those movies. We are planning on take a two day trip next week - a friend recommended we take a drive to the mountains so we are looking into that. The weather has been dismal this week (not good for those who came up here on holidays this week) and so we haven't been able to get down to the beach, even for a walk. Hopefully, things will clear up next week.
Well, that's about it for the moment. Keep tuned in for further developments. :-)
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Today was another rainy day - we just couldn't believe it - we had the use of Julianne's car again and we couldn't get any lovely pictures of a blue sky. :-( Julianne said it was raining (tears) because they were sad that we were leaving Hervey Bay for eight weeks. :-) After dropping off Julianne at work, we went to a store to buy her a thank you card for allowing us to use her car (and her tv and dvd player) while we have been in Hervey Bay. While we were there, we found a cute card for Colin for his birthday (it has ladybugs on it and he likes them) and we also found a Aussie t-shirt for Alexander - it's so adorable - it has kangaroos all over it with funny captions under each one (Mike says I am not allowed to say anymore as I will be giving away the secret :-)
After that, we went to a real estate agent who worked close to there. He has a house listed that we wanted to check out - it's in a little town about 10 minutes from Hervey Bay called Booral and we would love to live there cuz it's country living, but close to the amenities of the city. We absolutely loved the house, but it's still a bit out of our price range. The house was built by the owner's husband (he passed away two years ago) and it is a truly lovely house with all the extras that you would expect from a builder building his own home. The ceilings are really high (9 to 10 feet), there are three bedrooms plus an office (which could be used for another bedroom), a huge lounge room with vaulted ceilings, a kitchen with TONS of cupboards, a dining room, a family room, and a laundry room. Each of the three bedrooms has a walk-in closet and the master bedroom has an ensuite. The verandah goes all the way around the outside of the house, there is a swimming pool, and a HUGE three bay shed which also has a full bathroom and an office included in it. The house sits on 1.25 acres of land and most of the houses out there are on similar parcels of land. The cool thing is that kangaroos are often seen on the property (and all around Booral, actually - we even saw some last time we were out there to visit friends). We told the real estate agent that we can't afford to buy it right now, but if it's still available when the exchange rate is better, we would love to put in an offer on it.
When we got back to town after seeing this beautiful house, we came home to hang up the laundry (I had put a load in the washing machine first thing in the morning) and to have some lunch. We spent the afternoon playing more card games and answering emails and trying to get ourselves listed for the flights to Brisbane and Sydney on Thursday. Mike spent about 13 minutes on hold with Staff Travel using our cell phone which is very expensive to call from. I suggested that we go out and try to use a payphone to make the call as I thought it would only cost 50 cents to make the call and then it wouldn't matter how long we were on hold. As it turned out, when we made the call on the pay phone, it was long distance and so the phone hung up on us after about one minute. After a lot more agonizing about what to do, we decided to go out to the airport (about ten minutes away) to try and talk with someone at Qantas about what to do. As it turned out, the only one in the whole airport was the guy at the Snack Bar - when there are not planes expected, he is the only one there. On the drive back to town, Mike remembered that we could use our long distance phone card that we use to call back to Canada. Instead of paying 88 cents a minute on the cell phone, we only had to pay 10 cents a minute on the phone card. It still took him 30 minutes to get through - they always take so long at Staff Travel. Anyway, he finally got us booked onto the flights and it looks like we will have no trouble flying stand-by. We should be able to get back to Ruth's (the lady we stay with in Sydney) by about 5pm. When we got back home, I called her to tell her that we were booked on the flight on Thursday, and she is looking forward to us coming back to stay with her for a week.
About 3pm we had to leave as we had to stop by the 'Cheesecake Shop' before we picked up Julianne. We have put gas in her car every time we used it (more than we used), but I still wanted to do something for her to say thank you to her for letting us use her car so much while we have been here. I (sneakily) brought up the subject of the shop as we passed by it on the way to her work saying how much we loved pavlovas from there and had she ever gone in there - and if so, what was her favourite. She told us that she loved their caramel mud cakes and so we bought her a half one on the way to pick her up. When she dropped us off at home, we gave her the cake and she was very surprised and very pleased. She actually said that she would serve it tomorrow night for dessert and then asked us to come to dinner at their place tomorrow. She has the day off work and will put a roast in the oven, she said - and then have the mud cake for dessert so that we can see why she loves it so much! We are looking forward to going over there for such a lovely meal - and hanging out with them will be fun, too.
As we had given Julianne back her tv and dvd player today, we didn't have the tv to watch tonight and so we spent the evening playing cribbage and answering emails. I am slowly getting caught up on answering the emails that are in my Inbox. I try to answer them within a week - I am doing pretty well at that so far. We will only have one more entry in this blog for eight weeks. We will write tomorrow night and that will be our last night in Hervey Bay until we come back here in February. We are a little sad that we are going to be leaving this beautiful place - we really love it here - but, it will be nice to see our family and friends in Canada (and knowing that we will be coming back here will give us something to look forward to). :-)
After that, we went to a real estate agent who worked close to there. He has a house listed that we wanted to check out - it's in a little town about 10 minutes from Hervey Bay called Booral and we would love to live there cuz it's country living, but close to the amenities of the city. We absolutely loved the house, but it's still a bit out of our price range. The house was built by the owner's husband (he passed away two years ago) and it is a truly lovely house with all the extras that you would expect from a builder building his own home. The ceilings are really high (9 to 10 feet), there are three bedrooms plus an office (which could be used for another bedroom), a huge lounge room with vaulted ceilings, a kitchen with TONS of cupboards, a dining room, a family room, and a laundry room. Each of the three bedrooms has a walk-in closet and the master bedroom has an ensuite. The verandah goes all the way around the outside of the house, there is a swimming pool, and a HUGE three bay shed which also has a full bathroom and an office included in it. The house sits on 1.25 acres of land and most of the houses out there are on similar parcels of land. The cool thing is that kangaroos are often seen on the property (and all around Booral, actually - we even saw some last time we were out there to visit friends). We told the real estate agent that we can't afford to buy it right now, but if it's still available when the exchange rate is better, we would love to put in an offer on it.
When we got back to town after seeing this beautiful house, we came home to hang up the laundry (I had put a load in the washing machine first thing in the morning) and to have some lunch. We spent the afternoon playing more card games and answering emails and trying to get ourselves listed for the flights to Brisbane and Sydney on Thursday. Mike spent about 13 minutes on hold with Staff Travel using our cell phone which is very expensive to call from. I suggested that we go out and try to use a payphone to make the call as I thought it would only cost 50 cents to make the call and then it wouldn't matter how long we were on hold. As it turned out, when we made the call on the pay phone, it was long distance and so the phone hung up on us after about one minute. After a lot more agonizing about what to do, we decided to go out to the airport (about ten minutes away) to try and talk with someone at Qantas about what to do. As it turned out, the only one in the whole airport was the guy at the Snack Bar - when there are not planes expected, he is the only one there. On the drive back to town, Mike remembered that we could use our long distance phone card that we use to call back to Canada. Instead of paying 88 cents a minute on the cell phone, we only had to pay 10 cents a minute on the phone card. It still took him 30 minutes to get through - they always take so long at Staff Travel. Anyway, he finally got us booked onto the flights and it looks like we will have no trouble flying stand-by. We should be able to get back to Ruth's (the lady we stay with in Sydney) by about 5pm. When we got back home, I called her to tell her that we were booked on the flight on Thursday, and she is looking forward to us coming back to stay with her for a week.
About 3pm we had to leave as we had to stop by the 'Cheesecake Shop' before we picked up Julianne. We have put gas in her car every time we used it (more than we used), but I still wanted to do something for her to say thank you to her for letting us use her car so much while we have been here. I (sneakily) brought up the subject of the shop as we passed by it on the way to her work saying how much we loved pavlovas from there and had she ever gone in there - and if so, what was her favourite. She told us that she loved their caramel mud cakes and so we bought her a half one on the way to pick her up. When she dropped us off at home, we gave her the cake and she was very surprised and very pleased. She actually said that she would serve it tomorrow night for dessert and then asked us to come to dinner at their place tomorrow. She has the day off work and will put a roast in the oven, she said - and then have the mud cake for dessert so that we can see why she loves it so much! We are looking forward to going over there for such a lovely meal - and hanging out with them will be fun, too.
As we had given Julianne back her tv and dvd player today, we didn't have the tv to watch tonight and so we spent the evening playing cribbage and answering emails. I am slowly getting caught up on answering the emails that are in my Inbox. I try to answer them within a week - I am doing pretty well at that so far. We will only have one more entry in this blog for eight weeks. We will write tomorrow night and that will be our last night in Hervey Bay until we come back here in February. We are a little sad that we are going to be leaving this beautiful place - we really love it here - but, it will be nice to see our family and friends in Canada (and knowing that we will be coming back here will give us something to look forward to). :-)
Monday, November 30, 2009
Today we had the use of Julianne's car again as we wanted to spend a lot of the day driving around Hervey Bay to take pictures of our lovely little town. Would you believe it! It was raining - and I don't mean just a little bit - it poured down - and for most of the morning. So, we decided that it wasn't worth going out and taking pictures of grey skies and grey ocean water (I mean, we HAVE been telling you that we've had blue skies all along - which we have - so we couldn't very well put up pics of grey skies, now could we?). :-)
We spent the morning playing card games and doing laundry. Christine, our landlady came over to tell us that her husband was watching a storm just south of us and told us that we should be careful if we were planning on going out in our car (there was a high wind warning). We ended up talking with her for quite a while. The storm/high winds never did reach us here in Hervey Bay, but apparently it did hit in a small town not far from here - it actually uprooted a greenhouse of a friend of Christine's.
We called Terri-Ann this morning to ask her if she could get on Skype so that we could talk with her and the boys. She wasn't sure if she could get on as James had connected us before and he wasn't home at the time. She was able to figure it out and we were soon talking to her and 'our boys'. It is so much fun talking with Colin and Caleb while watching their little faces. Colin loves to talk and Caleb likes to copy what Colin says and does - it's adorable. We could see Terri-Ann enjoying the boys talking with us. Colin blew us lots of kisses and then ran out of them, so I told him to make sure he has more for us when we get back to Canada. :-) Unfortunately, because of the bad weather, the internet cut out before we actually had a chance to talk with Terri-Ann. We phoned her to tell her what had happened - we didn't stay on long as it costs $2. a minute to call from our cell phone to Canada and she was also trying to put the boys to bed.
Terri-Ann told us that Mike's mom had called her to ask if we were going to be stopping in Vancouver on the way back to Toronto. So, after he was finished talking with Terri-Ann, he called his mom to fill her in on our plans. They were only able to talk for a few minutes due to the cost of calling on his cell. He reminded his mom of the web address of our blog so that she could read what we were doing on a daily basis here in Hervey Bay.
After lunch, we finally decided that we would go for a drive as we were experiencing 'cabin fever'. We ended up taking our dvds back to the library, going to the post office to get a stamp, looking for a water resistant hat for Mike to wear when he goes swimming in the ocean (couldn't find one), going for an ice-cream (chocolate dipped) at Hungry Jack's, and grocery shopping (we only needed milk today as we have enough at the granny flat to do us until we leave on Thursday - however, we also bought a 'mud cake' - chocolate cake - and some passionfruit pop). :-)
Julianne dropped us off at home and we ran into Rob Woodcott who is a member of the church. We chatted a little to him about a piece of property that is for sale on his street (he and Rosalea live in a town called Booral which is about 15 minutes from Hervey Bay - out in the country). An old woman is selling her two blocks of land - one with a house on it and the other with nothing on it - and we were wondering if she would sell just the house on the one block of land. After talking with him about wanting to wait until we buy, he suggested that we invest in gold and silver as a way to make up the difference between what we have to put down on the house and the cost of the house, so that we don't have to take out a mortgage. Neither Mike nor I are interested in purchasing gold and silver - we are not the risk taking kind when it comes to our money.
After visiting with Rob, we decided that we wanted to go through our papers that we had collected over the time we have been here - things like tourist information and store flyers and maps. After deciding which ones we are going to keep, we put them in a bag and put them in the storage bin that we have purchased which we are leaving here while we are in Canada. We added two sheet sets to the bin which we have purchased for beds for when we come back to Hervey Bay and have to find a place to rent (in case this granny flat is already rented out). We will also put cans of food in there that we don't use before we go - that way we will have something to eat when we get back.
After dinner, we watched one of our favourite shows 'Big Bang Theory' and, as usual, we laughed our heads off. That show is so funny - well, at least to us it is - and it's one of the few that we don't like to miss watching. The rest of the evening we spent completing our cruise blog (YAY, it's finally done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). We are going to do one more proofread of it before we send out the link to everyone. It has taken a LOT of time to finish it, but I think it has been worth the time and effort.
We spent the morning playing card games and doing laundry. Christine, our landlady came over to tell us that her husband was watching a storm just south of us and told us that we should be careful if we were planning on going out in our car (there was a high wind warning). We ended up talking with her for quite a while. The storm/high winds never did reach us here in Hervey Bay, but apparently it did hit in a small town not far from here - it actually uprooted a greenhouse of a friend of Christine's.
We called Terri-Ann this morning to ask her if she could get on Skype so that we could talk with her and the boys. She wasn't sure if she could get on as James had connected us before and he wasn't home at the time. She was able to figure it out and we were soon talking to her and 'our boys'. It is so much fun talking with Colin and Caleb while watching their little faces. Colin loves to talk and Caleb likes to copy what Colin says and does - it's adorable. We could see Terri-Ann enjoying the boys talking with us. Colin blew us lots of kisses and then ran out of them, so I told him to make sure he has more for us when we get back to Canada. :-) Unfortunately, because of the bad weather, the internet cut out before we actually had a chance to talk with Terri-Ann. We phoned her to tell her what had happened - we didn't stay on long as it costs $2. a minute to call from our cell phone to Canada and she was also trying to put the boys to bed.
Terri-Ann told us that Mike's mom had called her to ask if we were going to be stopping in Vancouver on the way back to Toronto. So, after he was finished talking with Terri-Ann, he called his mom to fill her in on our plans. They were only able to talk for a few minutes due to the cost of calling on his cell. He reminded his mom of the web address of our blog so that she could read what we were doing on a daily basis here in Hervey Bay.
After lunch, we finally decided that we would go for a drive as we were experiencing 'cabin fever'. We ended up taking our dvds back to the library, going to the post office to get a stamp, looking for a water resistant hat for Mike to wear when he goes swimming in the ocean (couldn't find one), going for an ice-cream (chocolate dipped) at Hungry Jack's, and grocery shopping (we only needed milk today as we have enough at the granny flat to do us until we leave on Thursday - however, we also bought a 'mud cake' - chocolate cake - and some passionfruit pop). :-)
Julianne dropped us off at home and we ran into Rob Woodcott who is a member of the church. We chatted a little to him about a piece of property that is for sale on his street (he and Rosalea live in a town called Booral which is about 15 minutes from Hervey Bay - out in the country). An old woman is selling her two blocks of land - one with a house on it and the other with nothing on it - and we were wondering if she would sell just the house on the one block of land. After talking with him about wanting to wait until we buy, he suggested that we invest in gold and silver as a way to make up the difference between what we have to put down on the house and the cost of the house, so that we don't have to take out a mortgage. Neither Mike nor I are interested in purchasing gold and silver - we are not the risk taking kind when it comes to our money.
After visiting with Rob, we decided that we wanted to go through our papers that we had collected over the time we have been here - things like tourist information and store flyers and maps. After deciding which ones we are going to keep, we put them in a bag and put them in the storage bin that we have purchased which we are leaving here while we are in Canada. We added two sheet sets to the bin which we have purchased for beds for when we come back to Hervey Bay and have to find a place to rent (in case this granny flat is already rented out). We will also put cans of food in there that we don't use before we go - that way we will have something to eat when we get back.
After dinner, we watched one of our favourite shows 'Big Bang Theory' and, as usual, we laughed our heads off. That show is so funny - well, at least to us it is - and it's one of the few that we don't like to miss watching. The rest of the evening we spent completing our cruise blog (YAY, it's finally done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). We are going to do one more proofread of it before we send out the link to everyone. It has taken a LOT of time to finish it, but I think it has been worth the time and effort.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Today was our last day at church in Hervey Bay for two months - a bit of a sad day, but everyone we said 'bye' to said they looked forward to our coming back, so that made us feel good. The sacrament meeting talks were good today - they focused on the three fold mission of the church: proclaim the gospel (Elder Hurst spoke about missionary work and the importance of speaking up about the church to others), redeem the dead (Sister Pierce spoke about the importance of doing genealogy work and going to the Temple), and perfect the saints (Rob Woodcott spoke about the importance of doing all that we should be doing to become stronger in the gospel, like reading the scriptures, saying prayers, going to Sacrament, etc.). The speakers were really good and so the meeting went really fast.
During Sunday School, Trudy taught about how the Lord continues to guide the Church through revelation to latter-day prophets. She also talked about how Church correlation (everyone in the world focusing on the same thing and each auxiliary working together) was initiated and continues to operate today by revelation from the Lord to His prophets, that the purpose of Church correlation is to preserve “the right way of God” and ultimately it is intended to help accomplish the mission of the Church, which is to invite all people to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him”. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve oversee correlation in the Church. Correlation includes: a. Maintaining purity of doctrine, b. Emphasizing the importance of the family and the home, c. Placing all the work of the Church under priesthood direction, d. Establishing proper relationships among the organizations of the Church, e. Achieving unity and order in the Church, f. Ensuring simplicity of Church programs and materials. Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve said that correlation is a process “in which we take all the programs of the Church, bring them to one focal point, wrap them in one package, operate them as one program, involve all members of the Church in the operation—and do it all under priesthood direction”. It is always interesting that even though we have been members of the church for such a long time, we are continually learning.
Relief Society and Priesthood was joint today as it is the fifth Sunday of the month. We watched a dvd of a talk given to Young Single Adults by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf that our branch president thought was relevant to all of us. The focus was on the importance of remembering who you are - that you are a daughter or son of God and that you are important. He also talked about dating (towards the young people in the church) and the importance of dating a variety of people so that you can find out the qualities you desire in a mate. As well he talked about continuing to strengthen your testimony by following what the leaders in the church have told us. Again it was so interesting to watch and listen to and before we knew it, it was over. We said good-bye to the friends we have made here so far and told them we would be back in February.
When we got home from church, we ate lunch and then sat down and watched the movie 'Supersize Me'. Everyone who has seen this movie has told us we would be grossed out by it, but we really weren't. To us, the movie seemed to be blaming McDonald's for the obesity and health problems that people in America (and other countries) have since the introduction of fast food. It talked about how McDonald's (and other fast food and junk food companies) spend billions of dollars on advertizing to get the kids to buy their products. They talked about how McDonald's builds Play Places to get the kids to come in there to play and then expecting food to be bought. I feel that if the kids are getting fat because of going to McDonald's, perhaps the parents shouldn't be taking them in there, or perhaps it should be a treat for them to go (like us taking Colin twice a month for a hamburger and fries with ketchup and an orange drink). Like everything else in life, self-control and moderation is the key - people need to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame others for their lack of self-control.
We were invited out to dinner tonight to Leanne and Bill Rostedt's home. They had invited a whole bunch of us over for an evening of food, fun and fellowship: President Brown and his wife, Diana, Elder Cox and Elder Hurst, Leanne's sister, Amanda and daughter, Talia, Kym and her sons, John and Ashley, their own four sons, Caleb, Reece, Baden and Ethan and a friend, Sam. We all sat around their kitchen/dining room/famly room to eat (meatballs, rice, vegetables, cake and custard) - very yummy fixings. After dinner, we chatted for a while and then we played Pictionary. We got into three teams of three and took turns drawing for our teams to get our team to say the word that Leanne had written on a piece of paper. Mike, Kym and I were on the same team. Some of the words were hard to draw/get like 'Alice Springs' and 'stupendous', but some of them we did well in getting like 'red pencil' (I got that one and drew a pencil and then to get red I drew a Canadian flag and pointed to the part of the flag that was red and Mike got it). The three of us laughed so hard as we tried to draw and get the others to try and say what the word was. It was a lot of fun.
Kym drove us home about 8:30pm (Leanne goes to bed very early as she gets up to start her day at 4:30am) and so we wanted to get out of there early. When we got home, Mike uploaded another web album to the blog with photos of the church Christmas party on it. If you want to see the captions, you have to click on the slideshow and you will see what I have written underneath each picture.
After that, we watched a great movie that we have seen before, but it was so long ago that we remembered very little of it. It's called 'Firewall' with Harrison Ford and if you haven't seen it, I would recommend you go out and rent it. It's our kind of movie - lots of action and no romance. :-) It's basically about a bank computer programmer whose family was kidnapped by a team who wanted him to transfer millions of dollars from wealthy bank clients into an offshore account. Well worth the money of a rental!
During Sunday School, Trudy taught about how the Lord continues to guide the Church through revelation to latter-day prophets. She also talked about how Church correlation (everyone in the world focusing on the same thing and each auxiliary working together) was initiated and continues to operate today by revelation from the Lord to His prophets, that the purpose of Church correlation is to preserve “the right way of God” and ultimately it is intended to help accomplish the mission of the Church, which is to invite all people to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him”. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve oversee correlation in the Church. Correlation includes: a. Maintaining purity of doctrine, b. Emphasizing the importance of the family and the home, c. Placing all the work of the Church under priesthood direction, d. Establishing proper relationships among the organizations of the Church, e. Achieving unity and order in the Church, f. Ensuring simplicity of Church programs and materials. Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve said that correlation is a process “in which we take all the programs of the Church, bring them to one focal point, wrap them in one package, operate them as one program, involve all members of the Church in the operation—and do it all under priesthood direction”. It is always interesting that even though we have been members of the church for such a long time, we are continually learning.
Relief Society and Priesthood was joint today as it is the fifth Sunday of the month. We watched a dvd of a talk given to Young Single Adults by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf that our branch president thought was relevant to all of us. The focus was on the importance of remembering who you are - that you are a daughter or son of God and that you are important. He also talked about dating (towards the young people in the church) and the importance of dating a variety of people so that you can find out the qualities you desire in a mate. As well he talked about continuing to strengthen your testimony by following what the leaders in the church have told us. Again it was so interesting to watch and listen to and before we knew it, it was over. We said good-bye to the friends we have made here so far and told them we would be back in February.
When we got home from church, we ate lunch and then sat down and watched the movie 'Supersize Me'. Everyone who has seen this movie has told us we would be grossed out by it, but we really weren't. To us, the movie seemed to be blaming McDonald's for the obesity and health problems that people in America (and other countries) have since the introduction of fast food. It talked about how McDonald's (and other fast food and junk food companies) spend billions of dollars on advertizing to get the kids to buy their products. They talked about how McDonald's builds Play Places to get the kids to come in there to play and then expecting food to be bought. I feel that if the kids are getting fat because of going to McDonald's, perhaps the parents shouldn't be taking them in there, or perhaps it should be a treat for them to go (like us taking Colin twice a month for a hamburger and fries with ketchup and an orange drink). Like everything else in life, self-control and moderation is the key - people need to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame others for their lack of self-control.
We were invited out to dinner tonight to Leanne and Bill Rostedt's home. They had invited a whole bunch of us over for an evening of food, fun and fellowship: President Brown and his wife, Diana, Elder Cox and Elder Hurst, Leanne's sister, Amanda and daughter, Talia, Kym and her sons, John and Ashley, their own four sons, Caleb, Reece, Baden and Ethan and a friend, Sam. We all sat around their kitchen/dining room/famly room to eat (meatballs, rice, vegetables, cake and custard) - very yummy fixings. After dinner, we chatted for a while and then we played Pictionary. We got into three teams of three and took turns drawing for our teams to get our team to say the word that Leanne had written on a piece of paper. Mike, Kym and I were on the same team. Some of the words were hard to draw/get like 'Alice Springs' and 'stupendous', but some of them we did well in getting like 'red pencil' (I got that one and drew a pencil and then to get red I drew a Canadian flag and pointed to the part of the flag that was red and Mike got it). The three of us laughed so hard as we tried to draw and get the others to try and say what the word was. It was a lot of fun.
Kym drove us home about 8:30pm (Leanne goes to bed very early as she gets up to start her day at 4:30am) and so we wanted to get out of there early. When we got home, Mike uploaded another web album to the blog with photos of the church Christmas party on it. If you want to see the captions, you have to click on the slideshow and you will see what I have written underneath each picture.
After that, we watched a great movie that we have seen before, but it was so long ago that we remembered very little of it. It's called 'Firewall' with Harrison Ford and if you haven't seen it, I would recommend you go out and rent it. It's our kind of movie - lots of action and no romance. :-) It's basically about a bank computer programmer whose family was kidnapped by a team who wanted him to transfer millions of dollars from wealthy bank clients into an offshore account. Well worth the money of a rental!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Since we had stayed up so late last night, we actually slept in this morning and it was very nice. After breakfast, we spent the morning cleaning (oh joy, oh bliss). First, we started with the kitchen floor - I wasn't sure when the last time it had had a proper cleaning and so it got done three times: once with soap, a rinse with plain water and then again with vinegar - it sure looks clean now! :-) After that, it was time to clean the bathroom (NOT one of my favourite jobs) including the floor with vinegar. We don't have a vacuum so I couldn't do the carpets, but the tile floors are sparkling clean. :-) I was sweating by the time I was done the cleaning and so I sat down on the living room floor under the fan to cool off. Even though it gets hot here, we find that the fans are effective enough to cool the place down. Sometimes we do have to put it on 3 (high) for a little to get it cooled down fast if we are just coming in from outside and they haven't been on, but hopefully that means that we won't have to use the air conditioner a lot once we buy a house. I prefer fresh air (in a house and in a car) much better than air con (as they call it here).
After that, we played a few games of cards - we leave them on our kitchen table as we are always sitting down for a game or two - and then we had lunch. After lunch, we played some more games and then got ready to go to the church Christmas party. Everyone was asked to bring something for it (an entree or a salad) and so I decided to bring 'Char's Meal' which is pasta with spaghetti sauce (this time with hamburger) and shredded cheese melted on top. It was always a favourite with the girls when they lived at home and it's easy to make, so I figured that it was a good choice.
Christine and Chris asked us if we would go early to the chapel to help set up for the party and we were happy to do that. Since they don't have a gym yet as part of their building, they just have regular chairs to sit on during church time and so we took all of the hard plastic ones and stacked them and just left the nice soft cushy ones around the outside of the room. After that, we set up some tables outside which the food would go on and then decorated the tables and put up garlands and ornaments around the courtyard. If you have already looked at the slideshow of the chapel, you would have noticed that there is a courtyard of grass in the middle of all the buildings and that there are seats (benches) around the outside of the courtyard. This is where we held the eating part of the party.
I couldn't believe how much food had been brought by everyone (there were about 80 people there) and yet, by the time we had all finished eating, there was very little food left. Perhaps being out in the fresh air gave everyone a good appetite. It was lovely being able to hold a Christmas party outside and we were all wearing our shorts and sandals, too - wouldn't be able to do that in Canada, eh? :-) After dinner, Santa came and gave the primary children all a gift (each parent had been asked to provide a $5. gift for their child to be put into Santa's sack) and a loot bag. Then, since there were loot bags left over, the youth were asked to come up to see Santa - it didn't take long for them to get there once they realized they were getting a bag of goodies. :-)
After dessert (cupcakes and pineapple with ice-cream), we all went into the chapel where a program was presented. The children played a game of 'Bob and Statue' which they really loved playing. Basically it's like the game of Statue where you move around to the music and then have to stand still like a statue when the music stops - the difference between that game and the 'Bob and Statue' game is that when the music stops the first time, you have to bob (crouch down and be still) and the next time the music stops, you have to stand still like a statue. The game continues like that alternating between bobbing and being a statue and you have to remember which one you have to do when the music stops. The Relief Society President is also a music teacher at a primary school and so she had brought some castanets along for the children to use while they sang another song - that was fun for the children as well.
After that, we sang carols amidst readings from the Bible (Luke 2) which talked about Jesus being born. There were also some musical presentations - a trio (the R.S. president's sister and two sons), a quartet (the trio plus Trudy - another lady in our branch) and a two solos (by one of the R.S. President's sons). It was a lovely evening and I was very pleased at how many people I knew that were there even though we have only been here for three weeks. The party started at 5pm and we were finished cleaning up and home by 8pm. Mike took some photos of the party and he will put them into a slideshow tomorrow for you guys.
After that, we played a few games of cards - we leave them on our kitchen table as we are always sitting down for a game or two - and then we had lunch. After lunch, we played some more games and then got ready to go to the church Christmas party. Everyone was asked to bring something for it (an entree or a salad) and so I decided to bring 'Char's Meal' which is pasta with spaghetti sauce (this time with hamburger) and shredded cheese melted on top. It was always a favourite with the girls when they lived at home and it's easy to make, so I figured that it was a good choice.
Christine and Chris asked us if we would go early to the chapel to help set up for the party and we were happy to do that. Since they don't have a gym yet as part of their building, they just have regular chairs to sit on during church time and so we took all of the hard plastic ones and stacked them and just left the nice soft cushy ones around the outside of the room. After that, we set up some tables outside which the food would go on and then decorated the tables and put up garlands and ornaments around the courtyard. If you have already looked at the slideshow of the chapel, you would have noticed that there is a courtyard of grass in the middle of all the buildings and that there are seats (benches) around the outside of the courtyard. This is where we held the eating part of the party.
I couldn't believe how much food had been brought by everyone (there were about 80 people there) and yet, by the time we had all finished eating, there was very little food left. Perhaps being out in the fresh air gave everyone a good appetite. It was lovely being able to hold a Christmas party outside and we were all wearing our shorts and sandals, too - wouldn't be able to do that in Canada, eh? :-) After dinner, Santa came and gave the primary children all a gift (each parent had been asked to provide a $5. gift for their child to be put into Santa's sack) and a loot bag. Then, since there were loot bags left over, the youth were asked to come up to see Santa - it didn't take long for them to get there once they realized they were getting a bag of goodies. :-)
After dessert (cupcakes and pineapple with ice-cream), we all went into the chapel where a program was presented. The children played a game of 'Bob and Statue' which they really loved playing. Basically it's like the game of Statue where you move around to the music and then have to stand still like a statue when the music stops - the difference between that game and the 'Bob and Statue' game is that when the music stops the first time, you have to bob (crouch down and be still) and the next time the music stops, you have to stand still like a statue. The game continues like that alternating between bobbing and being a statue and you have to remember which one you have to do when the music stops. The Relief Society President is also a music teacher at a primary school and so she had brought some castanets along for the children to use while they sang another song - that was fun for the children as well.
After that, we sang carols amidst readings from the Bible (Luke 2) which talked about Jesus being born. There were also some musical presentations - a trio (the R.S. president's sister and two sons), a quartet (the trio plus Trudy - another lady in our branch) and a two solos (by one of the R.S. President's sons). It was a lovely evening and I was very pleased at how many people I knew that were there even though we have only been here for three weeks. The party started at 5pm and we were finished cleaning up and home by 8pm. Mike took some photos of the party and he will put them into a slideshow tomorrow for you guys.
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