A week in review

Believe it or not we have lived a pretty normal life these past 10 days...not alot to blog about. We are winding down on our formal school year - we will scrapbook AU history and do some geography in the next couple of months. We have used our extra time to spend time with friends, go swimming in Nan*ngo (they have an indoor, heated pool) and just have some down time to play card games and do some reading.
This last friday night, I had the amazing opportunity to be part of an outreach for our church. We had a women's night called "take a walk in my shoes". It was patterned after Dr. Phil's show with 5 women talking about issues in their life (mine was change). Dr. Phil wasn't able to make the journey across the puddle, so we had a local counselor named Bill (Dr. Bill) to do the interviewing. We also had a guy sing some shoe songs like "blue suede shoes". It would take a while to go into all the detail of the evening, but it was a fabulous evening of sharing. I might add that we packed out the hall with 150 women and more that were wanting to come.
We leave on Thursday to go sailing. We will be on a boat for a week (no phones or computers) and then RT will take a medical education class on our return home. -Grandma Ruth, you can take two weeks off from checking the blog, and don't worry-we will be safe!
I would like to take the opportunity once again to thank you for reading the blog, we are amazed and humbled at the amount of people who have been following our journey.

Easterfest (2nd post today)

As expected, we had an amazing time at Easterfest. We enjoyed hearing some familiar voices from home (Audio Adrenaline, Rebekka St.James, and Naturally 7). Rebekka St.James is Aussie but lives and performs in the States. We had 7 big top tents that had continuous Christian music from morning until night. R.T and Cas enjoyed the Christian jazz bands-their new love is Newworldson. I moved between Christian pop rock and the worship tents. I also took in a Dr. speaking on stem cell. Abbie enjoyed the Narnia children's area complete with crafts, sand pit, wii games, veggie tale movies etc and she enjoyed the carnival rides. It was great to have all this entertainment included in the weekend price. Aussies kept to their motto of "no worries".
We rented a house with several other families and on Easter morning we had 21 people from our King*roy church over for breakfast. What a blessing!
Sunday night we had a worship time with all 10,000 attenders. What a way to celebrate our risen Savior!!!
A highlight of the weekend was the two additions to our family. Georgina and Jhonny are Bolivian children that we have the privilege of supporting through compassion ministries.


Evening concert


Abbie was a cat one day and a clown the next


Aussies call these dodgem cars. In America we prefer to bump rather than dodge. Abbie loved the drivers seat. Anyone know a good Chiropractor

We are sitting with about 15 people from our church, waiting for the evening concert to begin.

Sheep Shearing Shed

Say that three times fast. We skipped out on some of the Saturday morning sessions at Easterfest and drove about 30 minutes west to the biggest operating sheep shearing shed. We enjoyed pancakes for morning tea and then got to see a couple of sheep being sheared. Did you know that Australia invented the tool that is being used everywhere for shearing sheep? It was great to experience yet another part of Aussie culture.

Shearing floor where 80 sheep could be sheared. "Back in the 1860's a fleece would hit the floor every 8 seconds." 3,000 sheep would be sheared a day.


Have you heard the saying "pull the wool over his eyes"? This sheep had just been sheared in front of a large crowd. The sheep shearer patted the sheep to a laying position and then put the sheep's fleece that had just been sheared over the sheep's eyes. The sheep went to "sleep" for quite a while

Australia's famous invention

poor sheep is giving his coat off his back for my sweater

Easter

(This is the second post in a row. You get to hear about mice and Easter in Au all in one day :-)
I have always loved Easter. The daffodils are blooming, gardens are being planted, the grass is turning green, the weather is moving from cold to warm etc etc. It seems like it all fits with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is so easy to get caught in the excitement of Easter while being surrounded by new life. Have you ever thought that Easter is not in the Spring for everyone? That had never crossed my mind. We get to celebrate Easter in the fall this year. (Granted, we are still experiencing 80 degree days-though Easter is supposed to be in the low 60's) We have had blooming flowers since our arrival last Oct. , so there isn't anything new in the gardens. We are not excited about warm temperature. The grass is finally slowing its growth and is not as green as it once was. Hmmmm, so what does this mean for our Easter celebration. After contemplating this issue for sometime, I have decided that Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of new life, as long as I keep my focus on Him there is heaps of celebration to be had!!!
We will be celebrating Easter in Toowoomba. This is our Springfield. It is about 90 minutes away. We will be attending Easterfest. (feel free to google it) It is a 3 day event with many Christian artists-including Audio Adrenaline and Rebekah St. James. There will also be activities for the kids like a BMX show and carnival rides. We will be celebrating this Easter with many other Christians on a different continent in a different season in an nontraditional way. BUT Praise God that in spite of all this we will be celebrating the resurrection of the same Lord and Saviour that you will be. Happy Resurrection Day!

Mice

I always thought that living in the countryside in Missouri brought about many critters. Little did I know that living in AU brings on heaps more. I was talking with a neighbor shortly after arrival in AU and she said that last year there was on epidemic and you could actually see the little creatures running around outside (not to mention, in the house). When she told me this, I was very thankful that I came in 2009 and not 2008. A couple of weeks ago, I was having tea with a friend and I saw this metal box measuring about 6 inches x 8 inches. I asked her what it was and she said that it was for catching mice. I said "you catch them live and release them" she said "no, the snapping trap only catches 1, this one catches up to 9. then we take the trap and drown them". UGH!!!
We just killed our 4th mouse since we arrived 6 months ago. We live in a nice housing development!!! This last mouse that we had was alive in the rubbish bin. It made for quite an exciting evening trying to get it drowned.
I am so praying that we don't have a need to invest in the mega mouse trap. Otherwise, I may be seeing you all before October.