Festivities are over, time to get to it!

After two and a half wonderful Christmas gatherings with a few tribes today, it's finally the eve of the much anticipated event of the year.

The last couple of months slogging away will come to fruition (at least for a few people) tomorrow as we head off to Chinderah, NSW as the advance set-up party for our summer family mission.

Thinking back one one of my posts back in August/September which described the despair and frustration of not finding anyone to come on team, is a primary example of how our faith is tested. With the benefit of hindsight though I can say that deep down there was a small part of me that was telling me that God will provide the things required at the right time and place.

17 wonderful volunteers will spend the next 8 days running Kids Klub, Teens and Family Evening programs at a caravan park in NSW.

We have also been blessed to have a person from our church who will provide his services as a truck driver to transport all our heavy equipment down and back up again afterwards, in his 5 tonne truck. He even told us he had two 8 tonne trucks available also, but the 5 is more than enough for our needs. Gotta reflect on the goodwill of others that God uses to fulfil His plans.

Apart from the joy of spending quality time with the kids and families who attend our programs, there is one thing I have missed in the last two years since I last went..........Siesta zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I want a Boonie

Still waiting for someone to buy themselves a few cartons of VBs, and giving me the tokens for the Boonie.

Any takers?

Two weeks worth

We've witnessed a fantastic Ashes series so far.

Caught up with my high school friends.

Been to a family wedding

And an engagement party

Next lot of parties is our respective work Christmas shindigs this Saturday. Trust them to put them both on the same day and time but not location. However W has scored himself a 'date', whilst I'll have to go without :D

I wonder which party would be more fun, a beer bottle manufacturing plant party or an accountant's party.......

Bust a Toad

Toad busting becomes tax deductible

The Minister for the Environment and Heritage has announced that that two toad-busting Western Australian environment groups, the Kimberley Toad Busters Inc and the Stop the Toad Foundation Inc, have been granted deductible gift recipient status.

*POP*

It all begins today

Tis the season to be a fanatic.

Unfortunately we have no tickets to the 'game' that started today, but will be going to the ODI in January 2007.

Whilst all other wives moan and grumble, this one is happy that the best summer game season has started.

But I'm sure it won't be long until we're sick of watching the following TV commercials:

-VB
-Solo (the image of that guy racing after the garbage truck on a wheelie bin to retrieve his can of Solo)
-WeetBix
-Milo
-3 Mobile

Let's drink to the David Boon and Ian Botham figurines, thanks to VB's latest marketing ploy, and the humble but nostalgic 'baggy green'.

*btw, does anyone actually have one?

Bubs, Bubs, Bubs

It appears to be the week of bubs this week:

K & M had their baby girl on Tuesday

R & K had their baby boy on Monday

To cap it all off, both couples had their babies in the same hospital.

Although it didn't happen this week, A & S had their baby boy last month!

Is there anyone else that is having a bub that I should know about?

All expenses paid!

Last Friday night we went to a dinner at Michaels Riverside Restaurant that was thrown for two blokes who were retiring from duties at W's glass factory.

It's been a while since I've been to such work dinners where all expenses (including the taxi fare to the city) were paid for by the company......that also meant everyone was drinking to their hearts content. This also meant that almost every empty beer and wine bottle was scrutinised for the quality of the manufacture and defects. *rolls eyes*

It was also a fact that both W and myself were the youngest people there, amongst a bunch of 40-60 year-old people who have been working at the same company for at least 35 years! They even have 25 year and 40 year anniversaries for employees!

People nowadays don't last that long anymore. I mean, I can't see myself like that, must be generation-shift.

I surprisingly hit it off well with W's boss's wife, who's family has only been in Brisbane for 10 months. Bulk of the conversation was.....ahem.......fishing.....and them offering to take us out on their big boat into Moreton Bay for a weekend sometime. *rubs hands together with glee*

Family Movies

Current dilemma- finding a suitable family movie (preferably G-rated) for our mission's movie night.

My all time favourite children's movie is Toy Story 2, but we mainly showcase a new movie that has been released either this year or in the last 2 years.

Shortlist includes:

The Incredibles
Ice Age- The Meltdown
Over the Hedge
Shrek 2

I haven't seen the Meltdown or Over the Hedge yet.....methinks I need to pay a friendly visit to the local video store. $1 Tuesdays here I come!

The countdown begins

The jacarandas are blooming
Everyone at work is stressed and grumbling
D-Day is just over two weeks away
Time for hibernation, I say

See your smiling faces in November

Too Busy

Been too busy to have done anything really exciting in the last couple of weeks, although a few things to come to mind:

Made gingerbread men (and a woman and someone in a loincloth) and gingerbread houses with the girls last Saturday afternoon which was great fun. After most of the girls left, we sat around the house eating dinner and watching 'Nanny McPhee'. I know it is a kids movie, but truly.....how could anyone NOT WANT to watch a movie with Colin Firth and Emma Thompson in it??

Had dinner with a couple of high school friends on Thursday night, as one of them was down our way for work this week. The restaurant we went to had a comedy night that evening, but nothing exciting happened to my memory. Except the last person we heard as we were paying the bill, didn't get any laughs.....poor guy.

The most unfortunate news is that after 25 long years, I am officially short-sighted, to the degree of around.....100? (I don't think this is that bad...unless some other spectacle-wearing people think otherwise)

Today was spent looking for frames to suit my unusually-shaped face. As long as I do not look like a fly or gaudy Lee-Lin Chin I'll be happy.

Results

Rather than buying bait, why not test out your skills and try catching it instead, like this person below:



From there, the fish being caught got bigger..



and bigger...



until finally we got a legal sized fish we could take home with us.



Unfortunately, no matter how much chicken bones and calamari flesh we actually jammed into the crab pots, the mud crabs were off on their own holiday. They missed out on a feast BIG TIME!

Not too long now

A fishing we will go
A fishing we will go
Heigh Ho the derry-ho
A fishing we will go

Throwing in the towel

Why is it that after a reasonable break from study, things start piling up again when you start it all over again, hopefully for the last, last time. (study, that is)

I honestly thought, earlier this week, that it was the most stupidest idea to put our hands up for beach mission directorship this year. Initial response has been a lot slower than I had expected, past members not being available and a fundraiser or two has yet to be organised.

Despite the delay in response, and the fact that people are unable to commit at apparently too early a time, inspiration has come from some most unlikely of people. People I don't even know actually, or have only met once, previously.

One person who's contacts were provided to us through SU, sounded really enthusiastic, to the point that they enquired directly to SU about our particular mission. To think that out of 30 odd summer missions they decided to choose ours, one of the more smaller teams, to be involved.

Hopefully the responses will be positive in the next few weeks before the first, planned team meeting later this month.

Apart from this, study hasn't been as well as I'd like it to be. Maybe it's just because I'm soooooo close to finishing this once and for all, I'm getting slacker and slacker. People that know me well may think otherwise.

Whilst I am tempted, I don't think I'll give it all up just yet.

I am definitely looking forward to catching some good-sized and edible fish next weekend on our houseboat trip. Speaking of which.......we have invested in brand new gear- namely one spin combo and a baitcaster. Will see who has the more success.

I smell

Rain! The wholesome fragrance of sky juice.

Makes me feel sleepy.

Makes me want to curl up in bed and read a book.

Makes me remember what an awesome and gracious God we have, by answering our earnest prayers for rain.

How do you become famous?

Due to the overdose of media reports on a certain unsolved murder case from 10 years ago, and a rather heated debate on Weekend Sunrise between a pro-pageant American mum and anti-pageant Australian woman, I couldn't help but do some research into the alarming trend that is........children's beauty pageants.

One argument is that the parents are using their own children to express their own passions and dreams which they could not achieve when they were a child. This is not only quite sad, but also rather unloving of them as parents, to take away the innocence and joy of being a child. The years spent as a child are already few and far between, and to encourage them to grow up when they clearly are not ready may lead to the child becoming vain, selfish, spoilt, and even confused about who they really are.

It appears to really only be popular in the USA and steeped into the culture there, however with so many of our popular TV shows being exported from the USA to our shores, one can begin to imagine the possibility of these diffusing into our society.

Come to think of it, things such as the Dolly Model contests already pulls the pageant strings.

Some interesting facts I came across:

Kirsten Dunst- Kirsten started out in showbiz at the age of three, where she began filming television commercials, and was a Ford model as a child.

ELijah Wood- At an early age, Elijah showed a knack for entertaining and wowing audiences, and his mother decided to take him to Los Angeles for an Annual International Modeling and Talent Association Convention.

Kaite Holmes-As a teenager, she began attending modeling school.

Lindsay Lohan- She began her career at age three as a Ford model, and also made appearances in over sixty television commercials.

So it seems that 1) you need to be in one of those K-Mart catalogues wearing cheap clothes, or 2) Be prepared to endorse "Wok Star" stir-fry sauces on the idiot box to get your career break.

No thanks

Fill in the blanks

Here is a list of items beginning with B:

Bees
Bison
Baked Potato
Beefed-up Men
Bus Ticket
Bus Driver
Books
Bertie Beetle Showbags

Yesterday I went to the Ekka.

We wandered into the showbag pavilion, and whilst others were busy buying....... there, I forgoed this purchase and headed off to buy cheap .......instead.

After downing one of those iconic strawberry ice-cream cones (mmmmm), the next venue was a place where we watched ....... hacking at a hunk of wood.

No trip would be complete without visiting the honey pavilion to see the ....... and my in-laws.

I then downed a ....... before heading up to the main arena for the night program. One of the highlights I wanted to see were the .......

Although the absolute highlight of the day came earlier that afternoon, when I asked for a ....... from the .......

All I asked for was an off-peak ticket for 2 zones. I gave him $3.90 as expected, but he said it was only $2. On sitting down in our seats, we examined our....... together. He had to pay $3.90 for the same ticket and I only paid $2. The ....... actually issued me with a concession off-peak, without asking for any ID!!! HoHoHo!



Beefed-up Man

The westerley winds are here

Which also means that the Royal Brisbane Show is just around the corner.

Backtracking though, last weekend I purposely woke up earlier on the Sunday morning, grabbed a couple of green 'enviro' bags, jumped in the car and drove to the Mt Gravatt Showgrounds.

On getting there, I plus another 10 or so cars (and growing by the second) were met with two high school-aged girls standing on the corner waving big cardboard signs that said "No Markets or Golf". Puzzled, I got out of the car and enquired. I was told that it was because the Mt Gravatt Show was on that weekend.

Apparently, it was common knowledge even to people living down at Logan, a completely different city, that the Mt Gravatt Show is ALWAYS, ALWAYS two weekends before the Brisbane one starts. Not to me obviously.

Anyhoo, work has given us flexibility to choose when to have our show public holiday, apart from the actual Wednesday which is good as it gives us the option of taking either a Friday or Monday off, and have a long weekend amongst a time where public holidays are severely limited.

So, it's probably also time to provide some evidence that the show is definitely in town.



Here is a partial view of the Agricultural pavilion setting up on yesterday, namely the honey pavilion in the foreground and father-in-law in shot.

Weekend musings

I recall sharing previously about what activities can be done at a staff retreat. AS it turned out, there was no water-skiiing but certainly some drunken dancing.

Due to the music entertainment over dinner being so loud, I actually almost lost my voice from trying to talk over it. Best option was to sit down and not talk for about an hour, which wasn't hard to do considering I could still be amused by the partners downing many a glasses of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages.

One thing though that I did which I haven't done for a long while, was play Speed. A good workmate of mine brought along a deck of cards to the retreat, so before dinner and after dinner around 11:30pm, we set-up shop in the foyer of the hotel/resort and played a few rounds. We then proceeded to teach the IT guy the game, but he said it was too hard, so instead we chose to play SNAP. Alas.... even he stuffed that up but by then it was too late so we tottered off to bed, whilst the partners stayed up until quarter to 3 in the morning.

Another thing we did last weekend was take the 2 hour winding road down to Lamington National Park, namely O'Reillys Guesthouse. The weather threatened to dampen our trip, but luckily the rain stayed away and we were able to enjoy a nice picnic lunch overlooking people feeding a mob of colourful parrots, and one little butcher bird called "Butch".


Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of "Butch"....but, this was one of the parrots.

As expected, a supposedly 30 minute walk turned out to be an hour walk.

The obligatory post about

FIGS Camp 2006.

It was already a week ago, but as someone else mentioned in their blog, there are so many memories and fun times from it.

We pray that this will become an annual feast of fellowship with the youth at church. I was especially encouraged by the little discussion group I had. Being the topic of relationships, it made sense to have girls/boys only discussion groups.

My little group had some very interesting discussions, and what really caught my attention, was the fact that some people were not afraid to share their feelings and thoughts to the rest of us, about singleness, dating and marriage.
Bearing in mind some of us had only barely introduced each other the previous night.

Panel discussion was interesting. After being sort of dobbed in to be the female married person on the panel, really challenged me to share the experience after only 9 months. I realised that although the questions being asked wanted a black or white response, it was actually not possible to give such an answer.

Truthfully though, I went into marriage with realistic expectations, in that the honeymoon period is limited, and the key is to work on the marriage, rather than having this false vision that all is going to be rosy, especially in the first year.

A book that we read together was "The most important year in a womans/man's life", which basically describes the first 12 months of marriage as being the hardest to work through.

Although some of the younger high school kids pretty much tuned out once marriage was mentioned in the talks, I do hope that the camp in its entirety has opened their hearts and minds to a greater understanding of God's marriage and love to the church.

Thanks again to Dan for presenting such insightful and challenging talks on the weekend.

And.......we're out :(

It hurts. It really hurts.

Not that I am a soccer fanatic, but Johann is commisserating with me over his mug of German beer and string of sausages.

Alas it is time to unstring the snags, put Johann to sleep and tear up the cloths making up the German flag and maybe dig them out later on this year at craft during Klub at mission.

argh, did I mention that 'M' word? Yes, it is official that the two of us will be co-directors of Tweed River Family Mission yet again this year.

So, will be likely to commence the team member search in the not-too-distant future. On the other hand, if I feel you are capable of being a team member, watch out.....I'll be after YOU!!!