New Year's Eve

Who would have thought that this year I'd be spending time in Australia for New Year's and making sandmen instead of snowmen and spending New Year's Eve on the beach. :)

Here are some pictures from our New Year's Eve beach fun!

I <3 Frankston

 What kind of trust activities can we do at the beach!?! We didn't get any pictures but we also did trust falls off the wall. :)

Tamara and I

Sandman!

Can you see the whale?

Sandman #2

Harry and I with our creation.

Food is Yum!

Last salad I made. :)

I thought I would share some yumminess from Australia. So, first off as it's getting warmer we're eating lots of salad, and according to Nancy it's more of an Australian thing to make your salads on a long plate instead of dumping it all in a bowl which I think is what most of us are used to. It looks really pretty and I think I've become a bit of a pro at it. I might have to take this idea home with me for when my family has people over. When it's just me and my family I think we'll stick with throwing it all in a bowl. :P

Milo in a hot drink! Yum!

There are also some very yummy drinks and I blame Benjamin for getting me hooked on this next thing, I'll have to find something similar to it when I head back to the States. It is called Milo (Nestle), you can do some really yummy things with it. You can put it in your warm drink and make it kind of like a hot chocolate or even better, you can sprinkle it over your ice cream and then melt some peanut butter and drizzle that over the top (thanks Benjy!) I really will have to find something similar, I am completely hooked!

Being silly after a lesson while waiting for her to get picked up.
She really enjoys playing with my Mac. :)

Now for something that doesn't have anything to do with food. My little student Rose has just finished up her first term of lessons with me and is on her summer holiday and we'll start up again in February I believe. She caught onto the recorder like a pro and she's catching on to flute beautifully, she gets some of the most beautiful sounds out in the mid - low register right now and every once in a while over blows and really doesn't get a half bad sound on the mid to upper range! I'm excited to see what progress we can continue to make once we reconvene! She also performed wonderfully at the end of term concert for the home school group. She played Jingle Bells on recorder like a pro! I am very proud of her. :)

Tis the Season

So, it is still getting harder and harder to realize that Christmas is just around the corner as the temperatures here in Australia continue to get warmer and we're talking about organizing trips and vacations.......But to get more in the holiday spirit I did some present wrapping today and then this Monday and Tuesday the home school choir will be performing at the nursing home and then on their own little concert a Christmas program. It will be cute!

Christmas Song Aussie Style!

So since Australia doesn't get snow during the Christmas season seeing as it is now summer in this part of the world they have taken the liberty of creating their own lyrics to an old favorite, Jingle Bells.

Here are the lyrics:

AUSSIE JINGLE BELLS

Dashing through the bush

In a rusty Holden Ute

Kicking up the dust

Esky in the boot 

Kelpie by my side 

Singing Christmas songs

It's summer time and I am in 

My singlet, shorts & thongs

CHORUS: 

OH, JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS JINGLE ALL THE WAY 

CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA ON A SCORCHING SUMMER'S DAY 

JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE BELLS CHRISTMAS TIME IS BEAUT 

OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE IN A RUSTY HOLDEN UTE

Engine's getting hot 

Dodge the kangaroos 

Swaggie climbs aboard 

He is welcome too

All the family is there 

Sitting by the pool 

Christmas day, the Aussie way 

By the barbecue!

CHORUS

Come the afternoon 

Grandpa has a doze 

The kids and uncle Bruce 

Are swimming in their clothes 

The time comes round to go 

We take a family snap 

Then pack the car and all shoot through 

Before the washing up

CHORUS

Funny thing is, I've now been here long enough to know what all the lyrics are saying/talking about! I hope you all enjoy!

Almost Half Way

Balcony View (from this morning) :)

So in about a week or so I will have been in Australia for half of my allotted time. It's crazy to think that it is December and I got here at the end of August, I've been here almost 4 months, time sure does fly!

In this blog post I am just looking back over the time that I've been here so far and just thinking about what God has done in my life and how He has provided. So let us begin at the beginning!

1. I made it to Australia with no delays, no visa or passport troubles, and did not lose one luggage item.

2. I made the time change very smoothly (it's a big one!).

3. I am living with the wonderful Blackwood family. :)

4. Even though one of my eyes was overly dry from the flight and cracked in my first week here, I was able to quickly get to an eye doctor and get medicine and they gave me a discount on the price of my appointment.

5. After a month of patient waiting and diligent prayer I was offered a 3 days a week cleaning job and have one private lesson student. And as of last week I have a job lined up to teach general music for a home school group once a fortnight on Fridays (I can't wait, I've already started lesson planning!).

6. I have been so privileged to get to know the families of the Frankston RPC as well as others from Mckinnon and Geelong!

7. The Lord has allowed our technology to be advanced enough to skype and email with family and friends back home (which keeps the majority of home sickness at bay).

8. Cory is, Lord willing, coming to visit me in February!

My my my and the list could keep going! Now is when the rough part starts, spending Christmas and New Years and Easter away from home, but I can always remember that the Lord does not give me more than I can handle, so I will be able to get through it! I did some thinking and realized that I am spending every major holiday here in Australia minus the 4th of July! Yikes! But, it does make me look forward to next years holidays and getting to spend them with my family and friends back home.

But how exciting is it to be able to look at that list and know that the Lord did all of that?! Praise Him!

It just makes me want to sing Psalm 117B from the psalter!

"Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
All you nations, extol Him; extol Him, all you peoples;
For great is His love towards us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord
endures forever."

Christmas Tree Lighting

This past Saturday after getting home from Geelong with the Blackwood family Tamara, Benjamin and I went into Frankston for the Christmas Tree Lighting where we met up with Uncle Ralph and his son Daniel. It was a bit strange to be outside where I wasn't freezing cold, there was no snow possibility, no ice, and I was near a beach watching a Gospel Choir perform, a fireworks show, and the 100 year old tree being lit for the holidays. It almost felt like the 4th of July except that there was a crane lifting a sleigh up and around the tree with Santa. Weird....Any who, it was a lot of fun and here are a couple photos from it.

Here are some photos that my poor camera attempted to capture of the fireworks. Also when you look up at the photo at the top of the page you can see the crane that I was mentioning earlier with the sleigh hooked up to it!

Enjoy and a Happy Holiday Season as it begins!

Spiders!!!

For those of you who are not Australian and have heard the horror stories about the spiders in this country, it's true they are big and some quite poisonous. Here's an update about a big one!

Last night Nancy (mum of the house) was greeted by a huntsman in her bedroom who wanted to wish her a goodnight and Maria saved her poor mother by catching the spider in jar and releasing back out to the wild (the backyard). Here it is!

Huntsman in a jar!

Bendigo

This past weekend was a busy one and the main excitement on Saturday was our 3 hour journey to Bendigo to see the Blackwood's friend Emily Mikelsons where we stayed the day and then traveled the 3 hours back to Frankston that evening.

Sour dough roll and ice coffee.

We began our trip just after 6 AM, stopped in a little town for coffee before reaching Bendigo, meeting up with Emily, meeting her housemates, and then heading out for an early lunch. I really enjoy all of the cafe's that are on almost every corner. I think we all really enjoyed the fruit filled sour dough rolls and Maria and I definitely enjoyed our ice coffee! And of course Tamara got a yummy milk shake. :)

Then we decided to walk off our early lunch in this really nice park that had a lot of art and a rainforest type garden in the middle. The art was really nice, there were some mosaics that were all over the ground explaining some of Bendigo's history and then there was even a big glass statue of Peter Rabbit!

One of the many mosaics. 

Maria and I with Peter!

 Are "rainforest" journey was a lot of fun. It was very pretty, the only downer was that we saw tons of bats hanging over us in the trees. Once we noticed them our fun was ruined and we quickly left! :P

Little man made waterfall. 

Maria, Tamara, and I

BATS!!!

We then ended our walk near a green house with the outer garden being this mass amount of rose bushes covering the landscape!

Green House

The inside sadly was not all that grand, but we decided it was probably because they just put certain plants inside during certain seasons of the year.

I think we enjoyed the rose's the most since both Tamara and I have the middle name of Rose. :)

Extra Yumminess!

During my last post I forgot to mention that for an International Dinner that we had at church I found a recipe for Crab Rangoon that was successful and it was very yummy. I was told that it tasted like what you would order at a Chinese restaurant or take out. Here are some pictures from that cooking day!

Mixture and Wraps

And they turned out! The recipe made about 50 in the end!

Reporting from Down Under!

The last couple weeks/weekends have been filled with many fun and busy activities. Hopefully I can fit some explanations and pictures in.

Benjamin enjoying the Bodhran

A fun fact about Australia (similar to the U.S.) is that there is a definite mixture of people that have moved to Australia. You have people from Asia, the U.K, U.S., India, etc............And with that comes fun little things that they bring along with them. A couple weeks back we had our prayer meeting at the McKeeman's who are originally from Ireland and Benjamin Blakston found a fun Irish Drum called the Bodhran and enjoyed playing it out in the living room.

Benjamin and Rose with Jonah

Then the newest excitement that the church in Frankston is the birth of Jonah Blakston! Very beautiful baby who I was born early in the morning and I was able to visit that evening after work. It was very touching to see how much the baby was being enjoyed by his 4 older siblings. :)



By the next weekend us girls started out traveling to Geelong Saturday morning for the Titus 2 Women's brunch which was very good, which was then followed by us all back at Dixon's Creek for the annual Congregational Camp where we spent Saturday enjoying each others company, playing ultimate frisbee, and cricket (yes I learned the basic rules of cricket), as well as a Bible trivia game in the evening. Then Sunday we had breakfast together, Church, lunch, and a Psalm sing. Was definitely a good couple days of fellowship.


I have also realized that I talk about Dixon's Creek and have not put up all that many photos for anyone who has not been there to be able to to see what I'm talking about so here are a couple photos of the camp from when we were there for the Congregational Camp.

Looking up the hill in the bush from the girls dorm.

One side (a quick sneak peek) of the inside of the the girls dorm. The guys dorm is set up very similarly. 

Getting the hall prepared for Sunday worship.

Some more of the grounds.

March for the Babies

Proverbs 31:8-9

Photo by Ruth Findlay

This past Saturday was a very wide opening experience. I went with a group from church into Melbourne for the March for the Babies (pro-life). In the state of Victoria four years ago they made it possible for women to abort their pregnancy all the way up till the day before the baby is born (Abortion Law Reform Act 2008). I remember the first time I heard that and felt so sick inside. At the march I believe they estimated close to 3 thousand people showed up. Our march ended in front of Parliament House where there were a few speakers and all but one mentioned the name of Christ. There were of course people opposing our view (80 people for pro-abortion) and just reading the signs that they carried and listening to what they were yelling just shows how selfish and unfeeling of others we can be. I am definitely glad that I went.

Very yum Trampoline!

After the march, before we caught the train home, we all stopped and got ice cream and enjoyed each others company. Then once we got back to Frankston we stopped and bought some chips and gravy. I'm going to have to say that I really miss good'ol American french fries...and bacon..... :)

Back in Frankston

Most Recent Happenings

The temperatures are beginning to get warmer, the birds are just as loud and beautiful, the spiders are making their appearances, and God is good. :)

So, we will begin with a praise to God for providing me with some part time work cleaning at a school after the school hours for 4 hours a couple evenings a week. My employer and the ladies that I work with are all very enjoyable and have some very unique stories. 

Sample of the cool graffiti that covered many alley ways.

Fisher Kiddos!

Thursday was a lot of fun. Maria, Benjamin, and I met up with Megan Fisher and the kids for a day in Melbourne. It was a very artsy place and it was just nice to catch up with the Fisher family and see how much the kids have grown!

I am also about to reconvene recorder lessons with Rose Blakston which is always a lot of fun. I'm so excited because I found some free beginning recorder music online and one of the pieces was B-I-B-L-E!! That one will be a lot of fun for us to do, I think she will like it. :)

This past weekend (the last weekend of holiday) was the Young Adult Camp at Dixon's Creek. It was a lot of fun to meet more of the young adults from the RP churches of Australia. We had a couple fun filled days together. We traveled out to the Yarra Valley to the camp site Friday night for pizza and a movie. That night a huntsman spider decided to grace us with it's presence as it crawled onto our projected movie screen on the wall. Then Saturday we had a very delicious brekky followed, by ultimate frisbee, lunch at the Yarrawood Vineyard, softball in the rain (got rather muddy), dinner and games. Sunday we listened to a sermon by Ed Donnely over Genesis 1:1. It was very good and gave us several great reminders. The Bible is about God and it was given to us to learn about Him. We also had a good chat about how we do not need to prove God's existence because He can prove Himself and you can see the proof in His creation, and we are His instruments that glorify Him. 

View of the vineyard from the restaurant. 

One Month

I can't believe it, as of yesterday (Monday) I have been in Australia for a fully month. Wow, time flies...

So a little bit more has happened since the last time I updated this blog. Benjamin and the basketball team he played on made it to the finals, we had a surprise 16 birthday party for our friend Kenny, spent the night at Dixon's Creek before the working bee the following day, went to see the ordination and installation of Brandon Fisher as a ruling elder for the Mckinnon RPC, I've volunteered at a nursing home by playing games and my flute with some ladies from church, and today I spent a fun afternoon walking the beach with Rose and Louise Blakston and then joined the rest of what is left of their family (that isn't away at a church camp presently) for dinner.

Now most of that has happened just within this weekend and today so it's been busy but a lot of fun. I need to start writing a bit sooner after these things happen so I can give you some more detail. I'll aim for that on my next blog posting. But here are some pictures that I have from a few of these events.

Benjamin with his basketball team.

Doing some small clean up the night before the Working Bee at Dixon's Creek.

Rose found a starfish!

And she found a jellyfish!

The ocean!

Where's Wally (aka Waldo, aka Rose)?!

Rose and her beautiful sand castle.