Long Time No Type

Hi Everyone,

Sorry it has been a while since I've typed up a post. It has really been quite the busy time for me since I've gotten home with filling out job applications, planning a wedding, and teaching at camps. It all has caused some stress (especially the finding a job bit), BUT the Lord always provides and therefore again my patience is being tested.

So last post I updated you on what some of the centerpieces look like for my wedding. Here is a photo of another piece (decorated beer bottle) that will go on with the wine bottles.

My wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses have all been picked out but you'll have to wait till the big day and the photos that come from it. :)

At the moment I am up in Dyer, IN again for my last summer staffing with Lake Central Tribe of Pride Marching Band. The weather has been INSANE! Our poor northern Indiana neighbors are just getting smashed with weather. In the morning it will be bright and sunny, but by mid afternoon it's storming again.

Yesterday Morning

Yesterday Mid Afternoon

Here are some other pretty cool photos that I've taken from this weeks rehearsals. These three pictures were taken all during the same 4pm-8pm rehearsal!

Why do you see zero students on the field? Because we were all running inside!

Happy summer days y'all!!!!

Life Back in the USA

Sorry to those who follow my blog, it has been a long while since I've posted anything. As you can image adjusting to things back home is keeping me busy and my summers are anything but calm. I'm substitute teaching whenever I'm called and getting ready to celebrate the graduation of my youngest sister Addie from High School. So for now I'm adjusting and getting ready to adjust again as I look for full time employment and organize a wedding!

For my friends who are not close by here is what I've been working on for the table pieces for the reception. I've always decorated some bear bottles with twine and glitter as well as these wine bottles, but you can't really tell in the pictures that Lindsey and I have glittered them up. I think we may have gotten just as much glitter on ourselves as the beer bottles. I'll try again in better lighting to get a picture of those. 

wedding bottle center pieces

Last Sunday at Frankston RPC

Whether you are traveling around your own country or going to one on the other side of the world it is always important to have your church family, even if they are all brand new to you and you are starting from scratch with relationships.

Being part of the Frankston Reformed Presbyterian congregation has been such a blessing, as well as getting to visit the other two RP churches of Australia (McKinnon and Geelong). I  have met some wonderful, God fearing people and it has been wonderful worshiping, learning, and getting to know each one of them. This past Sunday was my last Sunday to worship with the Frankston congregation and it was lovely. They had a cookie cake all decorated for me after the evening service and we sang Psalm 121 for my departure.

Here are a couple photos from my last day:

Last morning set up before Bible School

At the front door of the Frankston RPC.

The lovely cookie cake layered in Nutella that they made me. :)

Teaching Music In Australia

For the last term I taught 3 different general music classes for the Cranbourne Homeschool Group. To say the least it was an interesting experience.....It was like teaching in a one room school house. I was given 3 groups of students, the first group was ages 3-6, the second group 7-11, and the third group ages 12-15. It is interesting to see how the different ages interact with each other and help each other as you the teacher try to find something that will challenge the older students but not completely leave the young ones of the group behind.

Ages 12-15 experimenting with sounds for their composition (Island group)

With the ages 3-6 group I ended up doing a mixture of Kodaly and Kate Kuper activities, with the ages 7-11 group I taught the basics of Boomwhackers and we played some group songs. Then with the oldest group they did group Boomwhacker compositions.

Ages 12-15 working on compositions (Bubble Group)

While teaching these students it did not take very long to tell who had been in an actual classroom type environment before and who had not. It varied from roaming around the room, to shouting out (appropriate or inappropriate statements) without raising your hand, to teens literally rolling around on the floor instead of walking to where they needed to be. Now, this all sounds very negative, BUT after a couple lessons and understanding how things needed to function so that everyone could get the most out of the hour they did get the idea. At least by the second lesson my student that would shout out rude things at least raised their hand and waited to be called on before relaying the rude statement, but then by the third lesson they were asking me if it was time to have music class 30 min. before it was their turn to have class. Woo!

The photo to the LEFT is a picture of my classroom in what I believe to be was the room used as a sanctuary at the Cranbourne Presbyterian Church where the homeschool group meets. I didn't have any instruments available to me besides what I could borrow from others to bring along with me (the boomwhackers), but I did have a sound system and that saved the day! Silent listening was essential for calming down some of the students before sending them off to their next lesson!

The photo to the RIGHT is of my 3-6 year old class. It was a smaller class on this last day due to some having already left for the holiday. Now, this photo is really precious and special to me. Each time we met we always practiced getting into a circle at the beginning of the lesson. On this last day I had not yet come into the room (I was hiding behind the door, hence why the picture is a bit blurry) and I heard one of my students Rosie (who is also my flute student) say, "Ok, Jenny will be here soon lets make our circle." and so they did. I quickly grabbed my phone and took a picture of it happening. I walked in the door and there they all were in a circle. I was so proud of them! In honor of their good job we began the class with their favorite song Gilly Gilly Gilly Goodmorning. And it goes like this:

Gilly Gilly Gilly Good morning, Good morning, Good morning,
Gilly Gilly Gilly Good morning, Good morning to you!

Mini Mac Mini Mac Mini Mini Mini Mac
Mini Mac Mini Mac Mini Moooo!
Mac Mini Mac Mini Mini Mini Mac
Mini Mac Mini Mac Mini Moooo!

Repeat All

During that song they get to march around the inside of their beautifully created circle and in the end shake most of their mates hands and say good morning. :) With this same young group one day they all decided to take their shoes off and so there were shoes everywhere. This became a great learning opportunity! I even ended up taking my shoes off (what a bummer!) and we discussed how to put them away neatly and all they shoes ended up on their own chair lined up across the wall. It looked lovely!

I really enjoyed getting to work with all these wonderful children and their mothers. When it comes to homeschool groups you never lack in the area of teacher to parent communication, their mothers are right there in the other room or teaching another class every time you meet with the students! I will definitely miss this group when I head home back to the States next week, but I'm very excited to pursue my career in music education by finding a job and continuing to learn as I teach to make music an exciting, fun, expressive and comfortable learning environment.

Murray River Camping Trip

View from my tent first thing in the morning.

Over the Easter Weekend I went with the Cloherty family and met up with some other families from church for a camping trip on the Murray River, which I believe I can now say was the best camping trip I have ever been on. It was so much fun, I got to know people better, meet new people, and get better at water skiing and being bashed around on the tube.

Here are some fun photos from the weekend:

Keaton's tent in the back, and Hollie and I's tent to the front of the pic.

Clothes line.

Crazy ride! 

Enjoying everything!

Proving that we (Hannah and I) survived after a crazy ride. This photo was taken by our friend Hamish who was also on the tube.
I still have many bruises from that ride!

What a Cooking Day

Today has been a day full of cooking, one of my favorite things to do! :) To begin after lunch I made Chocolate Chip Quinoa Trail Mix Balls as a camping snack since I'm going with a couple families from church this weekend. They are delicious and healthy all at the same time! Now they are in the freezer awaiting the trip beginning Friday and going till Monday. Oh, and I used the left overs from this recipe and made a muesli mixture to go with yogurt or whatever the family wants.

Then a little later I moved on to dinner. My friend Heather put up a quinoa recipe that looked really yum so I decided to give it a try. I made Quinoa Lasagna, which everyone liked (except that Ed liked most everything but the quinoa on the bottom, he has this thing with textures.... :P). There was also a side dish of roasted asparagus and a salad!

Quinoa Lasagna and Salad

Asparagus roasting

It's a pretty vegetarian meal now that I think about it and none of us are vegetarian, but we had some veggies that needed to get used. It was all very yum and everyone left the table full! I would say that it was a successful cooking night, much healthier than the Fried Chicken and Mac and Cheese of the previous time I cooked. :)

Countdown: 1 Month Left in Australia

I apologize to all of you who follow this blog that I haven't posted recently, but I've had some down and quiet time so there hasn't been much to post about. But for those of you who do not have facebook here have been my last two posts that I think you might enjoy.

This past Thursday was Rosie Blakston (my flute student) and Tamara Blackwood's (Daughter of the family I live with) birthdays! It was fun having Rosie over for her lesson on her birthday and then having her and her family over for dinner with the Blackwood family and I for dinner the following night (Friday).

Here is a picture from her birthday with the brand new music stand her family bought her.

Then this evening (Saturday) I cooked up a traditional American family meal that the Blackwood's couldn't remember the last time that they had it. Rather sad I think.....anyway, I made fried chicken, baked Mac and Cheese, green beans and sliced carrots. And to say the least, not much was said around the dinner table, people were to busy shoving food in their mouths! Always makes the cook feel good when that happens. :)

I apologize for the pictures being so blurry, but I think my camera is on it's last leg! Enjoy!

Many Many Many Adventures

Cory and I

Well, well, well, I am very behind on keeping this poor blog up-to-date but things here have been very busy. Sadly, Cory just left back tot he U.S.A today, but that means I have just under 6 weeks left to go until I return home. :)

Dessert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have kept very busy so hopefully I can use some pictures to explain a bit of what has been going on around here. Here are a couple pictures from when Linda (a lady from church) took Cory, Maria, Benjamin, and I out for a birthday/engagement dinner to a pancake parlor. Definitely not like the pancakes we eat at home. Cory's fish was served on a pancake!

Cory underneath one of the many hanging rocks. 

But while Cory was here we got to do a lot of fun things with our friends. After picking up Tamara up from the airport last Saturday we went to Hanging Rock and climbed around for a bit which was a lot of fun. We found many small caves and tight spaces through the rock that many people slide and climbed around. It was a beautiful place and once you made it to the top had an extraordinary view.

A picture of me under one of the hanging rocks.

So, that was a lot of fun. Then on Tuesday through Thursday we traveled up to Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Sydney was pretty neat, we were able to see the famous bridge and of course then Sydney Opera house which was absolutely amazing.


Here are some photos from the Sydney portion of the trip:

We also stopped by Bondi Beach while we were at it:

Katelin, Anna, Hannah and myself

Marcus, Katelin, Anna and Hannah

Tamara and I

After Bondi Beach we headed up to the Blue Mountains and I think this part of the trip was definitely Cory and I's favorite!

Here are a few photos:

What's left over the bush fires. The seeds are still attached to the tree.

Climbing the waterfall.

The the Three Sisters

The Three Sisters

Me holding my two sisters. Rocks will have to do since my sisters are on the other side of the world!

I had a lovely time having Cory here with me for those trips and now I can't wait to get home to have even more trips with him and my family as we begin planning a wedding, find a job, find a house, and all that goes along with it. :)