T2 Week Three

The Special Edition of Ray Andrews Lectures will come.... I promise! Hang in there!



The third week of this term ended with Mother's Day! What a delightful time of receiving special little gifts that were hand picked from my children - note pads and pens and nice comfy bed socks! I loved my breakfast in bed and I also shared a peaceful afternoon tea with my parents.

Capernwray was a bit mixed up this week and we ended up spending about 5 periods doing Prac Week preparation and the rest was spent studying an introduction/overview of the New Testament. I really enjoyed the latter... especially walking through Paul's life and seeing where all his letters were written and why. We even ended with getting an insight into the 5 main views of how people interpret the book of Revelation.

Prac Week is as it sounds - a week where a team of students are sent out to do practical ministry and the one I am going on is down to Nowra being involved in High School Scripture. We will need to programme and deliver a 60min seminar on the first day and then go to various public High schools and help conduct their scripture lessons for the following week. It should be a really great time of sharing with others the light we have. But more on that when it happens.

The kids are loving visiting the local skate park most days and school has been amazingly uneventful. There is always the love/hate tiffs that happen between the boys and I can happily say that this is starting the develop between the girls too, proving they are normal after all.

Garth has been very productive in providing lots of fire wood for our family and our house now has that cosy winter atmosphere. He seems to be travelling along better than a couple of weeks ago and has incorporated going to a playgroup for the girls once a week into his weekly timetable. It sounds like such a great playgroup... it's ran by the local Anglican church who provide activities, play, craft, sandwiches, fruit, stories and music for 3 hours for only $2! Wow! Garth took the opportunity to thank and encourage the ladies who serve God in this way and I hope that he will be able to share in the ministry too by being 'on the ground' among the parents. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be other Dads there... but give it time.

My trip to India is looking more likely to happen as confirmed at a meeting that we had this week. At this stage it will be for the first 3 weeks of July. Please pray for our family regarding this and praise God for His amazing faithfulness in all of these plans!

T2 - Week Two

We had a lovely start to our week celebrating my brother's birthday with all the family - even the potential in-laws for Paul! (Which gave everyone the licence to make numerous digs about them getting married and having kids asap! Poor things!) We dined on hot dogs and cake and shared lots of laughs together. We were at Fitzroy Falls but the kids stopped exploring the bush when Ezri came out and showed me the little thing crawling up her leg...a leech! Yuk! We found a few more and informed the kids of what these suckers do and that deterred them from wondering off too far. My niece and nephew then came over for a sleepover where Garth imparted more of his baking secrets with the kids. Good fun all around. But I have to say I was sad to find out that I didn't have Monday off for Anzac Day.... oh well - our Lecturer made up for any disappointment!

Rev. Dr. Ray Andrews (sounds important doesn't he?). And there I was thinking it was going to be a challenging week! No no no! It was a week of freedom - what an awesome message of remembering that it is all about God not about ourselves and our flaws! We can never be good enough for God and that's the point - He loves us! With all of Ray's experiences and teachings we had a full 18 lectures from him and I think I have RSI in my hand from writing so much. I could have listened for another 18 lectures, no worries! This message he brought was nothing new, no secret formula - just pure gospel! But I could go on and on and on so I thought I would write a more in depth Blog as a special edition - Check it out if you want to know more!

The kids had only four days at school this week and one of them was the Sports Carnival. They had a great day, participated in a few events and played 'gofa' for their favourite teacher - Mr J. The boys were spoiled with a trip to the movies to see Iron Man 2 on Thursday and they came home blabbering about all the details... a good sign of a good time! I spent another quiet afternoon with just the girls and I'm scared to admit it, but I do actually miss having that. They are such sweeties and I enjoyed being productive around the house while singing, playing and laughing with them.

I have failed to mention that I have still be able to meet up with my dear friend Libby most weeks this year and sometimes I turn up early enough to meet with the Bible Study Mums too. Wednesday mornings have been very important in my life for a couple of years so it is nice to be able to keep some contact and not feel too out of it. Garth had taken to dropping Ezri and Swae for that morning so that they get some "social interaction" will the plethora of other kids there and he gets some "computer interaction" (aka time out). He has had a normal week of shopping and cleaning and washing and playing and walking and cuddling and consoling and being fed-up with it all and ignoring everything! Ah, the joys of motherhood... umm.. I mean...stay at home Dad!

Other points of interest: Rykr got a filling is his tooth, I lost 2 gold fish (which inspired a change of location to the kitchen), Swae had an immunisation needle, both boys have developed an interest in Scootering down at the skate park (my SK8R boys!!!!) which will now take over from indoor soccer (and its free apart from the scooters we had to buy) AND last week Garth meet intimately with 1000's of bricks as they were shuffled from the front yard to the back yard of a friends place - what work out! (ps - I'm thinking I might be taking a short trip to India.... but maybe it's just the journey before that counts...will let you all know when I do)