Pine Dance

Roger found a pigeon at work - a real pigeon not a stool pigeon. It's a racing pigeon and gave the intelligence guys at the jail the jitters. They checked it's owner and looked for connections to prisoners - that would be one impressive pigeon that could be trained to fly to a new destination but they checked anyway. Eventually they decided that it was all above board so they phoned the owner who said to just take it closer to Brisbane and let it go. Roger brought it to our house.

We let it go - but it seems to have adopted us because now it just hangs around here.

All of this meant that when the Pine Dance theme was decided - the letter 'r' - Louisa wanted to go as a racing pigeon.

Max was determined to go as a soldier and so resorted to being a russian soldier. Roger went as ...Roger, I went as a Republican by taping a soft toy elephant to a hat, Jesse went as a rainbow and Peet went as a pirate - because pirates say...."arrr".

Amazingly, Peet danced all night and Max even did the Macarena and the YMCA. Louisa danced all night of course.

Going West

Alec has headed west to Ayres Rock/Uluru and Alice Springs etc with Lee and the Walker boys.

We dropped him to Laidley and waited for Lee. Wayne's bike was ready to go.

The little ones played in the sand Wayne had brought in at Christmas time for the grandkids.

Lee arrived and we left two pretty happy boys.

Jesse's week

Jesse had a week last week - 3 big assignments - Ancient History on the Persian Wars, Modern History on US globalisation of Israel, and an integrated text story for English, as well as Philosophy and Reason test on religion at the end of the week.

The highlight was a Saturday spent at the State Library where she requested and was given a gorgeous old book published in 1867 that came to her encased in plastic and crumbled as she read it.

She made it - with a little help from her entire family - and came home on Friday afternoon to get ready for the YW's camp that night. She had just a few things to prepare for there too - a 7 minute talk (on time management - could that be any more pointed), a 10 minute devotional on the creation, a class on orienteering, and a batch of cookies to bake - as well as dinner to prepare for 15 people on Saturday night! And a costume for the Pine dance she was going to first.

Made it through that too.

Now it's school holidays and all she has to do is memorise 25 scripture mastery's for seminary, read most of the Old Testament and prepare her final essay for Extension English.

Girded

I went to sleep last week, exhasuted, and frustrated. I'd had no time to clean the house, I needed to spend more time with Max, our projects were falling apart at work (I think this was the real reason for the angst) and the next week had a full schedule of appointments, Relief Society stuff, school stuff and so on.


I prayed.


I complained mostly.


I had the clearest thought - 'gird up your loins, fresh courage take.'


So I took a deep breath - girded up my loins (symbolically anyway), took some fresh courage - and this week was just fine.

House

I spent the last week or so bonding with my house - which means I cleaned. Well not just cleaned I also cleaned out - there is nothing in this house that shouldn't be here - and that's a good thing because it's a small house. I like it that way.

Although I suspect if we were suddenly presented with a pile of cash I would add another living area, I like small houses.

I like that when one of the kids gets up in the night I can hear it and check if they need me.

I like that I hear nightmares - or Max laughing in his sleep as he sometimes will.

I like that I can tell if Peet is still up reading or writing at midnight from the light shining into my room.

I like that there is only one bathroom because I have enough trouble keeping one bathroom clean let alone trying for more. And I like the teasing and begging that goes on when 7 or 8 people all need to queue for a shower. (But if that cash dropped in my lap I would probably put in another bathroom.)


I like that when Louisa is away and Jesse complains about being alone in her room (yes I do have the right girls there!) I can tell her to 'go to bed for heavens sake, we're just across the hall.'


I like that when the house is a disaster zone it only takes 15 minutes or so to put it back together because we have many hands and there's only so much floor space.

Most of all I like that when Thomas had his first and worst seizure I could be woken up by just a soft gurgle coming from his room and could send Roger to check and bless him and save him.

Breakfast

Poached eggs on toast with a glass of milk.

These very cows made our milk:

These very chooks laid our eggs:

This very farm grew the wheat which I made into bread then toast:

And I'm pretty happy about that.

Father's Day

Alec gave Roger a knife set for Father's Day - which prompted a hunt through the house for all the knives - excluding fishing knives and kitchen knives. They couldn't find all of them but there is still quite a haul.

In our defence some of them are antiques handed down from Barrie, ET and Granny.

Tractor

Roger needed help to tow some cars up to the top of the driveway to be taken away - so Peet got his first tractor driving lesson.

Picasso

Because we were all sick on the day Pine went to the Picasso exhibit, we took Jessica Parry and went for FFFN. Jesse had already been and Alec was working so it was just Roger and I, Peet and the little kids.

Max was especially excited becasue he has had a bit of a thing for Picasso ever since he was little and we bought 'When Pigasso met Mootisse'. When you read that book you really have to pick a side and pretty much all our family picked Picasso. But the exhibit had a few Matisse as well so the Mootisse fans were catered for too.