Goodbye Alec

Alec's mission farewell was a happy affair, shared with David Gray who he has been friends with since they were five and who left for his mission on the same day.

Lots of friends and family, baked potatoes and toppings, five hundred home baked biscuits (Jesse worked all day and talked Beth into making her delicious honey biscuits), a fire with marshmallows to roast and a balmy starry night.

Alec was there too - photos will follow.

Noosa North Shore

The week before Alec left we let Peet have another day off school (good thing the student services ladies and I are best friends), and organised everyone for an overnight camp at Noosa North Shore. Four wheel drive access only so we took Alec's car and Roger's. Jesse and Alec went up early and found a camp site away from the few other campers there. Roger took Louisa and Max up at lunch time - it was the first day in Pines new building - and Peet and I drove up to meet them after Peet finished at school.

It was divine.

Jesse was in the middle of exams and crammed in some study.

There was fishing.

We didn't take a tent - just a tarp and we all slept under millions of stars.

It was a fabulous two days - we walked five kilometres down the beach - and back - at night to the bushfires burning in the national park, ate chicken rolls for dinner - no cooking, swam in crystal waters a stones throw from the camp, and talked and played and generally had a lovely time.

Now we just have to wait two years till we can do it again - with the whole family anyway.

Glasses

Max is the latest kid to catch the glasses virus that seems to be afflicting our family and friends. So far we have Robert, Louisa, Lauren, Madisen and Max - all within the space of about a month.

Max loves them and does seem better able to concentrate, which is their primary purpose.

The Berlin Wall

With the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jesse and I have been talking about the hardships and the triumphs. Max is fascinated. He recounts stories of injustice and daring to anyone who'll listen. And by way of visual aid here is his representation of the wall. One side is multicoloured and happy - the other uniform and red, for obvious reasons.

Jerusalem Quartet

Joan, Louisa and I were so excited to see the Jerusalem Quartet - they even had a guest cellist. The only difficulty was that we had to sneak in the back door because Joan had received an email from the Palestinian action group she'd just met the weekend before at their film festival saying that they would be holding a protest and would we like to come?

Apparently the Jerusalem Quartet are funded by the Israeli government making them a political statement and something no-one in good conscience could possibly attend.

But the tickets were $90 each so we went and snuck in.

Turns out we're just not that high brow. It was quite the night. 3 hours of solid chamber music - nary a word or a smile the whole time. Fascinating - but an hour or so might have done the trick.

It was a great night still - Louisa wore the dress Susie bought for her birthday and we had Vietnamese for dinner quite late and felt very cosmopolitan.

Temple

Alec attended the temple prior to his mission on Friday 13 November. It was a good night and Alec said he loved it (phew) and couldn't wait to go back.

These photos don't actually show how happy Roger was!

(I was there - just taking the photos - David and Beth and Joan came too.)

True Happiness

Max had a dream:

Max, Samuel and Max's friend Zeke from school were climbing a tree - Robert was having a bad day so he wasn't there.

Suddenly the tree started to shake - not just the leaves the whole tree - trunk and all. They looked around and discovered that monsters were causing the shaking.

They realised that the only thing that would get rid of the monsters was True Happiness and they only had ordinary happiness - not True Happiness.

But then a family came walking along laughing and talking and eating ice cream and they had True Happiness and the monster disappeared.

I'll leave it to you to draw from this what you will!

Gowrie

The gorgeous land at Gowrie, now known as Birdwood Sanctuary Estate, is finished - settlements are happening and plans are in council for a couple of houses.

Noosa

Sometimes you just need a day at the beach - so while Roger slept in preparation for a night shift, the kids and I went to Noosa and played the afternoon away, then had dinner in the park - tuna with capers and so on in rolls followed by pumpkin cake - and drove home late in the evening.

We had Massimos ice cream too - of course.

Camping with Drew

After three long years of intensive (though spasmodic) lobbying Max finally talked everyone into a middle kids camp.

The McFadyens provided a property outside Cooroy for camping on and Max spent his first night away from the family camping with Declan in a tent of their own.

Drew was running the camp so they climbed Mt Pomona,

swam at Little Cove and Granite Bay,

read The Rangers Apprentice until late at night, ate ridiculously late each night and early each morning,

found a dead cow and brought home skeletal bits,

and fell into bed exhausted each night.

I joined them for the second night and slept in Alec's swag near Declan and Max's tent - which was gorgeous.

As Louisa likes it.

Louisa is living the good life - in fact her life is so good right now that it can really only go down hill from here.

Those are pierced ears - for her 12th birthday.

And those are new glasses - they are training glasses and she'll probably have them for 2 or 3 years. It's all about getting both eyes to look at the same spot. When the optometrist gave her the good news Louisa said she'd been thinking that she needed glasses for a while now. And she didn't tell me because.... she thought she was just convincing herself to need them since she wanted them so much.

The whole family, Joan, and the other Fulchers (except Robert and Samuel) went to the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble's production of As You Like It - we are practically groupies - we go to everything they put on because it is always fabulous.

Matilda and Patrick came to As You Like It too - they took Lee & Petie's tickets.

One of her many birthday presents was a ripstick. Max got one too and they are addicted.

Her birthday dinner was provided by Joan - roast anchovy crusted lamb, with creamy potatoes, organic greens and seaweed and spelt bread followed by a spelt sponge cake with rich Jersey cream, bananas and rhubarb coulis.

Last week was Pine's Wet n Wild day.

She has a possum as a pet and has a vision of herself lying on the reading couch with her glasses on and a possum sitting on her shoulder, reading a good book.

This week is Pine big kids camp on Stradbroke Island.

It just doesn't get much better than that.

Benjamin

We have a possum. It's a girl. The kids named it Benjamin - who knows why.

The funny little thing must have been hand raised before it was found nigh to death in Bracken Ridge chapel carpark because it searches out company- it will sit on your lap and snuggle up to go to sleep during the day, and in the early evening it is as cute as can be. Then night time arrives.

The first night we brought it home after Joan and Lee revived it we put it in the boys room - and it woke Peet up at 3 in the morning -sitting on his pillow and licking Peet's cheek. When Peet moved it tried to crawl under the covers with him.

That was very cute.

The next night it woke Peet up ten times before Peet woke us up to pen the possum.

Then we moved it into the girls room. The first night it woke up Jesse by sitting on her chest. That was cute too. Louisa was desperate for Benjamin to come and crawl on her -she even put pillows beside her bed to make it easier for Benjamin to climb up.

The next night Louisa got her wish - be careful what you wish for. It woke her up every so often - by patting her on the cheek - and jumped from her bed to Jesse's and back and tried to crawl under the covers - she was desperate for it to go away. Eventually it crawled onto Jesse's bed and cuddled up to her legs and went to sleep.

It spent the next night in a more secure cage in the lounge room.

By this stage Benjie seemed not so cute.

Now Alec has constructed a new - outdoor - pen for Benjie complete with a hollow log and we take room service to it each morning and night.

Trouble is Benjie doesn't seem very well anymore - we think her tail is infected. Now I am nervous every time someone goes to the cage - I don't think Louisa and Max have it in them to lose a possum.

Peet's Hero

Peet has an on-going battle with our Young Mens President. It started a couple of months ago when the YMP was newly called and foolishly asked Peet (while he was sitting ready to pass the sacrament) to roll down his sleeves. Peet said no - the YMP said yes - Peet said show me the doctrine.

Since then the YMP has made many and varied attempts to provide said doctrine. It really doesn't stick and Peet keeps saying it's got good enough. Roger's counsellors are enjoying the show and tell Roger that they think Peet is winning. If push came to shove (and it might) Roger and both counsellors all fall heavily on Peet's side.

Then at General Conference Priesthood session Dieter Uchtdorf said:

"Those who are unafraid to roll up their sleeves and lose themselves in the pursuit of worthwhile goals are a blessing to their families, communities, nation and to the church."

Peet was practically punching the air - you can't trump an apostle at the most recent General Conference.

The hardest part of a mission.

It's different for everyone I suppose - but for Alec it's going to be sleeping in doors for two years in a row.

A few times a week we find Alec in his swag sleeping on the verandah, or on the pavers, or in the paddock, or near a fire.

The early mornings on a mission will be a sleep-in for Alec, the walking/biking will be a piece of cake, constantly talking to strangers might be tough, and wearing a white shirt day in day out could be a challenge - but sleeping indoors will be the hardest of all.

Dinners

Last night I made a tuna, egg, spinach and bean salad with egg mayonnaise and lime juice dressing, and a burgal, feta, tomato, herb and lime salad.

And Max said 'that's one of my favourite dinners.'

Then after a moment added (with surprise) 'You cook a lot of my favourite dinners.'

Lucky hey.

Les Miserables

For years the kids have been singing "Do you hear the people sing..." thanks to Patty and singing days at Pine. And for years I have said that when Les Mis came to Brisbane again we would definitely go. At last the Ignatians put on a pro/am production - which meant that it was affordable too. So off we went - 8 of us plus Lee & Joan.

Everybody loved it but Louisa and Max have an obsession. We listen to nothing but Les Mis in the car (forcing me to play the Suzuki Piano & Cello cd's at home).

Yesterday, after some considerable discussion Louisa and Max came up with animal equivalents for every character - and thought that a movie with the characters as animals would be good.

The master of the house and his wife were rats. Cosette was a swan. Jean valJean a horse, Eponine a Labrador and so on.

They have favourite songs and favourite characters. Cosette is not one of the favourite characters. Many disparaging things have been said about Cosette.

While listening to Cosette singing Castle on the Cloud and in particular 'there are no floors for me to sweep', Max cynically said 'well someone has to sweep them'. He is not impressed with Cosette whining about herself while there is a revolution going on.

Peet

For photos of Peet and his latest injury have a look at his blog. (There's a link at the side.)

D

The theme for the annual Pine Dance - on tonight - is the letter D.

So Louisa is a Dihatsu - front:

and back (costumes at our house tend to be representative rather than realistic):

And Jesse is a Dancing Queen:

Of course Max was Donald Duck, Roger was a Dad (very imaginative), Peet was a dag (not too big of a stretch either) and Alec declined to dress up. I stayed home recuperating and Thomas stayed home studying.

Medieval Dance

The YSA had a medieval dance - Tom left early to set up so I have no photos of him - but here are Jesse and Alec.