Alec

Alec has just been transferred to Armidale. He was in Dubbo before that - and Narooma before that. He and his Mission President seem to have reached an agreement about Alec staying in the country. Actually the Mission President emailed Alec a few weeks ago to ask him where he'd like to go next. Alec told him he'd get back to him!

It's no surprise that Alec works well in the country.

I spoke to his Mission President's wife and she said that every missionary wants to serve with Alec - and when we look at the photos he sends home we can see why - apparently life is one big party when you are working with Alec.

But it seems to be working - he had two baptisms in Narooma.

Happy Birthday to Tom

Thomas turned 24 - his last birthday living at home - and I outdid myself in doing virtually nothing for his birthday! Oh well - it's all about being a good mother-in-law. Kathleen has nothing to live up to!

We had a lot of fun shopping for presents. The floods meant that a lot of shops were closed and we couldn't get to others - but we did manage a crock pot, crock pot cook book, mop and bucket - we had a house husband theme going. He loved it. (I plan to borrow the cook book before it goes to live in a new house.) Peet gifted a print of one of his engagement photos.

Even though the celebration was confined to presents, corn beef for dinner and cake, we all celebrate daily having Tom in our family.

Sunday

Max had a talk to get ready - so bird watching was the obvious thing to do.

Max can't understand why the Primary President looked at him 'funny' - she asked what he would like on his pizza at the forthcoming Primary activity - 'lamb, feta, red onion, rosemary and good quality tomato paste please.'

Of course if she had asked him what his favourite dinner is he would have answered brown rice with peas and cheese - so he may have given a false impression of the quality of our family meals.

Saturday

A productive day - nothing grand - just some jobs crossed off the never ending list, some serious maintenance, an early temple session, and a roast lamb for dinner. That is my idea of a perfect day.

There is no more flood induced mould in our house - it smells a bit like Christmas since we used Oil of Cloves everywhere. It's best to take your sunglasses when you go into the bathroom - it glistens. Some windows are clean, front and back doors are scrubbed, the kitchen floor is mopped and feels soft and clean underfoot. The stove top is shining like stainless steel should, Louisa and Jesse each have two new pairs of homemade pyjama pants. The edges on the garden have been 'weed eated' - sadly the pumpkin vine was a casualty - part of the back garden is weeded - enough for the lettuce seedlings I'll buy this week.

All of which pales in comparison to Max and Roger's achievement for the day. They fixed the chook pen and stocked it with 5 new point of lay chooks. I am beyond excited.

(Those would be one of Louisa's new pyjama pants - she is refusing to take them off.)

We have a white leghorn (Snowman), a Rhode Island Red (Firey), and three Australorps (Darkey, Darkey and Darkey - which is not as racist as it sounds - Barrie used to play a hand game with the kids - maybe it is racist now I think about it - new names might follow!) The two Arucana roosters (all that remains from my blue egg farming attempt) seem to be scared but hopefully they'll get over it.

Roger rescued the kids at the produce store who had bogged the company 4 tonne truck and as a thank you they gave him everything at cost - and five chooks for the price of three. So it was a cheap day to boot. Max predicts fresh eggs within a week - which may be optimistic.

And then - to finish the day - there was roast lamb slow cooked in the crock pot - what a joy - with roast potatoes, pumpkin and beetroot with peas and gravy and homemade mint sauce.

Max committed each family member individually to an after dinner game of tiggy and a swim - Roger has a very sore hammy! Max is fast - and so is Tom.

Now if we could do that every day I would be a very happy girl.

Peet's photos

Peet is a crazy good photographer - a school assignment resulted in many hours on the Internet honing the craft and now he is amazingly good. I'll be using his photos on my blog and not crediting him in any way - but it will be easy to tell who took which photos. Mine are the blurry ones.

His blog is here - www.peetfulcherphotographs.blogspot.com

Toowoomba

There had been a lot of rain over the weekend and so on Monday morning we thought it would be a good idea to head up to Toowoomba and see how Birdwood fared - we could stop and check Wayne and Joan's place at Laidley on the way - and visit the antique shops in Toowoomba - sounded like a good idea. So Lee, Joan, Jesse, Louisa, Max and I set off.

So we left home at 10 am and made it home at 9pm that night. We stopped for a short lunch of pies, stopped for petrol and for a few minutes at the creek near Gowrie Junction. Otherwise we were driving around Toowoomba finding a way around the floods.

It was quite the adventure but we really had no idea what we missed until we saw the news that night.

Had we been an hour later to get up to Toowoomba we would have been in Withcott when the floods hit, had we gone to the health food shop for lunch instead of the pie shop we would have been in Toowoomba when the floods hit, had we been half an hour later leaving we would have been caught in Toowoomba and we'd still be there.

Lee navigated while I drove through the flooded streets - Lee found us a route along the top of the Toowoomba ridge until the worst passed. We phoned Roger and he worked out that the road down to Warwick was still open so we headed for home that way. Roads were closed behind us and our trip was uneventful - except for Max's goofing around.

Impossible things happened in Toowoomba and we are grateful to have skirted around it all. Now we are glued to our televisions, praying in gratitude and grief and waiting for it all to be over.

It's surreal at Samford - wet of course - there's some damage to roads of course - but it's a wet wonderland relative to the rest of South East Queensland.

Kathleen

Thomas proposed - Kathleen said yes - excitement is thick in the air around here.

Kathleen is pretty much the girl I hoped for Tom to marry - she is understanding and kind, she seems to be able to cope with the rest of us, she is faithful and diligent, she is fun and lighthearted, she reads and quilts. I think we are all going to be very happy together!

Tom chose the ring all by himself - it's an antique of course and very pretty.

The wedding is looking like April 22 in Melbourne. Can't wait actually.